E500 Cable Cracked

[humanflyz]

Man, I think I'm done with Shure products from now on: the right bass driver on my SE530 suddenly failed for no apparent reason, so now there is only bass coming out of the left earpiece. And this is the pair that was sent back to me after the wiring to the right earpiece became loose and lost signal.

[humanflyz]

that sucks, dude. my 530s are still going strong, knock on wood. i've had many failures from both Etymotic and Shure phones. just the nature of delicate portable phones, to my mind.

I'll send it in one more time since I'm still under warranty. But once it runs out in February, I think I'm going to get something else.

[Torpedo]

I'll send it in one more time since I'm still under warranty. But once it runs out in February, I think I'm going to get something else.

This looks like a user-IEM incompatibility issue. I have three mates using those same IEMs and none had the slightest problem However I'd get something else anyway hahaha

[deepak]

The main quality issue with the D5000 is the piece holding the yoke to the headband which tends to break and letting the cup-yoke unit to fall. Fortunately I haven't had this problem. Also the units out the first production runs had the lettering easily erased, but that seems to be improved.

The stock cable is quite good, a bit stiff and hard to route, but looks solid. The plug, besides it's a 1/8" with a 1/4" threaded adapter, is well built and holds firmly into the jacks. Soundwise, as everything, it's arguable. I don't think you can get much improvement by recabling them whatever the wire you use, but YMMV.

Regarding Mark and his business venture... I think that the guy honestly noticed the D5000's potential and did his best to improve the flaws he noticed, which I concur exist.

I got a "basic" modded pair from him for three reasons

- I listened the stock D5000 and found their bass kind of "overexcited", with too much decay, energy and poor tone. If the mods could improve that, why not?

- So I wanted the mods done by the person who has more experience and had tweaked them to death. This sounded more sensible than wasting my time to find the correct amount of everything to get the sound right.

- The D5000 in Spain/Europe were very expensive (still are) so ordering the D5000 to Amazon USA, having them sent to Mark to make the mods and then shipped to me, was more or less the same price than buying them stock here, specially considering the USA/euro ratio was very favorable to me.

I think that many people started to show interest asking him to mod their pairs, so he clearly saw a business potential he's now getting some profit from. You may dislike the guy, his taste in sound or whatever, but I wouldn't say he's a scammer or that he's getting a huge profit from his mods. Those Jena wires are very expensive. I don't care much about their performance, and I dislike their looks, however if he and other people find it a worth improvement, I don't see why the recabling service shouldn't be offered. Also I'm sure some balanced nuts believe that balancing the cans would do some good. I don't think so, but who knows.

Anyway, I don't get the whole of the criticism to Mark, but maybe this comes from the old times when I didn't use to frequent HF.

Yeah I thought his initial price (when he started doing them, before this website) for the mods was pretty reasonable as well. I did them on a pair thinking it wouldn't take that long and it's a damn pain in the ass. Working with Dynamat and punching small holes is bloody awful.

[humanflyz]

This looks like a user-IEM incompatibility issue. I have three mates using those same IEMs and none had the slightest problem However I'd get something else anyway hahaha

Maybe it is just me, but the only time I use the SE530s are when I'm in the gym. I thought that for what they cost, they should be at least durable enough for that.

[Torpedo]

Maybe it is just me, but the only time I use the SE530s are when I'm in the gym. I thought that for what they cost, they should be at least durable enough for that.

Maybe it's your sweat damaging the wire sheath. I knew a man whose sweat corroded the paper clips he touched with his fingers a few days after doing so. It was so "strong" that mosquitoes never bit him unless he was just coming out from water. Fortunately it wasn't fetid hehehehe.

[humanflyz]

I don't think I have acidic sweat...

[Torpedo]

Maybe not acidic but just rich in cetane, or perhaps sugar and you get bacterias doing the rest of the job. Who knows, whatever it is, it probably is related to your sweat considering you just use the phones at the gym.

[JBLoudG20]

My sweat is so basic, it hits the (mythical) brownnote.

[grawk]

Aren't you the one that buried him?

[aardvark baguette]

escrow del muerto

[HeadphoneAddict]

This really chaps me. Wood is used in instruments because it is resonant. Resonance is what you do not want in a speaker cabinet, unless it is specifically intended to augment certain frequencies.

I am so sick of the "real instruments are made of wood" argument.

So, what do you think of the mahogany wood cups (with dynamat) on my D2000 this past weekend, having heard the D2000 just 2 weeks earlier with the stock plastic cups? Seems we both thought the improvement is pretty apparent.

For those who weren't there, at the earlier Colorado meet on 11/1 most of us thought my APS V2 cabled D2000 with stock plastic cups beat the stock D7000 by a small margin (mostly in the treble detail), but otherwise they were pretty similar headphones. So yes, plastic can beat wood. But the markl wood cups beat the plastic cups, and to me they are a worthwhile upgrade to my D2000. I don't believe I would ever spend $1100-1200 on a new modded D5000 with JL cable though. I only have $600 invested in my D2000 (bought used already re-cabled, then added woodies), and they sound just as good or better to me.

[Fungi]

Did the plastic have dynamat?

[Sherwood]

Did the plastic have dynamat?

Bingo. I definitely noticed a change -- no doubt -- but I attribute the change to better damping and different shape. I think with equally dampened materials of equal size and shape the only advantage wood has is looks. Good cups made of inert materials like carbon fibre or even plastic should sound as good or better.

[HeadphoneAddict]

the stock plastic cups have some kind of grey rubber/plastic disc attached to the inside of the cup, and a half inch wide ring of firberloft type material making a 3 inch circle around the grey disc.

[Fungi]

So then they had different damping materials. The lame stock stuff was what drove markl to mod them in the first place, no?

[HeadphoneAddict]

yeah, lame stock stuff...