Ultimate Ears and dead cables - are they good with warranty?

[Davo-CC]

I've got a pair of E5B's and the cable has died - I bought them late September last year (it's February now), the cable is surprisingly weak on my pair near the headphone socket itself. One channel has completely gone now, it was wavering for quite a few weeks (I was always thinking this was seal in my ears rather than cable problems).

I’m quite disappointed by this failure as I’ve used buds for about 17 years and haven’t had this happen to me before; My Nano sits in a top pocket in my shirt under my suit, it doesn’t have a very hard life at all (always carried in the provided cases, being under the suit the cable doesn’t get the chance to snag on things and get pulled; it’s purely cable strength and thickness that has failed or it’s a dud cable, you can see this one’s very flimsy near the headphone jack).

I’m in Australia so I’m on the other side of the world from UE’s offices, sending them back or even just the cable back would be really time consuming – how have people found their warranty service for sending replacement cables? Unless I can find my old Sonys I’m going to be without headphones for weeks at this rate….

[Shameless1]

I've got a pair of E5B's and the cable has died - I bought them late September last year (it's February now), the cable is surprisingly weak on my pair near the headphone socket itself. One channel has completely gone now, it was wavering for quite a few weeks (I was always thinking this was seal in my ears rather than cable problems).

I’m quite disappointed by this failure as I’ve used buds for about 17 years and haven’t had this happen to me before; My Nano sits in a top pocket in my shirt under my suit, it doesn’t have a very hard life at all (always carried in the provided cases, being under the suit the cable doesn’t get the chance to snag on things and get pulled; it’s purely cable strength and thickness that has failed or it’s a dud cable, you can see this one’s very flimsy near the headphone jack).

I’m in Australia so I’m on the other side of the world from UE’s offices, sending them back or even just the cable back would be really time consuming – how have people found their warranty service for sending replacement cables? Unless I can find my old Sonys I’m going to be without headphones for weeks at this rate….

Take some pictures of the cable and send it to them in am email, from my understanding and the reason why I bought a pair is they are really good about returns for problems.

Shameless

[yinyang]

I’m in Australia so I’m on the other side of the world from UE’s offices, sending them back or even just the cable back would be really time consuming – how have people found their warranty service for sending replacement cables? Unless I can find my old Sonys I’m going to be without headphones for weeks at this rate….

their warranty service is excellent - i've had to send back three super.fi 5Pros and each time they've replaced with no issue. follow this link (http://www.ultimateears.com/superfi/warranty_superfi.htm) for their returns process, but basically you email them for a RMA number and once received you send it back for a replacement (in your case maybe just the cables...depends on what they tell you!). they fed-ex things back as well, even to down under (yes even to Bris-Vegas!)

hope that helps, but UE really do excel in the customer service :)

[Davo-CC]

Thanks YinYang, I'm in Brisvegas too - how long did it take for turnaround for you?

[yinyang]

assuming it takes about a week to get there by air mail, they usually turn things around in a week, and then fed-ex back here is a few days. all up maybe three weeks tops!

[Davo-CC]

oh Christ, 3 weeks?!?!?

I just hope they don't demand I send the chord back first, I'm not very happy with that at all if they do. Sure I'm happy to send it back but not to hold the whole thing up... I'll see what they say.

[Signal to Noise]

When I needed my cable replaced UE sent me one straight away and didn't ask for the original cord back.

A while later I discovered a crack in one of the earphone casings (which was a known problem) and that's when UE aske d me to ship the entire set back before getting a new set.

Overall, Ultimate Ears are excellent when it comes to service and customer care.

[Davo-CC]

Cheers, thanks for the feedback Signal2Noise - that's quite a relief.

I was lucky to find my Sony EX70's again which was a stroke of luck, it's interesting to go back to those things now; they have a fair bit of bass but aren't as clear as the e5b's overall.

The cable is certainly shot, no doubt about that..... :o

[wco81]

How do you guys like the re-designed Super.Fi 5 Pros?

I had my original ones replaced because of the cracked housing.

So far, I've not opened them.

When I was using the old ones, one thing that bothered me was the housing was so big you had a lot of it hanging out the ear so they tended to slip out a lot.

I'm thinking of selling it unopened.

[Davo-CC]

just received email from UE, they're going to post another cable as they did for S2N... This is great, I miss the clarity of these things (even if the huge buds and hook-like clip-over make them a bit hard to live with day-to-day - the sound's worth it!).

[Signal to Noise]

wco81: I don't think you'll find a difference with bulkiness b/w the old set and new. What some UE users have done is actually reverse the L&R ear piece (L cord to R bud, R cord to L Bud, and L bud into R ear, R bud into L ear) which makes a better fit. I tried it and it worked nicely. However I reverted back to the original arrangement because I didn't find any significant problem with the way they fit.

Davo-CC: Awesome. Enjoy your UE's once you get the new cord.

[Davo-CC]

The chord arrived a few days ago - it's a much thicker chord than the grey one that comes with the headphones when you first buy them, it's much better made I think; I think it's worth buying the additional cable when you buy the E5B's just for this alone. It's bright white (I like this as it sticks out more and people don't annoy me as much when they can see this a mile away).

Ultimate Ears really WERE excellent, I'm on the other side of the world and had a new cable in about a week and a half with shipping time; they were great, I'm 100% comfortable recommending this company.

[hgsbnt]

UE is very good on waranty and they really need to be as their products are utter rubbish. I will send them for the second time my UE Super.fi 5 pro and will wait for my 3rd set of earphones. I cannot stand it having yet again to wait I don't know how many days or weeks before being able able to use my earphones again.

It all started with tiny cracks on plastic housing but they got bigger and bigger. One housing is now completely broken.

When I will receive my new set of earphones, I will sell them and purchase Shure ones.

[hgsbnt]

wco81: I don't think you'll find a difference with bulkiness b/w the old set and new. What some UE users have done is actually reverse the L&R ear piece (L cord to R bud, R cord to L Bud, and L bud into R ear, R bud into L ear) which makes a better fit. I tried it and it worked nicely. However I reverted back to the original arrangement because I didn't find any significant problem with the way they fit.

Davo-CC: Awesome. Enjoy your UE's once you get the new cord.

I also reversed buds (left bud on right cord and vice versa). Amazing how better it was afterwards. Why didn't UE came up with such solution which make more sense than having your buds standing out like crazy.

[GianlucaM]

Ultimate Ears do have very nice customer service indeed!
I just called them because after 1 1/2 years my cable broke right near the jack (right ear went silence), and while I was inspecting them I noticed the cracking on the earphone housing itself (right along the plastic seams); so today I called UE and talked to this nice young lady (Tara), which issued me a RMA number.
I can't wait to get my fixed (new??) earphones.
-Gianluca.