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Upgrade from S4. Confused C3/X10


karan_n8

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I am in India and want upgrae from my S4. I love my S4 as I bought 6 pairs of in ears from various brands, Senns, Nuforce, creative et all but due to my tiny ear canal none fit. The I bought the S4 nd voila ! I love the bass they produce and the amazingly wide soundstage and crispness. Now im cunfused as to waht to buy, here the Custom are available for 9000 Rs and the X10 for 11000 Rs. What i want to know is, where is the bass better and will comfort be a problem with the customs ?

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Both the C3 and x10 have incredible bass. The C3 has I think what is considered a more forward midrange and sounds better to many people than the x10.

The C3 require quite a bit of work to get a good seal. The x10 are pretty much stick them in and the seal is good.

You cannot go wrong with either one. The C3 will be very difficult to find in the not too distant future as they have been discontinued.

Good luck!

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In INDIA all the models are still available , including X5,X10,C1,C2,C3 and its cheaper than USA with warranty .

X10i costs only 210 USD $ in INDIA with 2yrs warranty .

Then I'd go for the X5. They sound better to the X10 to me and still are almost as easy to use as the X10 just not quite as small.

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I would caution against the Custom 3.

When they were manufactured, the cable sheath used has a tendency to kink, and my original set and the RMA'd set I received right from Klipsch suffered from BAD kinks right out of the box. This resulted in an extremely shortened service life, and I felt I got an extremely poor return on investment.

Strangely, a set of Custom 1 I still use were manufactured with a looser weave cable sheath. Although it is more prone to 'fuzzing', it doesn't suffer from the kinking issue the Custom 3s had.

Once again, I do want to state that the Custom 3s sounded amazing, so Klipsch got that part right. I just can't get the stick out of my behind about how shoddily they were made.

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Anyways I have dropped the idea of the Custom 3 regarding the wires and since RMA might be an issue. But my friends from this other technology forum tell me the X 10 is not worth the 200$ I am paying for and something like the TF 10s would be better at about 250$, theres always the option of getting them remoulded to get a Custom iem too !

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No long term experience with the Custom 3 but have had Custom 2 since when they first became available. Absolutely no problems with the cabling or sheathing though after a lot of use over 13 months I was able to get the Image x10. The Custom 2 are pretty much as the day I took them out of the packaging.

My image x10 on the other hand have developed the dreaded splitting of the strain reliefs but not severe and have not gotten worse. Didn't notice any problems until I'm sure well after a year. I probably need to send them in while still under warranty but frankly have been a bit paranoid that I'd get a set not as good as the one's I have.

I've wondered a couple of things abou the problems with the cables. Klipsch I think had said they did not change the cable design. I've met the audio engineer who did the acoustic design work. Even got to try the Custom and original IMAGE as prototypes. I have no reason to believe they'd cover up a change.

But people have had issues. And here's my totally unofficial wild speculations what might have happened.

  • Potentially suppliers supplying compenents not quite up to spec or changing the spec. I'm sure Klipsch does a better job of most companies of keeping an eye on their manufacturers in China but it's possible things slip through the cracks.
  • Maybe a bad batch or two of cabling that didn't meet specs got through quality control
  • Maybe factory shipped out a few of the rejects.

Other things and I think this would be very unlikely to occur for items obtained directly from Klipsch or authorized retailers unless they obtained some stock from unauthorized sources.

  • B stock goods (those with defects) making it into the distribution channels. Maybe tossed out or sold instead of being destroyed.
  • Counterfeits. Copyright and patent laws at best seem to be rather loosely enforced in China, if at all.
  • I would be very leary of buying the Klipsch 'phones from an unauthorized retailer or distributor for these reasons.

I think in testing the only thing the engineers have found that would cause problems with the x10 (and x5) cables is gasoline. I've noticed with my x10's they appear to have a very fine seam but maybe the strain relief was supposed to be a solid molding. (my theory of suppliers cutting corners without Klipsch's approval).

Just my very humble opinions but even with my splitting strain reliefs on my x10's they are very well built. Cables remain nice and flexible.

Unfortunately, however it has happened, some people have gotten some 'phones that just aren't up to standards. And gotten replacements that were bad. I suspect that the percentage of bad 'phones is relatively small or maybe limited to one or two production runs? Or somebody was asleep somewhere.

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