Six months in and I am still loving these IEMs. I have gotten to where I wear them several hours a day. When I am working in the coffee shop in my little downtown area, I wear them to listen to music and sometimes watch videos on my notebook tablet. My tablet recognizes that I am using a mic-enabled headset so Skype, Google Hangouts, and now WhatsApp video calls go swimmingly while I am working from my tablet. Also, the signal processing on my tablet's audio card is amazing because somehow the hardware/software/driver combo recognizing these earphones separately from my large AKG 701 headphones or my cheap Samsung stock headphones and loads the proper settings for each. The settings include playback gain, mic gain, mic noise filtering level, any EQ, tone, or effects settings (which I only use with the Samsung OEM earphones), and any other processing (turned off in my case). It is really amazing.
I did break the plastic casing on the mic portion of the optional mic cable I've been using with Shure SE 846 IEMs. It still works fine, but the tiny circuit board is exposed and the jagged plastic hangs on my shirt or jacket when I move. The cable was bought two years ago and was used with my previous top end IEMs, the Shure SE 535, so for the $49 I paid for the cable, I got two solid years of nearly continual use. That's pretty good, in my book, and comes out to $2.04 per month of effective use. I ordered a new cable, same Shure model (rather than the off-brand "upgrades" I saw on Amazon). The new price is $29, so if I get another two years out this cable, I will have spent about $1.21 per month of significant use. I think that is a bargain.
This also gets to the heart of the benefits of having a replaceable cable for your IEMs. I still have the two factory cables which came with the SE846 IEMs, as well as the factory cables for my older and cheaper models of the SE IEMs. In the decade, or so, that I've used this line of IEMs, I have purchased two accessory cables at about $49 each, or $98 for over ten years of IEM + Mic performance. If I had a permanent cable, I would have to choose to always have a mic, or not, with no option to switch off (which I do when I use the IEMs as monitors while playing drums, or when I want the shorter cable for some reason). I could also buy other interesting accessory cables, like a very short one for when I use a clip-on headphone amp, like my FiiO A5, or the newest A6. Or if I want an extra long cable, those are out there as well. I can add mic accessory cables from various manufacturers, and if I were an Audiophile, there are Japanese import solid silver and silver over carbon cables that cost an arm and a leg I could get. It is pretty cool, if you think about it. I even saw a professional performance cable/mic combo which has a pro-grade performance mic-arm thing that puts the mic next to the mouth, like you'd see Brittany Spears or whomever lipsync into, but for real singers.
Anyway, I still love these things.
I will add, the custom molded sleeves did not work out in the long run. The molds worked amazingly well when they worked, but when flying, as is often the case, my skin would plump or get thinner (dehydration and low air pressure), and the right mold would completely lose its seal. The left one seemed to work fine, or if it didn't it wasn't as bad as the right. Ultimately I got my money back and rather than try the larger molds, I chose to stick with the Shure OEM expanding foam sleeves. I spoke to the President at the Comply company and told him I wish they made one size larger for me and he said that Shure has trouble selling their large foam sleeves and he couldn't justify such a low seller. I guess my ear canals are just bigger than all your ear canals - it is probably why I can hear so much better, especially speaker failings, and probably why I am so much smarter than all of you. In fact, my large male member and abilities to please your wives better than any of you might be related to my large ear canals. Maybe some research should be done.
