psgarcha92
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Jan 17, 2011
- Posts
- 440
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- 17
UPDATE: Got my replacement unit from hifiman a few days back.....! (The lovely folks at hifiman are awesome)
This is from a fellow head-fier, and a college student.
Please note that these rants are addressed to the respective manufacturer. I understand that there are things like manufacturing faults, and basic wear and tear happens. But this is some typical stuff that has gone wrong with me over the years. Apart from that, Hifiman has given us IEMs that i have loved. I have nothing against them, else than in the parts quality department.
Through the years i have worked with earphones, i have gained some knowledge regarding how to repair them. Generally when earphones fail, its the cable that is at fault. It is a common problem where people have their cables broken at the Stereo Plug. A little less common is a joint broken inside the housing where the cable is soldered to the IEM speaker. The most uncommon though, is the voice coil of the IEM breaking from where it is connected to the PCB, to which the cable is soldered. I would have clicked pictures, but i have no camera good enough to show the details.
My first earphones were the Hifiman RE0s. third day of use, the third day, the cable had broken. Usually third day is the one where yor are absolutely in love with the RE0s. I called up the seller and he told me he had no RE0s left, other than a pair of RE-ZERO. I thought to myself, how different can they be? They were quite different when compared to the RE0s, but both the pairs were complementary. Owning the ZEROs did not give me the satisfaction of RE0s. The clarity on the 0s was excellent. Detail retrieval upto the mark, i was sure i had heard one really special IEM. one year into owning the RE-ZEROs, i went forward and brought a pair of used RE0s. This time they failed in a month. lucky for me, i had warranty left. So there i was, spending 25USD to send my IEMs back all the way to Hifiman. Got them replaced. After that i used the IEMs for an year or so, not more than that. RE-ZERO gave me the best cable experience. The RE0 cable became stiff, the housing kept coming off from time to time. Sound wise, it was a pleasure, and i was taking all this bad experience on the name of sound. The RE-ZERO casing too, fell apart alot of times. Humidity in India didnt help it either.
Lets get a little closer to how these earphones died.
One channel went off. The usual approach was to check for cable trouble. I opened the casing of the RE0 after the right one went out. Thought it was a simple cable fault, and i replaced it with another cable. But still, the right earphone was dead. Checking alot with the multimeter, scratching my head alot, i came to the conclusion that the voice coil has broken in between and there is no contact between my cable to the voice coil. Suspicions were proven to be true when i used the soldering iron to carefully remove the hot glue kind of material Hifiman puts on its voice coil connections to the PCB. I found one end of the Voice coil connected to the PCB, the other was nowhere to be found. Let me tell u about the voice coil hifiman uses, it is thinner than your hair. Way thinner. I tried looking for the other end, this operation took an hour, and after finding it, soldered it back to the PCB. But no sound. WHY?? WHY IN THE WORLD ???
Turns out, the voice coil had broken at the little notch where it comes from the diaphragm. RE0s dead. Nothing to do. I have absolutely loved these IEMs. Adored them. It was a whole new world of music these IEMs brought to me. It would be fair to say i cried a little when i lost these.
Just a few days later, the RE-ZEROs i had, failed. This was the time i was in love with the RE0 and RE-ZERO duo. Like these were the best toys i ever had, I was the most caring around them, never tossing them or treating them bad. Then why did the voice coil break off from the PCB? I just cant comprehend.
Fast forward an year. I got myself the RE272s. Second hand pair, in excellent condition. No warranty luck this time. But way more love for these. They sounded natural, as if they were designed according to my preference. These were the best IEMs i ever owned, even though i have owned only a few. They beat the UE Triple Fi10 hands down (to me, the RE272 had the perfect signature, sorry TF10 lovers). So i open them up, thinking what the hell, the cable must be gone. Please note, these had'nt been used for more than 500 hours. The cable quality on these ones was nice. Thick wires used to connect to the PCB. In my head i also had a little fear that said the voice coil might be broken. But i was positive it wasnt the case because they were relatively new, and had been taken care of.
Fast forward 5 hours to my anguish. The voice coil from the driver had broken off from the PCB. This was an attempt to repair the IEM, and i got very close to it. the wire was too microscopic to handle. it broke on my hands and my IEMs died. There was a 1000 to 1 chance that this could have worked, but it could have.
What i want to point out is that, this wasnt my failure in repairing the IEMs. This is Hifiman's failure in making IEMs as lovely as is possible, but in the worst way, letting the customer down because of the quality of parts used. This episode of breaking IEMs and me trying to repair them has given me a lot of experience, but Hifiman, i was in love with them when ****ty parts quality took them away from me.
On top of that, as i mentioned, i am a college going student. It takes months to save money to buy these to be so disappointing at the end. There has been an astounding amount of money spent by me in IEMs of your brand. I expected atleast the Flagship 272s to work better than the others. Its just plain unacceptable.
Please fix this Dr Fang. You have given us absolutely the best IEMs in terms of sound quality, but this parts quality has just been horrible. And it hasnt been just once or twice, but thrice. It is totally unacceptable at this level.
Regards
EDIT: The voice coils Hifiman uses, have to be very thin, to keep the weight of the Diaphragm with the voice coil very small. But, however thin the wire might be, it should not be breaking off on its own. In the above post, i am not complaining about the thinness of the wire, but only about it breaking on its own.
This is from a fellow head-fier, and a college student.
Please note that these rants are addressed to the respective manufacturer. I understand that there are things like manufacturing faults, and basic wear and tear happens. But this is some typical stuff that has gone wrong with me over the years. Apart from that, Hifiman has given us IEMs that i have loved. I have nothing against them, else than in the parts quality department.
Through the years i have worked with earphones, i have gained some knowledge regarding how to repair them. Generally when earphones fail, its the cable that is at fault. It is a common problem where people have their cables broken at the Stereo Plug. A little less common is a joint broken inside the housing where the cable is soldered to the IEM speaker. The most uncommon though, is the voice coil of the IEM breaking from where it is connected to the PCB, to which the cable is soldered. I would have clicked pictures, but i have no camera good enough to show the details.
My first earphones were the Hifiman RE0s. third day of use, the third day, the cable had broken. Usually third day is the one where yor are absolutely in love with the RE0s. I called up the seller and he told me he had no RE0s left, other than a pair of RE-ZERO. I thought to myself, how different can they be? They were quite different when compared to the RE0s, but both the pairs were complementary. Owning the ZEROs did not give me the satisfaction of RE0s. The clarity on the 0s was excellent. Detail retrieval upto the mark, i was sure i had heard one really special IEM. one year into owning the RE-ZEROs, i went forward and brought a pair of used RE0s. This time they failed in a month. lucky for me, i had warranty left. So there i was, spending 25USD to send my IEMs back all the way to Hifiman. Got them replaced. After that i used the IEMs for an year or so, not more than that. RE-ZERO gave me the best cable experience. The RE0 cable became stiff, the housing kept coming off from time to time. Sound wise, it was a pleasure, and i was taking all this bad experience on the name of sound. The RE-ZERO casing too, fell apart alot of times. Humidity in India didnt help it either.
Lets get a little closer to how these earphones died.
One channel went off. The usual approach was to check for cable trouble. I opened the casing of the RE0 after the right one went out. Thought it was a simple cable fault, and i replaced it with another cable. But still, the right earphone was dead. Checking alot with the multimeter, scratching my head alot, i came to the conclusion that the voice coil has broken in between and there is no contact between my cable to the voice coil. Suspicions were proven to be true when i used the soldering iron to carefully remove the hot glue kind of material Hifiman puts on its voice coil connections to the PCB. I found one end of the Voice coil connected to the PCB, the other was nowhere to be found. Let me tell u about the voice coil hifiman uses, it is thinner than your hair. Way thinner. I tried looking for the other end, this operation took an hour, and after finding it, soldered it back to the PCB. But no sound. WHY?? WHY IN THE WORLD ???
Turns out, the voice coil had broken at the little notch where it comes from the diaphragm. RE0s dead. Nothing to do. I have absolutely loved these IEMs. Adored them. It was a whole new world of music these IEMs brought to me. It would be fair to say i cried a little when i lost these.
Just a few days later, the RE-ZEROs i had, failed. This was the time i was in love with the RE0 and RE-ZERO duo. Like these were the best toys i ever had, I was the most caring around them, never tossing them or treating them bad. Then why did the voice coil break off from the PCB? I just cant comprehend.
Fast forward an year. I got myself the RE272s. Second hand pair, in excellent condition. No warranty luck this time. But way more love for these. They sounded natural, as if they were designed according to my preference. These were the best IEMs i ever owned, even though i have owned only a few. They beat the UE Triple Fi10 hands down (to me, the RE272 had the perfect signature, sorry TF10 lovers). So i open them up, thinking what the hell, the cable must be gone. Please note, these had'nt been used for more than 500 hours. The cable quality on these ones was nice. Thick wires used to connect to the PCB. In my head i also had a little fear that said the voice coil might be broken. But i was positive it wasnt the case because they were relatively new, and had been taken care of.
Fast forward 5 hours to my anguish. The voice coil from the driver had broken off from the PCB. This was an attempt to repair the IEM, and i got very close to it. the wire was too microscopic to handle. it broke on my hands and my IEMs died. There was a 1000 to 1 chance that this could have worked, but it could have.
What i want to point out is that, this wasnt my failure in repairing the IEMs. This is Hifiman's failure in making IEMs as lovely as is possible, but in the worst way, letting the customer down because of the quality of parts used. This episode of breaking IEMs and me trying to repair them has given me a lot of experience, but Hifiman, i was in love with them when ****ty parts quality took them away from me.
On top of that, as i mentioned, i am a college going student. It takes months to save money to buy these to be so disappointing at the end. There has been an astounding amount of money spent by me in IEMs of your brand. I expected atleast the Flagship 272s to work better than the others. Its just plain unacceptable.
Please fix this Dr Fang. You have given us absolutely the best IEMs in terms of sound quality, but this parts quality has just been horrible. And it hasnt been just once or twice, but thrice. It is totally unacceptable at this level.
Regards
EDIT: The voice coils Hifiman uses, have to be very thin, to keep the weight of the Diaphragm with the voice coil very small. But, however thin the wire might be, it should not be breaking off on its own. In the above post, i am not complaining about the thinness of the wire, but only about it breaking on its own.
