[bimmer100]

 
Yup that's it. Wasn't touching it, didn't hit the remote, wasn't touching my headphones.
 
I did. Told him I'd hold onto it for now to see if it happens again and if it does I want to send it to him with shipping on their end regardless of whether or not they find anything. I'm aware that their warranty specifies that if they don't find anything the customer is on the hook for shipping but since I'm the third who has had this happen I don't see why I should settle for less. So we'll see what happens here.

 
 
just ask them to send you a new one for replacement. note that there has been one or two others that have experienced this problem.

 

[vr1]

   
 
yes, I've spent a ton of time with the HE1000 and the M11. It's quite amazing, and one of the best pairings i've heard with the HE1000.
 
I also own the HEX and HD800.
 
had the HE560, THX00 as well. sold those. 
 
all of them sound amazing on the M11. 

Thank you bimmer100.

 

[johnzz4]

  So consider me person number 3 who's had the volume flip out. Stood up and all of a sudden there was a huge channel imbalance towards the left side which got super super loud and either popped really loudly or shocked me (either way it didn't feel nice). I reacted quickly and a turn of the vol knob corrected it but this is very troubling considering I'm not the only one that this has happened to. It's not remote interference as there's nothing else with a signal in the room and not static discharge since I wasn't touching anything when it happened. I've had it for less than 15 days so if I send it back and they find something they'll send me a new unit and give me the shipping costs back but if they find nothing I'm on the hook for shipping to them and back to me which is ridiculous for a warranty. I really don't know what I'm going to do at this point.

Ya, sounds very similar.  Did you put the headphones on a stand or table, or were they resting on the couch/chair you were sitting in while you stood up?
 
A couple times if I was getting up for a second, i would rest them on the arm of the couch and when I stood up I heard one channel get super loud.  I figured it was static from the movement on the couch.  Any more details you can offer so we can get to the bottom of this?  If I knew I wouldn't be wasting my time and money sending it back to Kingwa to be fixed/replaced, I would.

 

[RAZRr1275]

  Ya, sounds very similar.  Did you put the headphones on a stand or table, or were they resting on the couch/chair you were sitting in while you stood up?
 
A couple times if I was getting up for a second, i would rest them on the arm of the couch and when I stood up I heard one channel get super loud.  I figured it was static from the movement on the couch.  Any more details you can offer so we can get to the bottom of this?  If I knew I wouldn't be wasting my time and money sending it back to Kingwa to be fixed/replaced, I would.

Nope. I was wearing them when I stood up so my left ear hurt a bit after that one.
 
Nothing really. I was listening to music, stood up to stretch, the cable rubbed on my shirt a bit, all of a sudden the right channel goes dead, the left gets super loud and I hear a pop. I thought one of the drivers had blown. I reached for the vol knob as quickly as I can and moved it down a couple of clicks and then it was back to normal. Guess I should also say my chair is leather, my desk is wood and my av rack that I rest my headphones on is synthetic wood so I don't really see any big source of static
 
That's exactly what scares me. He told me that if he can't find anything I'm on the hook for the $300 in shipping and I talked to the others I knew of experiencing the issue and they couldn't reliably reproduce it so if none of us can I doubt he'd be able to which means he'd find nothing and charge me for shipping costs.

 

[swannie007]

I find it ridiculous that customers should be liable for shipping costs to return faulty equipment still under warranty. The manufacturer should AT LEAST pay return shipping costs as they supplied a faulty piece of gear. If it happened to me I would be posting on every related forum I could find to warn others of the manufacturer in questions crappy after sales service and, I would NEVER buy any of their gear again and would never recommend them to others, as is the case with A&K and their crappy, non-existent customer support. Many manufacturers forget that after sales service is as important as pre sales service and managed badly can do irreversible damage to their reputation. Vote with your dollars and don't spend your money with companies that don't have good customer support as there are many that have very good support and deserve our financial support My 2c worth. Cheers.

 

[RAZRr1275]

  I find it ridiculous that customers should be liable for shipping costs to return faulty equipment still under warranty. The manufacturer should AT LEAST pay return shipping costs as they supplied a faulty piece of gear. If it happened to me I would be posting on every related forum I could find to warn others of the manufacturer in questions crappy after sales service and, I would NEVER buy any of their gear again and would never recommend them to others, as is the case with A&K and their crappy, non-existent customer support. Many manufacturers forget that after sales service is as important as pre sales service and managed badly can do irreversible damage to their reputation. Vote with your dollars and don't spend your money with companies that don't have good customer support as there are many that have very good support and deserve our financial support My 2c worth. Cheers.

Oh trust me that's exactly what I'm going to do if this happens again and he doesn't agree to cover shipping costs both ways regardless of whether or not he finds something. I would send it in but my thing is if I can't replicate this issue on command how am I supposed to be sure that he'll find something? If he doesn't I'm out of $300-$400 which I can't afford. If there was audible distortion or something I'd send it to him no question because I know that he'd hear it and I'd get my money back for shipping but something like a random volume spike. There's no telling what he will or won't find.

 

[bimmer100]

  I find it ridiculous that customers should be liable for shipping costs to return faulty equipment still under warranty. The manufacturer should AT LEAST pay return shipping costs as they supplied a faulty piece of gear. If it happened to me I would be posting on every related forum I could find to warn others of the manufacturer in questions crappy after sales service and, I would NEVER buy any of their gear again and would never recommend them to others, as is the case with A&K and their crappy, non-existent customer support. Many manufacturers forget that after sales service is as important as pre sales service and managed badly can do irreversible damage to their reputation. Vote with your dollars and don't spend your money with companies that don't have good customer support as there are many that have very good support and deserve our financial support My 2c worth. Cheers.

the warranty is very clear and upfront to customers. So this shouldn't be an issue if a buyer agree's to the terms. SURE, maybe it's too risky for some. Maybe some don't care, but either way, they are not hiding the terms. Simply put, I wish it was a little better, but I willingly agreed to these terms.
I simply know that my M11 was leagues above other gear out there. comparing with 5-10k gear all day long. So I'll risk the potential issue of a warranty claim. that's just me. And to add, i've had worse issues with local USA based companies that will remain nameless. I don't agree with audio-gd's return policy as being AWESOME, but it is "acceptable" at best. sadly it's quite expensive to ship anything from the USA to china...likely for other countries too?  Anyhow, the M11 likely will cost 250 to ship to china is my guess, and AGD will cover about 150 of it. MAYBE you could negotiate the full price. and likely USPS is your best bet. has been in my experience. Recently returned a DOA BREEZE DUU8 DDC...POS junk, but they covered shipping to return, it was only 65bucks or something.  But it's also about 1/8th of the size of the M11.
 
http://audio-gd.com/Warranty-EN.htm
 
The Products Have 10 Years  Repair Guarantee
     We burn in all gears for more than 100 hours and check several times before shipping, to make sure that our products have a good quality control.
     
First year repair guarantee:
     If the gears have any problems (manufacturing defects and which is not caused by the user), customers can ship back the gears, we will refund the shipping cost (customers must submit the shipping bill following which we will reimburse the amount to customers, please note that we will only refund shipping cost equal to what the customer had initially paid us for shipping the gears to them when placing the order). We will repair the defective gears for free and then ship back to customers, we will cover the full shipping cost shipping back to the customers. 
    Please note: 
1, If the gears have not any problems but customers had shipping back, we don't cover any shipping cost, and the customers want to pay the shipping cost for shipping back to them.
2, If the gears have  fault while customers just received within 15 days and we check it is had fault , we will cover  shipping cost of the gears shipping back to China, and shipping a band new unit to the customers . The fault unit will repair and sale in used market.
3, If the gears have  any problems while customers just received  within 15 days and we check it is had not fault in fact,  we don't cover any shipping cost, and return the unit's price to customers (not include any shipping cost) but don't  shipping the unit back to customers. 
4, The shipping back gears must pack with the original pack box and foams  , otherwise if damage during shipping we don't  cover the repair charge.
5, We will test the shipping back gears based on the world standard  or the AP SYS-2722 , we will trustily to report the issue to customers .

After the completion of First year Repair guarantee :
     If the gears have any problems (manufacturing defects and which is not caused by the user), in this case, the customers only pay for both ways (to and fro) shipping costs, while we will repair for free  labor charges.


User inflicted problem repair guarantee:
     Customers must pay for both ways (to and fro) shipping and the cost of parts, while labor charges are free. 

          
     If you have any inquiries, please send email to 
          audio-gd@126.com
     We will reply as soon as possible.

 

[Khragon]

Agreed warranty could be better, especially for international buyers because of shipping cost. What you can do is maybe to asking Kingwa for another volume control unit and replace that your self, should still be cheaper than to have to pay shipping both way.

Analysis using AP SYS-2722 would only be applicable for audio quality problem, this seems to be either a bug in the firmware (unlikely since most of us would experience the issue too) or manufacturing (which should be fix with board replacement)

 

[RAZRr1275]

Agreed warranty could be better, especially for international buyers because of shipping cost. What you can do is maybe to asking Kingwa for another volume control unit and replace that your self, should still be cheaper than to have to pay shipping both way.

I don't think it's the vol control since I wasn't using the knob at all when it happened and haven't all day. I have a second volume control but have no idea how to replace it and it would require opening the dac which would void a portion of the warranty. I insisted that due to the nature of this issue being one that can't be easily replicated, that he cover shipping both ways on my unit since there are at least 2 other people who have the same issue and it needs to be checked out, since I, like the others, are not going to send the unit to him if there's a chance that we're on the hook for $300-400 if he can't replicate it. Hopefully he takes it well. If not, I'll proceed from there
 
Also thanks for the comment about AP SYS-2722. Cements my decision that he isn't getting the unit unless he agrees to pay for shipping both ways as since I can't replicate this issue and his usual diagnostic methods would find nothing I can only assume that I'd get held accountable for shipping.

 

[Khragon]

Yeah, never hurt to ask, keep us posted.

 

[RAZRr1275]

So we're in the troubleshooting stage. His first suggestions were that either another light source did it or the sun somehow screwed up the remote receiver to make it glitchy. Unlikely to be the case since it was getting dark when this happened and the only light sources in the room are my monitor and computer leds both of which are isolated from the unit.

 

[LancerFIN]

When I contacted Kingwa about my volume control problems he didn't seem think much of it. I didn't push it further since it hasn't happened again. Other than once when I turned the M11 on my volume was set to 99. I certainly did not leave it at 99 when I turned the unit off.

 

[swannie007]

It's those bloody gremlins with their invisible cloaking devices!!

 

[RAZRr1275]

  It's those bloody gremlins with their invisible cloaking devices!!

That made me laugh - thanks for that. I needed that tonight.

 

[swannie007]

A little laughter is always good for you!