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I bought the Etymotic ER-4S headphones five years ago to block out airplane noise on long flights. Starting with a Sony Diskmen and moving on to various iPods, the in-ear headphones have served well as an impenetrable barrier to aural interference, and they've proven to be a godsend once again for my daily subway commute. But one day as I was about to stick them in my ear, I found one of the transducer stalks had snapped off, just days before my 12-hour trans-Pacific flight back to the States. Bought a set of cheap Audio-Technicas to get me through the day, but the cheapies didn't offer near the isolation nor the sound quality of the Etys. :Sad:

Got an RMA# over email and brought the broken Etys home with me to send off to the mothership for repairs. Resigned myself to a big bill and even considered writing the Etys off and going with a different pair. No news for a week, then out of the blue I get a UPS shipping notification from Etymotic saying a package is on the way. Sent another query to customer service asking for the repair invoice, and quickly received a reply:

Hi Michael,

Both transducers have been replaced and there is no charge. : )

Best Regards,
Customer Service
Etymotic Research, Inc.

I don't expect much from any customer service people these days and I'm usually not disappointed. So the news was certainly a most pleasant surprise. That is what makes buying high-end things really worthwhile, as opposed to the logo-chasing vanity so typical here.