Over the past few years, I have bounced from iem to iem. Most of them were around $20, so I just replaced them when something went wrong (and I couldn’t fix it or had to buy something to fix it). However, I had a recurring problem after about 2-5 months of daily use. The left channel gets super quiet. This has happened on every single iem I have owned over the past 3 years (except for my er2se which got stolen very quickly after I got them). This happened recently to my Arias, which I do not want to replace ofc.
I have tested the device or dongle, and they are good. However, I do not have a spare cable, so I cannot figure out whether it is the cable or the actual items themselves. I have been storing them in an iem pouch from another fallen iem. I have coiled the cable up every time and have kept it mostly in my pocket. I have also cleaned the nozzles of the iems, and my ears. Should I buy a new cable, or is there something else I could try to fix the problem?
Be cautious but, one of those camera-based ear cleaning things could be useful? That way you can see if your ears are actually reasonably clean
You can just reverse the side of the cable the iems are plugged into and see if the imbalance moves to see if it’s a cable problem