[justanut]

It's Ming Jiang series referenced by WoodyLuvr here: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/earbuds-round-up.441400/post-17102247

Did you buy it through Taobao directly? Curious to know if the process was smooth compared to Aliexpress...how is it with shipping and payment options (seems to be working for Singapore)?

I see! They did market themselves as a 16 year-old audio enthusiast store. Hopeful that they would be good. Process is smooth, I could use Apple Pay directly in the app, which helps alleviate payment issues. Not all shops on Taobao ship overseas, you have to check their shipping options, usually by sea or by air. I have friends who order furniture for their entire home from Taobao that ship via sea and arrive in crates.

 

[mt877]

I think with the Grand Wazoo song I do notice the clarity difference! I should also mention that I've been using both rw-3000 and rw-4000 without any foam tips (just find them more comfy naked). Not sure if that may affect my listening experience negatively though? Now that you've had the chance to compare yourself, and think each has their own advantages, which do you think has the design best suited for gaming? Since for me that's a higher priority than music!
Thanks for all the advice thus far!

I don't normally use earbuds without full or donut foams except for some older Apple Earbuds which were designed and tuned for use without any foams. I would expect the RW-3000 and RW-4000 to sound somewhat thin / lacking bass without any foams. I had to read back on our previous conversation to remember why you don't use foams. Anyway, I think since you have both buds already, that you would be the best judge for their gaming usage since you can do A/B listening comparisons and choose what sounds best to you.

 

[mt877]

You are welcome. Speaking of which, I came back to that chat today (actually I left it open) and nope, there is still no reply. That is very sad because as I said, I would have actually bought the 32Ω version. This company is pushing a wonderful product in such a poor and unprofessional manner. They could be one of those shining things in a world of darkness if they were upfront/honest/willing to help.

You could always try those 300Ω buds they told me about in the chat... LOL

Eh, good suggestion, NOT. LoL!

 

[omerad]

That's good to hear, there are so many audio brands anymore it's hard to know whether one is good or not unless there's a lot of info about them or you have personal experience with them. They seemed legit but it never hurts to double check as there are much more well known brands with shady practies :cough: KZ :cough:. What's the difference between the DR08 and DR09? There aren't any detailed specs about the DR08 to compare with what's listed for the DR09.

Yeah it's super frustrating, I understand there's a language barrier but you would think that regardless of what site you're using there would be an incentive to provide good customer service especially if you're a smaller, niche store. It's good to hear that sellers on Taobao are held to a higher standard than AliExpress, you have to be very diligent when buying from AE though at least you have the option for them to refund you if the seller won't fix the issue. While built-in translation would be nice there are serviceable free translators and pretty decent paid translators that can remove some of that barrier but it's not as frictionless as AliExpress. I've bought bought products from Amazon Japan and purchased digital manga from cmoa.jp so I'm used to interpreting what I read through translation. I know that AliExpress handles logistics and shipping for some items but do they handle customs as well or is that up to each store? And for sellers on Taobao is it completely up to them to handle any logistics and customs issues as well as shipping? Yep I would rather have as much info before buying something in case I run into an issue especially when it's not going to be an easy process to get a replacement or refund.

That's the feeling I got from them as well and while there's nothing wrong with that it does really limit your potential customers when your products are so hard to buy. With how many manufacturers of audio equipment there are in China you would think they could partner with another company to use their production line and at least make regular, small batches. But maybe they don't want to give up the manufacturing process to another company since it would limit their design options compared to building it themselves. Yeah I'm surprised there's not even a listing for the 600 on their own Taobao store and no listings of the current version of the 600 at all, it's crazy that you had to go to such lengths to get them as well. If they were honest about what they had it wouldn't be such an issue, it's so weird that even when I want what they're actually selling that they won't even answer my questions. I hope so as well but with the timeline I saw on this thread not coming to fruition my hope of the situation improving isn't very high but hopefully I'm wrong.

Specs for DR08: impedance 32Ohm or 150Ohm, sensitivity 103dB/98dB, frequency response 10-40KHz

I don't really want to deride them, it's just a relatively smaller audio brand. They're not even very big within the flathead game, not compared to the more well known brands like Venture Electronics, Fiio, K's, Yincrow, Toneking, Moondrop. I will just continue enjoying their sound and hope they release new products soon and get the privilege of handing them my money again.

I get the frustration with Aliexpress. International purchases are already risky without the problems of poor communication and spotty information. In the end most of the buying experiences on Aliexpress or Taobao are really pretty great, when you think about how a small customized audio product made in a shop in Shenzhen gets all the way to the other side of the world and delivered to your door. My own experience buying internationally is similarly iffy due to pretty strict customs coming into China. Some things I won't want to risk losing, like when I got a Serratus had it shipped to a relative in South Korea and then flew there to pick it up. If you can figure out the system and are brave enough, or use a buying agent, you will find some interesting products on Taobao. My current go to earbud is Zeva Silver Lord 493Ohm, or another one am eyeing is a custom flathead design which getting a lot of fans:

 

[DruidZebra]

I don't normally use earbuds without full or donut foams except for some older Apple Earbuds which were designed and tuned for use without any foams. I would expect the RW-3000 and RW-4000 to sound somewhat thin / lacking bass without any foams. I had to read back on our previous conversation to remember why you don't use foams. Anyway, I think since you have both buds already, that you would be the best judge for their gaming usage since you can do A/B listening comparisons and choose what sounds best to you.

Makes sense, thanks! I have one last question for me to decide on returning the 4000s to only stick with 3000s if you'll indulge me: Given my lack of experience I was wondering, how often do earbuds like these yincrows get damaged? If I returned the rw-4000s and took good care of the 3000s, could I expect them to stay at pristine performance for the next decade? Or is is often wise to buy a second pair you like during a great sale like last month, because one should expect issues to start arising after several years of heavy (but careful) use?

 

[mt877]

Makes sense, thanks! I have one last question for me to decide on returning the 4000s to only stick with 3000s if you'll indulge me: Given my lack of experience I was wondering, how often do earbuds like these yincrows get damaged? If I returned the rw-4000s and took good care of the 3000s, could I expect them to stay at pristine performance for the next decade? Or is is often wise to buy a second pair you like during a great sale like last month, because one should expect issues to start arising after several years of heavy (but careful) use?

I have a few earbuds from when I wasn't even really interested in buds from the 90's and they may not sound the greatest, but they still work fine. That's probably because they sat untouched in the back of a drawer or in some cardboard box stored away until I happen to cross their path again and dug them out. For most people the main concern is the cable. Constant flexing will eventually break the fine strands of the wires and that's when problems start to show up. In the case of the RW3k, if you're not having any issues right now and you're not constantly swapping cables and causing mechanical stress on the mmcx connectors, then it would just be a matter of getting a replacement cable if your cable goes bad.

On the other hand, we know that companies can stop production of any product without warning and it's most likely to happen when you're looking to buy an exact replacement. So if you do like the RW3k, it might be worth it to have a backup set for the future.

 

[mt877]

Specs for DR08: impedance 32Ohm or 150Ohm, sensitivity 103dB/98dB, frequency response 10-40KHz

I don't really want to deride them, it's just a relatively smaller audio brand. They're not even very big within the flathead game, not compared to the more well known brands like Venture Electronics, Fiio, K's, Yincrow, Toneking, Moondrop. I will just continue enjoying their sound and hope they release new products soon and get the privilege of handing them my money again.

I get the frustration with Aliexpress. International purchases are already risky without the problems of poor communication and spotty information. In the end most of the buying experiences on Aliexpress or Taobao are really pretty great, when you think about how a small customized audio product made in a shop in Shenzhen gets all the way to the other side of the world and delivered to your door. My own experience buying internationally is similarly iffy due to pretty strict customs coming into China. Some things I won't want to risk losing, like when I got a Serratus had it shipped to a relative in South Korea and then flew there to pick it up. If you can figure out the system and are brave enough, or use a buying agent, you will find some interesting products on Taobao. My current go to earbud is Zeva Silver Lord 493Ohm, or another one am eyeing is a custom flathead design which getting a lot of fans:

My buying experience from AE has been pretty positive. I've had a couple of glitches when buying some DIY materials for bud building, but a quick message to the store was enough to get things on the right track again. I've been tempted to buy from Taobao using a buying agent, but after adding up the agent fees and international shipping cost it wasn't worth it to make the purchase. That's where AE shines. No hassle low cost or often free international shipping to the US is a big incentive when buying from AliExpress. The selection of products may not be as great as from Taobao, but that is a limitation I can live with as long as I can get the majority of what interests me within the electronics / head gear product lines.

 

[trevdawg94]

Specs for DR08: impedance 32Ohm or 150Ohm, sensitivity 103dB/98dB, frequency response 10-40KHz

I don't really want to deride them, it's just a relatively smaller audio brand. They're not even very big within the flathead game, not compared to the more well known brands like Venture Electronics, Fiio, K's, Yincrow, Toneking, Moondrop. I will just continue enjoying their sound and hope they release new products soon and get the privilege of handing them my money again.

I get the frustration with Aliexpress. International purchases are already risky without the problems of poor communication and spotty information. In the end most of the buying experiences on Aliexpress or Taobao are really pretty great, when you think about how a small customized audio product made in a shop in Shenzhen gets all the way to the other side of the world and delivered to your door. My own experience buying internationally is similarly iffy due to pretty strict customs coming into China. Some things I won't want to risk losing, like when I got a Serratus had it shipped to a relative in South Korea and then flew there to pick it up. If you can figure out the system and are brave enough, or use a buying agent, you will find some interesting products on Taobao. My current go to earbud is Zeva Silver Lord 493Ohm, or another one am eyeing is a custom flathead design which getting a lot of fans:

Thank you for the specs, I appreciate it. I'll take a look at the two of them when I'm not traveling, I may have to bite the bullet if I want to buy one from Taobao as they're starting to sell out.

I completely understand how challenging it is to run a small business, especially one that combines both manufacturing and retail sales. Though I would rather deal with manufacturing issues than customer's problems, thankfully when you run your own business you don't have to subscribe to the mantra that "the customer is always right" when they're often not. I need to just focus on the actual product not the experience; it's hard when you have ten years of retail experience to shut that part of your brain of though. In a small, rural town your reputation is everything since you have a limited customer base and if you mistreat a customer or mishandle a problem half the town will know by the next day lol. In larger cities or online it's not as big of an issue since you have much larger customer base and word of mouth isn't as prevalent.

I shouldn't be so harsh on AliExpress, there is so much crap on Amazon anymore that it's not much better tbh and eBay isn't great either though their reviews help a lot. Part of the problem with AliExpress is that quite a few reviews are in another language and their translator isn't great, especially with any language that uses Cyrillic characters. Yeah I take that for granted, I'm so used to being able to easily get obscure parts from the likes of Digikey and Mouser that I don't consider what it takes for them to get those parts in the first place. And that's for items that are mass produced, not bespoke and often hand-built products. I'm really fortunate that the US has fairly lax customs that don't even care if an item isn't properly labeled, I know most other countries aren't that forgiving. Thankfully I've only had a few small items that were lost and I was able to get a refund, both times it was USPS' fault not the original shipper so that's what I'm most worried about. I got to the checkout page the other day by accident and was pleased to see that the seller has to send you a picture of the item before you pay which helps make sure you're getting what you want. And the fact that both Beijing Oak Leaf and Yinman's official store list all of the variants with stock indicators for each gives me even more confidence.

 

[samandhi]

I get the frustration with Aliexpress. International purchases are already risky without the problems of poor communication and spotty information. In the end most of the buying experiences on Aliexpress or Taobao are really pretty great, when you think about how a small customized audio product made in a shop in Shenzhen gets all the way to the other side of the world and delivered to your door. My own experience buying internationally is similarly iffy due to pretty strict customs coming into China. Some things I won't want to risk losing, like when I got a Serratus had it shipped to a relative in South Korea and then flew there to pick it up. If you can figure out the system and are brave enough, or use a buying agent, you will find some interesting products on Taobao. My current go to earbud is Zeva Silver Lord 493Ohm, or another one am eyeing is a custom flathead design which getting a lot of fans:

Please don't get me wrong with my current tirade about AVCCK store. My first purchase from them (the Yinman 2.0 600) was a flawless experience. As a matter of fact, other than having issues with one budget set of buds (that was replaced without having to even send the damaged one back), I have had zero issues shopping on AE. It has been VERY smooth for the most part.

I never buy from FleaBay, so I never have to worry about being completely ripped off. I remember back when the XBox 360 first came out. There were sellers on there selling just the box for it, and making kilobucks for it. Of course the people buying this product (thinking they are getting an XBox 360) were too stupid to read the a)very small print b)clever wording that technically never lied.

Also, unless it is a certain type of product, I won't order stuff like this on Amazon either. It used to be that as long as it was labeled as "shipped by Amazon" you could feel safe in your purchase. This is no longer true. My daughter JUST called me yesterday about a Samsung smartwatch that she just received. When booting it up, the only region she could choose from when setting it up was United Arab Kingdom. And, in case you hadn't read my location, we are in the US.... haha

Needless to say, Amazon is pulling an old Chinese market trick (make it so hard to return it, it isn't worth the effort). Rather than being able to take it to an authorized Amazon return center (like with every other product), they would not issue an RMA, that UPS would bring the label with them, and she had to be present. This is not a problem for those that never work, because UPS usually gives an arrival time of 9:00AM to 8:00PM. This gives the customer motivation to just keep the item.

There are still a few out there, but for the most part a lot of businesses today are morally corrupt (not necessarily doing anything explicitly illegal); whether that be product description, quality, or after sales care (this is the really big one nowadays). It is a shame that buying experiences have become more of a chore, where you have to be on your toes at all times and do some major research before you can feel comfortable in making a purchase. Most people just want to be able to read about the product and the after care services, and be able to count on that; rather than having to do extensive/exhaustive research on the company they are buying from, and read tons of reviews to see patterns, etc....

 

[samandhi]

I have a few earbuds from when I wasn't even really interested in buds from the 90's and they may not sound the greatest, but they still work fine. That's probably because they sat untouched in the back of a drawer or in some cardboard box stored away until I happen to cross their path again and dug them out. For most people the main concern is the cable. Constant flexing will eventually break the fine strands of the wires and that's when problems start to show up. In the case of the RW3k, if you're not having any issues right now and you're not constantly swapping cables and causing mechanical stress on the mmcx connectors, then it would just be a matter of getting a replacement cable if your cable goes bad.

On the other hand, we know that companies can stop production of any product without warning and it's most likely to happen when you're looking to buy an exact replacement. So if you do like the RW3k, it might be worth it to have a backup set for the future.

Wait! Can you order a replacement cable for either the RW2000 or the RW3000? I guess I have never tried, but I wouldn't know who to contact if I did, since they don't have an official storefront on AE.

 

[mt877]

Wait! Can you order a replacement cable for either the RW2000 or the RW3000? I guess I have never tried, but I wouldn't know who to contact if I did, since they don't have an official storefront on AE.

By replacement I meant any good mmcx cable, but I got a nice one for ya which is about as close to a Yincrow RW type cable as you can get...

Spoiler

XINHS 8 Core Blue / Silver - Silver Plated Cable - Modular Cable

They have a picture of a 2 pin as an example, but you can select from these choices: MMCX | 0.78mm 2 pin | QDC | TFC
The cable comes with pre-formed earhooks, but from my understanding XINHS will make the cable without the pre-formed earhooks on request.
I ordered a couple of these cables with the earhooks, but I'll trim off the pre-form tubing as needed.

 

[samandhi]

By replacement I meant any good mmcx cable, but I got a nice one for ya which is about as close to a Yincrow RW type cable as you can get...

Spoiler

XINHS 8 Core Blue / Silver - Silver Plated Cable - Modular Cable

They have a picture of a 2 pin as an example, but you can select from these choices: MMCX | 0.78mm 2 pin | QDC | TFC
The cable comes with pre-formed earhooks, but from my understanding XINHS will make the cable without the pre-formed earhooks on request.
I ordered a couple of these cables with the earhooks, but I'll trim off the pre-form tubing as needed.

Fantastic! Thanks very much for sharing... I will grab a couple/few of these.

Of course this might become the main for my RW3000 since I got mine when they first came out, and Yincrow hadn't yet offered the modular connections like they did afterwards.

P.S. Ordered two of them. I didn't request straight down either, but will cut tubing off (or use hair dryer) if need be... I actually like the over ear style for the RWxxxx buds.

 

[atlatl]

Yincrow rw-9 sounds greater than X6.


HieGi donut foams: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/2251832456516124.html

huge thanks for the HieiGi recommendation! they are well manufactured and sound great!

mini reviews:
Yincrow x6 (gold & red): great value and introduction to mx500 shells for me. my knock on these is the timbre can be off on some energetic genres but excellent for most since stock tuning is great. my left pinna area is smaller than my right, so with the stock x6 foams there is discomfort, and the same problem with FiiO Bass foams; don't wear these naked. on the other hand, the HieiGi donuts' fit are the most comfortable and sound excellent.

FiiO FF1 (racing silver): the sport silicone tips fit great but full foams make the stock tuning work; seems to balance out the sound signature the best. the stock bass foams fit just past the apex of the bud and require a little peq to bring out the best. the HieiGi full foams fit well past the apex and are perfect for these by producing a warmer sound signature and a better soundstage.

sucks that mx500 shells don't fit quite right since it seems a lot of gear out there use this design but at least i have the ff1 design to help discern better buys. between the two buds, i prefer the ff1 due to wider compatibility with more genres, use cases (videos, podcasts, calls, gaming), and a no pain fit.

 

[mt877]

Fantastic! Thanks very much for sharing... I will grab a couple/few of these.

Of course this might become the main for my RW3000 since I got mine when they first came out, and Yincrow hadn't yet offered the modular connections like they did afterwards.

P.S. Ordered two of them. I didn't request straight down either, but will cut tubing off (or use hair dryer) if need be... I actually like the over ear style for the RWxxxx buds.

You got it Bro! Here's a side by side comparison. Oh yeah, the XINHS is softer and more flexible than the Yincrow cable.

Spoiler

Click the pic to make it bigger.

 

[nicolaspiazza]

Hi, guys! I'm back. Yesterday I received Temperament X6 and FAAEAL Rosemary.
The X6 feels really nice, come in a good taste package. Loved the velvet sack, earhook and donut foams. It sounds great, way better than any of my previous gear. Nice detailing and good bass. Too bad I can't find to buy the detachable 4.4 plug. Any tips?

Today I testes FAAEAL Rosemary. Sweet Jesus! I don't know if it pairs perfectly with Moondrop Dawn (balanced), but it sounds so... powerful! I was so surprised by it I picked my trusty Zero:Red and they sounded so bland and thin. I'm really glad I grabed one. Probably will be my favorite headphone for a good time.

But... What would be an upgrade? Just so I can track and monitor it's price