The gray one is AEM's Brute Force media. Never had issues with that filter failing, even after multiple washes, but, it was in the engine compartment.AEM and K&N are the same aren't they now? I have a AEM dry flow filter. The first kind (before K&N) fell apart. But they honored the lifetime warranty and replaced with the newer style wire backed red pleated, still dry flow. It's still in great shape after 8 years. Probably cleaned it three times or so.
Here it is new.
After two years.
Original and replacement
The only issue I had was my mechanic constantly bothering that I needed to clean my filter... so eventually I got tired and got red DryFlow from AEM.