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The wiring in these headphones leaves a bit to be desired. My first pair started breaking up on me after about a year of owning them. They replaced them for me and informed me that if I had the same problem again it would cost me $$'s since this was a replacement. Remember, you're basically throwing your mp3 player in your pants pocket, shirt pocket, coat pocket, etc. The price point was right for me and they gave me exactly what I needed for the highs and lows of in your ear headphones. There's nothing about them that tells me shure has corrected this problem. They are great at isolating noises and you will not hear a thing, more or less, when you have these in.
That said, let me explain why I will never buy another pair ever again. Basically, the wire near the headphone jack goes through a bit of abuse regularly. After awhile, about a year, the wiring close to the plug will become a frustation point for you as the sound starts to break up. Hopefully people will find this review and realize that it's not your player. Still, i can't advocate spending money for these or the E3c-n's since the n's are the next generation. I was ok with that. I'm not sure what they could do to improve on this product. The sound is awesome on shure E3c's until this issue rears it's ugly head.
Perhaps better shielding of the wires would prevent this problem from happening. I've owned Shure E3c's for several years now. Now, my major problem with Shure E3's is this.
Fast forward exactly one year later and the same issue has cropped up again. Instead, I'll probably pay the $$'s that they ask to replace them but, after that, I will inform them that this is my last pair until they fix this wiring issue. I want to throw this latest batch in the trash can but don't have the hear.
First off let me say that I love shure headphones. They were warranteed and I contacted Shure. It's the E3c's.
Let's see how they are on the 2nd pair. It's broken the same place twice on the part of the housing that holds the foam/rubber earpieces. The problem is they're somewhat fragile. Shure customer service was excellent on the first pair, and they replaced them at no charge. I really like these earphones. The dynamic range is excellent, and sound isolation is almost complete in noisy environments (cutting the grass, sitting in an airplane). I've gotten about 1 1/2 years of use out of both pairs before they broke.
This is my second pair in 2 years that the plastic wire covering dried out, became brittle and cracked open exposing the wiring inside. Great sounding earphones but for the price Shure should be using better quality plastic wire covering. I use it in the over ear configuration.They are too expensive to replace every year due to poor component quality choice by Shure.
My left earphone went dead with very light use and fell just outside the warranty period. For a pair of $200 (MSRP) headphones, these should be longer lived and more durable.
I did not put them into the carrying case the right way, and the zipper pressure must have snapped the earpiece tube. I usually keep these in a small drawstring pouch in my computer bag - I wish I did the day they broke. I listen to music or podcasts - these are not my high end set of phones - I have a traditional set of open ear phones (Grado SR125) that sound much better than the $500 level mini bud shures, at a cost of $150 retail.But these are for outside. It is important that I am able to hear cars as they approach intersections. These headphones isolate sound, but do not completely block out the sound, with very good sound quality. I am buying my second pair of these. I use these phones while I walk or jog the early morning streets. I did break my first set, the earpiece tube is the weak link here.
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