Logitech Buys Ultimate Ears; Breaks the Warranty

My favourite headphone manufacturer are Ultimate Ears. They make my primary in-ear headphone the Triple.fi 10. These “in-ear monitors” contain no less than 3 driver and sound amazing.

In August it seems Logitech bought Ultimate Ears, which isn’t a bad thing in my mind. I’m sure a larger company will happily see them through the financial crisis. What does bother me though is that they have quietly reduced the lengths of all the warranties.

Right now my Triple.fis are with UE to be fixed. When trying to get a foam tip off the casing catches snapped. No problem, send them back, get a replacement pair. This is one of the reason I was willing to shell out the not inconsiderable money they cost. They came with a recommendation from a friend that UE were fantastic at dealing with customers. Mine have a 2 year warranty.

When I looked at the web site this week to see if they were going to support a model with a mic for my iPhone (they now have the triple.fi 10v, not that they will sell me the mic wire separately) I noticed that all the warranties are now 1 years only. That includes the custom moulded monitors which I think used to have a life time warranty, or at least 2 years.

I find it astonishing that Logitech expects people to shell out $400 for triple.fi headphones and $800+ for customs with such a short time to be able to get them repaired.

To contrast this all Shure headphones from the $119 SE110s to the $499 SE530 come with a 2 year warranty. I really hope Logitech renege and sort this out. I have been considering getting some customs from UE. I think I’m going to continue to consider for a while longer now.