Recent comments in /f/headphones

ni_lus t1_je9v0di wrote

Reply to AZ09 Pro into wireless headphones? Possible? by xthakx

I have tried putting kz wireless aptx cable modules into headphones (on 32 ohm ones). While it works and sounds great, the battery is just too small. Maybe good for just a couple of hours and that's it. Replacing a bigger battery isn't also guaranteed to help, if the module will just charge for a specific amount of time and will not fully charge it. If you really want I suggest you test it.

Plus, usually you can't connect both gnd/negative of the left and right outs (probably th + side too on these tws). So if you plan to still connect via a trs ended cable, use a trrs jack or balanced connections on the headphones.

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TagalogON t1_je9uj0v wrote

Reply to Truthear Hola: If you buy cheap, you buy twice by MadeThisToVent123

And yes, don't fall for fear of missing out. Everything in life is about conformity, consumerism, et cetera. Don't have expectations as it's unnecessary stress, most of us do not have any power or influence to change how things are.

For example, some people on Head-Fi were complaining about the ThieAudio products and the returns/refunds system.

Click this sentence for the warranty/return/etc. problem or scandal with the ~$1300 ThieAudio Prestige from January 2023 on Head-Fi.

Click this sentence for somebody's problem with a defective ThieAudio Ghost headphone from like yesterday on Head-Fi.

Look at the recent TANGZU problem from a few days, that's like the same as the previous CCA CRA, KZ CRN/DQ6S, QKZ VK4, et cetera issues.

More info on the TANGZU x SeeAudio Shiminli Encounter Edition controversy: https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/124iiqh/disappointing_to_tangzu/ and https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/122o59z/tangzus_response_to_the_shimin_li_encounter/jdr722w/

None of us are key players for the Chinese Communist Party or fuerdai children of the various chaebol/zaibatsu/taipan/conglomerate/etc. companies. And so we can't do much but yes shout into the void and hope things change by spreading awareness.

If some of us (the rational, scientific, etc. ones) have the connection/influence/network/etc. to enforce better regulations and so on with these audiophile products, you'd probably see way less cables, DAPs, amps, DACs, etc. snake oil and fake marketing and so on.

This is why Amazon is key if you can afford such luxury products. These days Linsoul, HiFiGo, ShenzhenAudio, KeepHiFi, et cetera have storefronts (these are often Fulfilled by Amazon too, so better warranty/etc. and can ship same day or the next day) on the various Amazon sites. Like check Amazon USA, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon Japan, et cetera as they often ship internationally.

As an aside, I and many others get offered free, as in literally 0% interest rate, installment plans on IEMs/TWS earbuds/headphones/speakers/etc. or TVs/monitors/computers/etc. And this is probably because we spend a lot on Amazon and barely return stuff unless absolutely necessary. So that's another layer of bonus for us consumers worried about quality assurances/control/etc. problems.

For AliExpress/Taobao/Chinese sites/et cetera, if you don't want to risk problems in the future, always take a video of you opening the package and trying out the product for the first time. This way they cannot claim random excuses to deny your refund/return/etc.

For some people those precaution measures are not how things should be done and so they don't do it. Like if you take pictures they will sometimes deny the refund/etc. too. Or if you are trying to show the sound/defect/etc. problem on video, sometimes the customer service representative has no idea what is going on, and so you have to go in circles and be persistent.

If you're Asian/et cetera, this kind of haggling/negotiation is not that unfamiliar, but it can be really annoying if you're not used to it. What you have to realize is that in a lot of cultures, especially Chinese culture, there's this concept called "face."

What that basically boils down to is that do not be so pushy as to make the seller/storefront/etc. look bad. In fact, just remain calm and communicate in simple sentences as oftentimes the person talking to you is not that fluent in English and so things can get misunderstood.

Some well-known storefronts on AliExpress also scam/etc. people despite having 97/98+% rating and being opened for several years. And so that's why you gotta know how to deal with AliExpress' chat system, visit /r/Aliexpress for more info as it can be a hassle sometimes to navigate the customer service side. Even Amazon these days is like hiding the easy visibility/option for online chat, they just want you to use the premade FAQs for the troubleshooting.

Everything is unfortunately pretty much a blind buy unless there's like an e-earphone (Akihabara, Tokyo) equivalent near your area: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUbeBBh2guM and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GMP8cjAEq0

Some people try IEMs/headphones/etc. on Amazon due to the generous return system, but don't do that as it's not good for your account or other people's experiences, see here for more info: https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/118rmpw/moondrop_kato_channel_imbalance_moondrop_email/j9iu3sx/

With quality control of Chinese IEMs, AliExpress shipping times, see here for a bit more info: https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/10sna0p/i_have_it_engrained_in_my_mind_as_an_american/j7395yr/ and https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/zav570/is_hifigo_a_scam/iynrt65/

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Iggydang t1_je9u7ww wrote

Reply to comment by rhalf in Truthear Hola: If you buy cheap, you buy twice by MadeThisToVent123

> Focal

As far as I remember…

Elear

  • Weak headband with the rest of the “Gen 1” Focals (or so I call them) and prone to snapping since they’re plastic on top underneath the pleather and tend to snap there, not at the yokes
  • First batch had awful QC and dead drivers made it to customers hands, later batches tightened QC but the weak driver/voice coil remained
  • High excursion driver bottoms out on bass heavy tracks at high SPL, THIS IS A QC ISSUE IF YOURS CRACKLES AT YOUR VOLUMES RETURN IT, it should only crackle at unsafe SPLs and allowing them to ship QC failures that bottom out at 85dB is a yoke

Utopia OG

  • Gen 1 headband although I’ve not seen any snap, could be the price causing people to handle them a lot more carefully
  • Same voice coil, same driver failure issues even past the 2020 SKU refresh but warranty was generally extended to 5 years to compensate (iirc Elears had the extension as well)
  • Same driver bottoming out issue
  • 2020 refresh gave it the braided cables, which are also prone to dying because the internal copper wires just snap (all braided cable Focals have this issue afaik, although they’re doing you a favour by having it die so you no longer need to use them)
  • Bad glue on pads as mentioned by the other poster, caused sticky residue to leak out (some claim it killed their driver but my guess is it’s more likely to be the driver just doing Focal things more than because of the residue)

Clear OG

  • Same Gen 1 headband
  • Same braided cables (the Pro has similar cables sans Ikea lampshade braiding, but I’ve not seen reports of failures like the normal one)
  • Same bottoming out issue
  • Paint sucks, peels off after a while and your headphone catches leprosy (also not an issue on the Pro)
  • Strengthened and materially-changed voice coil, seemingly fewer failures than the earlier models but still failure-prone
  • Early pads are supposedly different from later pads so those that paid full price for replacement pads got shafted, the Elex has the same issue since it uses discount Clear pads

Elegia

  • Same Gen 1 headband (most failures have been Elegias after they went on fire sale from what I’ve seen on this sub, makes you think about the relationship between units sold and number of failures seen)
  • Same braided cables
  • Printing on cup side is actually printed instead of being etched on, unfortunately they used squid ink leftover from lunch and it gets rubbed off easily
  • Driver is either the Elear’s or Clears in the low-excursion backing, but for some reason this change means it doesn’t fail as much and avoids the bottoming out problem

Elex

  • See Elear section, it’s literally an Elear with a paint job and Clear pads
  • Same braided cables
  • Pads just generally suck tbh the Clear’s pads feel properly expensive, the Elex’s feel like high-quality toilet paper in comparison

Stellia

  • Same Gen 1 headband, although I don’t recall seeing any failures
  • Same driver/coil as on the Utopia, but for some reason the low-excursion backing means it doesn’t fail or at least not as often

Celestee

  • Same Gen 1 headband
  • Same braided cables
  • Same terrible print quality

Radiance

  • Same Gen 1 headband
  • Same cable as the Pro headphones actually so a plus instead of the awful braided ones
  • Pads in production were different from the samples sent to the press - see Resolve’s measurements and review of the first Radiance he had and the later one, although I’m not sure if the “bad” pads made it into production or was entirely a preproduction prototype problem

Clear MG

  • New “Gen 2” headband! Clamps harder but seems stronger
  • Same cables, but not sure if they still fail
  • Driver bottoming out seems to occur at higher SPLs, probably better QC but also could be due to the new shaped grille allowing for more excursion before impact
  • Early MGs (mine) got the same pads as the OG, later MGs got thinner pads (this is where I suspect the MG hate comes from, since with the OG pads the MG retains the same mids but has better subbass extension and more air >10k, see Jude’s measurements for how the MG with the OG pads differs from the OG)
  • Still too new to say if it’s as bad as the old ones, but seems quite a bit better

Utopia 2022

  • New Gen 2 headband! See Z’s Utopia 2022 review, he literally stretches the poor thing damn near horizontal and it still works fine, so it should be better.
  • Revised voice coil specifically to stop it from dying like the old models
  • Cables seem to be the same braided awfulness from what I remember
  • Still too new to make a conclusion

So just a few things.

> Fostex

My guess is the yokes snapping and possibly the old non-removable cables breaking but I’m not entirely sure on this one either.

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TagalogON t1_je9tiym wrote

Reply to Truthear Hola: If you buy cheap, you buy twice by MadeThisToVent123

Some people said their Truthear Hola had clearly uncured resin or something, there was like some picture of it. And I forgot if it was Delta Fyre or Hi-Fri Audio (those people on Facebook that do teardowns/dissection/etc. of IEMs), but the Kiwi Ears Cadenza and is it Tin HiFi C3 or something also had that resin problem (there was liquid leaking just behind the seams).

Here's a recent post, apparently somebody with the new CCA CRA: https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/11q5wa6/i_stuffed_some_biological_filters_into_my_cca_cra/

Click this sentence for pictures of the new CCA CRA from somebody on Head-Fi/etc.

Basically they changed the box and so on, check the Head-Fi thread for the CCA IEMs. So many stealth revisions or changes even when it comes to $500+ IEMs, lol.

This stealth revision infamously happened with the QKZ VK4 and other budget IEMs.

See zpolt's video on the QKZ VK4, note apparently according to other people or regular commenters he doesn't even have all of the VK4 stealth revisions, lol: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9TwlD8scIs

There's also just the unit variances. And like the quality assurances, control, etc.

Here's oratory1990's graph about the deviations with the Sennheiser HD 650: https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/11mhu3f/hd_6_series_fr_comparison/jbnt9fk/?context=10000

Try to buy HiFiMan from Amazon or a place with good warranty/returns as HiFiMan is infamous for quality control issues.

Here's another recent HiFiMan quality control post, like it's for an open box unit, but that happens with brand new headphones too, lol: https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/11ex8iw/hifiman_wants_me_to_100_to_send_my_defective_upon/

See here for a bit more info on HiFiMan quality control problems: https://www.reddit.com/r/HeadphoneAdvice/comments/zicl2e/most_common_defects_for_the_he400se/izrcf3p/

Back to the actual Truthear HOLA or IEMs. Try cleaning the filters/nozzle, it might fix the channel imbalance issue. Try also switching cables to see if it solves the problem.

Though yes, people report drivers dying for no reason with the Moondrop Chu, Aria, etc. The prevalence could be due to the amount of volume that Moondrop/etc. sell, or yes just factory/design choices/etc. issues from the start.

Btw, some people damage their IEMs by dropping them all the time or getting the cables tangled/yanked/etc. Make sure to roadie wrap your IEM cables, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fsvANAT3yg, and put them inside a case with hard covers in order to protect them when you're not using the IEMs anymore.

For long term use you might encounter condensation issues with IEMs, try to take breaks every 30 minutes or 1 hour, and wipe the ear tips and IEMs with a clean paper towel or microfiber cloth.

People with the Moondrop Aria have posted pictures about the paint bubbling/peeling/etc. even with the newer Aria Snow Edition. Some recent pictures of the Aria: https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/121k4gz/scraped_sanded_my_year_old_moondrop_aria/ and https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/11imkcv/1_year_of_using_my_first_iems_the_moondrop_arias/ and https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/10hn5z6/moondrop_aria_se_cover_is_coming_off/

Click this sentence for how to delay or prevent earwax/moisture/etc. from clogging the IEM nozzles with AZLA Sedna MAX Standard ear tips, et cetera.

Essentially for the future, just use a clean paper towel or microfiber cloth and wipe your ear tips and IEMs after each use. That should prevent/delay the clogging/condensation/etc. issues. It's just a problem with certain IEMs, more so the ones with metal outer shell designs. And if you live in a humid area or produce a lot of body heat.

[Click this sentence for how to maybe fix earwax clogging the filters/nozzles.] (https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/yzkk5e/how_to_remove_ear_wax_from_iem_without_damaging_it/ix13bpo/)

Basically use 90+% isopropyl alcohol but make sure the IEM nozzle is facing down as you don't want alcohol to get inside and possibly damage the coating/drivers/etc. behind the nozzle/filters/etc. And then wait several minutes for it to dry, better to wait an hour or so for near certainty that everything is dry.

So ya, you can delay those earwax issues if you use AZLA SednaEarfit MAX Standard (MAX Standard has an integrated wax guard), Spinfits, etc. Like Spinfits have this inner lip for the rotation gimmick and that sometimes help with slowing down the earwax from dripping directly down on the nozzle/filter.

Click this sentence for more info on the importance of ear tips sizing, dimensions, et cetera.

Click this sentence for comfort and everything with ear tips.

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Ashamed-Situation665 t1_je9t8ws wrote

Reply to Audeze LCD-i3 Initial Impressions by stankworm

i listen to mine wired to a topping g5 and dont feel any need to eq them. they are not even for sure, but so good sounding as a whole, no need to optimzie at all. with the bt dac it is another thing tho. too much smoothed out for my liking. but every one has different ears.

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