Aleojandro PS: 100% agreed.
It is funny I had left this thread for very specific reasons, despite the fact that I enjoyed the creations, and when I come back out of curiosity, it seems these reasons come back all to vividly. Anything but blind adoration will be met by mockery, quite sad to see members, Noble and even a mod (I was quite surprised Warren) gang up on someone. This guy has remained civil and very articulate all through the argument, I honestly would have lost it.
It would have been 1000 times simpler for Noble to have said: send it in, we'll relacker that crack for free. Done. No huge expense and no huge risk for Noble if it normally "never happens".
As it happens, one friend told me thought the K10u was unevenly lacquered which was disappointing for 1.5k iem. He would never DARE say it on the thread. I wonder why...
You can all rip your shirts in fits of indignation now.
Ok, let me be clear here.
So far, im in 99% agreement with the way noble and John works. No, they should not just Re-lacquer the iem for free. What is simple for Noble may not necessarily be the right move. These are 3rd hand iem's and any refurbishing process must be paid. We can argue whether the warranties should be transferable for the universals, but that is noble's prerogative, its in the T&C's, i know what i was getting into.
Yes, it is possible that the original owner lied and she dropped it multiple times. The thing about the internet is, you need to take people at its word if you find it reasonable. If John can tell me, there is no way on earth that the Dreve lacquer coating will never crack due to normal living temperatures (20-50C, lets not go into the winters in canada or desert heat), which means all cracks are user error, i will have no choice but to accept his words, unless i am willing to test things out on a new Noble Iem. However, John has indicated in his post that a CIEM he had, was left next to a laptop vent, and the heat caused it to cracked. He said its an old laptop, ill be generous, heat from those things are can be pretty damn high hitting 70C. In which case, yeah, its a user error. My concern is the temperature for normal use.
You know what, lets stop here, im tired of the word "Lacquer", my points are all in the previous post. Its clear that the red K10U is the only reported K10U with cracks, a very isolated incident. All i know is that, im going to baby my own K10U even more, and if it ever cracks, its only going to be due to "normal" temperature issues, and not old laptop vent temperatures. If it happens, well, lets cross that bridge when we get there.
Let me reiterate, other than this,
Noble is one of the best CIEM companies ever. After hearing the Fitear's (which turned everything else to ****), the K10's were the first to make me smile for a long time. Their prices are very very reasonable in the world of high end audio, and a downright bargain if you compare it to non-japan Fitear prices. This lacquering thing is just a small dot on their impeccable history (for me at least).
Since there is a possibility that all this hoo-hah is for naught and the original lady owner was clumsy enough to drop them a few times. I'll apologize beforehand. John, im sorry for this. I did not think that the discussion will be this drawn out, but it is, and there is a possibility i am wrong.
