Now that you say it, I’m not using the original cable, and I don’t recall what happened to it because it’s been so long ago (could’ve been a similar issue to the one you described).

I couldn’t find a Shure original cable to replace mine with right away, so I got a compatible one and been rolling with it ever since. It’s slightly thinner, more flexible and without the thicker malleable parts near earbud connections. I was cautious about those differences at first, but in the end grown to prefer it more than the original, these thin wires wrap around my ears just fine.

As a side note, one of the things I treasure about the design of these IEMs is the replaceability of the cable. The IEMs themselves can probably survive for ages, which gives a nice feeling among the increasingly disposable electronics—I just hope the model would still exist on the market when something eventually happens to my unit.

It's been awhile since I used Shure's in ear monitors, but they once sent me a kit with one of everything in that part of their product line. Nice stuff, and if you can tolerate in-ear stuff, incredible sound. But all the cables failed over time. Not heavily used either. They were great about sending replacements, but they were very aware of the reliability issues. And these were monitors that had MSRPs over $800.