My Half Dead Steelseries Flux In-ears

[Nit3Rid3R]

So, first of all, these earphones are quite weird. 

 

 

 

I bought these earphones on April the 13th according to my credit card recipe :P And already the left side has died on me. And I am using these everyday, playing music all day, having them plugged into my phone while in my pocket, the usual everyday beating earphones tend to get. 

 

Now, before these earphones died, they were great, the design of it looks very sleek, the microphone works like a charm. It has in-line mic controls, such as answer and drop call, it also has media controls, which I only found out after double clicking the button. As per usual, 1 click is pause, 2 clicks is next, and 3 clicks is previous. 

 

The earphones offer a somewhat "deepish" sound to them, theres some bass, and also some acoustics. They work really good for phones and laptops, though I wouldn't really use it with desktops because the cord isn't that long. But nonetheless, the sound of these earphones are really good. Which now, brings me to the weird part below.

 

THE WEIRD PART

Prior buying these earphones, I had tested ones from Sennheiser around the same price point, if I remember correctly, they were the CX200. I have never tried the SteelSeries Flux In-Ears before, nor have I tried the In-Ear Pros, but since I have had a few SteelSeries Audio products and highly recommend them, I assumed they would be what their name stood up to be. So I blind-sightly bought them. 

 

Now, when I bought the earphones, I immediately took them out of the book and used them. The sound, was TERRIBLE. It sounded like a cheap headset, and the only thing going though my mind was, "I should have gotten the CX200". So I've already left the store and on the subway train, with these headphones playing music which sounded like music coming from the iPhone speakers, so I decided to head to the same store but at a different branch. There, they told me that you need to "burn" these earphones off a bit. So I did, and after burning them for a day or two, the sound finally came through, the finally sounded like the SteelSeries brand I came to know of. 

 

 

Despite the weird issue I had, and the dying left ear, these earphones are amazing, they look amazing, they perform like a SteelSeries product, and it comes with carrying bag which is neat. 

 

http://steelseries.com/products/audio/steelseries-flux-in-ear-gaming-headset

[orangecat]

Breaking in a pair of headphones or speakers if perfectly normal and is actually a good thing the driver will loosen to a good state and last long if you buy them already broken in they will loosen over time and sound crap. I think you may have got a bad/defective pair take them back and say the left isn't working could just be a short who knows.

[Guest]

You shouldn't notice too much of a change after burning in a driver. The act of 'breaking in' a driver is aimed at loosening up the voice coil for better low frequency response. You shouldn't actually notice any change at all in anything really over about 400 cycles. This however is the rule for two way and bigger speaker assemblies. I have however noticed from personal experience that this translates over to single driver assemblies so I'm a little worried by the change you've described. Based on your description I would certainly be taking them back. 

[Nit3Rid3R]

An update to this:

 

20 days later, and they are having problems again, I must say this is very disappointing from SteelSeries. First the in-line volume control stopped working, then a day later, the earphones will turn on and off as I walk, and will only function properly if I hold the phone in my hand so the cables don't bend. I suspect that this is a soldering issue yet again. 

 

Tomorrow I will be sending these back yet again, if they break a 3rd time under daily use, I will want a refund from them. This is really a deal breaker from SteelSeries.