Hi,
I have a question about Soundmagic E10.
I bought 3 units of Soundmagic E10, and I gave one to my brother.
I use only 1-2 hours/week when I have time, and so does my brother.
But after 1.5 years, the 3 units have the same cable problem : The rubber coating on the cable peeled off very badly.
My brother dumped it since the Left side stopped working too. My 2 units still work althought the peeling got worse & worse as showned in this photo :

Here is the photo of the 2 units : (click to enlarge)


After some research on the net , I read that Soundmagic upgraded the cable by the end of 2012 to a better cable.
I suppose my first 3 units could not have the upgraded cable since it was bought in July & August 2012, so I bought another one 6 months ago, and it looks like cable is actually different : The cable is stiffer, look more twisted, more tangle-free.

The close up photo of my original cable & the new one I bought 6 months ago :


Side by side comparison:



So I thought, my first 3 units must have the non-upraded cable.
But yesterday I bought another unit. The box is definitely the new box design by the end of 2013, but the cable WAS the same like the first 3 units I bought 2 years ago in 2012. In fact, there is a small sticker (I think from the distributor or Soundmagic) FEBRUARY 2014.
Here is the E10 cable I bought yesterday :



It's the same cable with the one I bought in 2012, & it's different from the unit I bought 6 months ago which is stiffer & looks more twisted.

Now I got completely confused !
Which one is the new upgraded cable ???

Does anybody know ?
Can anyone tell me which cable you have ? When did you buy it ?


Note:[U]
The first 3 units got peeled even under proper storage & handling. From the fallen pieces of the rubber coating, I suspected the rubber lose elasticity & become brittle after 1.5 years under hot tropical climate.

I have the twisted cable, bought in September 2013.
Im planning to buy another 1 for my gf, but here is the seller's respond:

" Thanks for inquiry. E10 only very limited stock left. E10 got 2 versions (version 1 is RM120, normal cable. version 2 is RM135, twisted cable). "

so now for the same reason,im confused too..oh waii

Just to add another confusion. I just tried the new one.
I was shocked. It sounds different !!!
The new one I bought yesterday (with the new box design) sounds different from the 3 units bought in 2012 & the one 6 months ago !!!
WTH is happening here ?
I'm not audiophiles, so I can't tell much about the exact differences, but for sure:
- The older one is punchier & fuller sound
- The older one is MUCH LOUDER than the one in new box. At high volume, the difference is more pronounced. The new one I bought yesterday is pale in comparison (like losing 20-25% volume from the older version).

In fact the new one sounds worse than my old ES18 which is much cheaper. The ES18 also sounds much louder like the old E10.

I suspected it was fake, so I called the store I bought E10 yesterday, and he said it's a new box design.

Not satisfied, I went to another authorized dealer store just now to check whether it's really a new box design than the old white box. Alas, out of stock, but a staff confirmed the new black box design. So, I know I got the original.

The specs in the old & new box is the same.
But why the sounds changes ??? Much quieter volume too.
With the same impedance & sensitivity level, both two should sound equally loud unless they changed the driver.

Photos :
LEFT : Original Box in 2012 & 6 months ago
RIGHT: New box design I got yesterday.





Very disappointed. I lost my trust completely.

try using your new unit for maybe 150 hours and compare again? If you say cable is different, then sound changes may be expected. I do help some forumers to do recable and did find out that earphones tends to sound differently when using different cable.

Not much of a believer in burn-in, but there was one time when my 5-6 month old Radius DDM was replaced with a new one (warranty claim). I knew it was new, because what I had was black, the one that came in was red (maybe stock issues after the tsunami disaster). The sound was different. Not bad, but sound placement was messy and the "smear" at the point where the bass/mids driver and HF driver overlaps was more apparent. Bass was a little slow too.

Let them run-in for a few days. Or maybe new cables can be the culprit.

Soundwise I can still tolerate it because it's not so bad, but my concern is the cable quality going back to 2012 version which has been proven very weak.
The one I bought 6 months ago is stiffer & looks much stronger.

Another is volume level which is only about 75-80% of the original.
With proper music recording, the max volume is still quite loud , but when I try to hear some bad recording (conference talks mostly), now I have to set to 100% than previously only 75-80%. Such a difference in volume is too shocking for me. The 2012 version also used the same cable, as far as I can tell, but it doesn't suffer from such a drastic volume loss.

When I let my bro hear the difference, he insisted it was fake, but I'm almost assured it is original. Somehow SM has done something that messed up this earphone.
Btw, out of curiosity, I just ordered another ES18 online. I wonder if it also has the same volume problem compared to my old version of ES18. (People say the use the driver, but only different ...aka...cheaper plastic housing & cable that results in slight variation compared to E10)

And I just searched the net for anyone selling E10 with the new box design.
Some photo actually shows the same old cable with orange peel texture (not twisted cable).
Some other sellers show twisted cable (esp ebay sellers in UK).
Has SM produced E10 with 2 different cables at the same time ?

From what I see, E10 has used 3 different cables. The last 2 are what I showed in the photos above (orange peel cable & twisted cable), while the original in 2010 (I think) was the normal rubbery cable shown below:





This post has been edited by Serville: Jul 2 2014, 10:48 PM