[blinkstar]

Well, Fiio wrote me back .... Nice response time, I must say.
 
Thank you for your mail and support to FiiO!

sorry for the inconvenience that our E9 bring to you , if possible could you confirm the following information to me , please try to plug your headphone into the others output socket (like pre-output) to see if it still only one channel, if yes, I think there is something wrong with the input socket, if you  also have an E7,also please try to connect  the USB IN in your E9, and then to see if it still one channel ,if yes, I think there is something wrong with the headphone socket , I'm afraid you need to contact your vendor to handle your problem , if they refuse to do it ,please let us know who is your vendor, we will try our best to help you ,thanks,

​If you have any other question, please feel free to contact us!
 
 
To me it looks like they are shifting responsibility onto the vendor, although they do say they will try to help me with the vendor, whatever that means.
 
Next step I guess is to write the vendor--that would be Micca Distributor Llc. They sold it to me through Amazon and I'm afraid I'm going to end up like the other Amazon guy whose story I posted above ... We'll see. I'll post the response from Micca when I get it.

 

[jupitreas]

Since the warranty on your E9 is void, FiiO has no obligation to replace your unit for you. Neither does the vendor.

 

[blinkstar]

Quote:

Since the warranty on your E9 is void, FiiO has no obligation to replace your unit for you. Neither does the vendor.

Yes, of course I am aware of that. But I hope FiiO will help me anyway. I didn't send it in under the warranty while the warranty was still active, because there was no problem with the right channel then (or if there was, I wasn't aware of it). The right channel went out after the warranty expired. But it was through no fault of my own--I take very good care of my equipment.

 

[blinkstar]

Hey, the seller, Micca Store, wrote me back ....
 
 
This product is covered by a warranty from FiiO. If you would like to obtain manufacturer's warranty service directly from FiiO, please email FiiO at market@fiio.com.cn.

As an alternative, we can exchange this for you under our extended exchange program. Be sure to enclose a detailed description of the issue you are experiencing and a money order (USPS, MoneyGram, etc) for $25 to cover the exchange fee and return shipping and handling of the replacement back to you.

We only need the unit by itself returned to us. We do not need any of the accessories. Protect the item with padding to prevent shipping damage. Please place the item in a suitable bubble envelope or box and send it to the following address.
 
I don't actually know how long the warranty from FiiO is (I bought the unit in January of last year) but the offer from Micca sounds pretty fair--$25 to have it replaced with a (hopefully) non-defective unit. What do you all think?

 

[jupitreas]

All warranty in the EU is 24 months... Its the law. Even if the actual warranty in your documents is 12 months, the vendor is obliged to respect the 24 month EU warranty law...
..that is, if you are in the EU...

 

[blinkstar]

Quote:

All warranty in the EU is 24 months... Its the law. Even if the actual warranty in your documents is 12 months, the vendor is obliged to respect the 24 month EU warranty law...
..that is, if you are in the EU...

That is a good law. Sadly, I don't live in the EU. And it looks like FiiO has a one year warranty, and since I bought the amp on January 26th of last year, my warranty is up.

 

[poolk]

Estreeter and Nickel Zhang make good points... fiio product are a steal for how much they cost, but they do suffer from some quality inconsitencies here and there. 
 
I have heard of issues with the headphone jack with the e7, fortunately I have mine docked into the e9, and dont need to use it (I also dont take the e7 anywhere, so im not phased by the change in portability). My e9 is a little finicky sometimes with the static from the headphone jack, but 90 % of the time it has been consistent. 
 
Im curious to see how Fiio's customer service is, and waiting to see back from Blinkstarr. Faulty products can definitely be made up for by some great customer service. 

 

[pr0ton]

Hi, and welcome.
 
Reading this thread, I start worrying too. Using the E9/E7 combo with the HD650 earphones, I had never problems. Just switched to E17 (+E9 and LO bypass) and the right channel starts dropping from now and then. The E9 is now almost a year old.
 
Line IN seems to work fine all the time, and so it does when the E7 is in the dock. I believe it is the dock connector from the E9 that just doesn't fit the E17 well. Female dock connector from E17 looks good, maybe the dock connecter on the E9 looks somewhat damaged. Can try to take pictures. Also when turning the volume wheel, I hear quite a noise through the headphones, plus noise through the right channel is louder.
 
Since I'm still in the warranty perioud, should I consider returning it, to FiiO or the vendor? Device is bought from Dealextreme, afterwards not a wise choice whenever it needs to be send back to China..
 
Thanks.

 

[obobskivich]

Regarding the OP with the E9 - you got the one in a thousand or one in a million or whatever (whatever the fail rate is) defective E9, your experience is not the norm. Hopefully that's some consolation. If the dealer is willing to replace the product out of warranty, I'd entirely take them up on it; seriously what's to lose? You put $100+ into something, it's defective, and your options are either eat the $100 and drop it in a drawer, or have it addressed. Which makes more sense? (Obviously if you can repair it yourself, do that).
 
Regarding the actual reason for the failure, it's probably a mounting/contact issue - there's no "solution" unless you have the skills to take the thing apart and diagnose it yourself, and it's easier to just get it swapped or replaced by the manufacturer/dealer if possible (which it appears to be). I'm fairly impressed with Fiio's response (basically they could've told you to take a walk off a pier and been within their rights (and there's lots of companies that will sadly do this), and instead they're trying to help you - that's a great sign). The noise when adjusting the volume is likely unrelated to this issue, it's probably just a noisy pot (This is an all-too-common problem with pots in general) and there's not a whole lot you can do aside from replacing the pot (or the entire device) until you get one that is less noisy (and I'm guessing Fiio's QA doesn't go through and hand-pick pots as rigorously as we'd like). In short, *that* noise is nothing I'd really worry about, unless it gets progressively worse and/or you have a channel dropping - then you've got a contact issue. 
 
Regarding pr0ton's question - I doubt your dealer will take the device back up at nearly a year out. Most dealers only deal with you for 30 days and then support is assumed handled by the product warranty, some dealers give you 45, 60, or 90 days though (90 is very rare and usually has strings attached ime). So unless you've got the most understanding dealer ever, I'd say start with Fiio. 
 
 
 
 
 

 

[estreeter]

When the E9 was initially released, there were several reports of problems with the smaller headphone out - I just plugged an adapter into the 1/4" jack and I plug all my phones into that. The smaller jack also has a much higher output impedance, fwiw, and  the adapter lessens any forces on the large socket when I insert/remove my headphones. If the amp died tomorrow, I would definitely have gotten my money's worth out of it. 

 

[blinkstar]

Thanks to you all for weighing in!
 
I still want to know what you think of the dealer's offer to replace it for $25. Does that sound like a good deal or should I just put the $25 toward a better product?

 

[obobskivich]

As I said, you spent money on this product (and didn't get it fixed when you could've) - they're offering to make it right when they don't have to. That seems like a no-brainer to me. What better product is $25 going to get you? (I can't think of a single competitive product to the E9 in its price range, and even at two or four times its price, you're still getting a 6120 in many cases with the 6120's same output abilities; there's no magic, secret sauce in the more expensive units (now, substantially more expensive and complex units may get you more power or lower distortion or whatever else, but they're usually discrete circuits, huge, and expensive (like the WA2)). 
 
As far as the two output jacks, the 1/8" has an output impedance of something around 30 ohms, for driving IEMs and other things. That isn't "high" (really), and for a more in-depth explanation of output impedance (and why we can't just look at it in a linear fashion where we want 0.00000 or nothing): http://en.goldenears.net/index.php?mid=KB_Columns&document_srl=1389 
 
The 1/8" jack has a purpose, but neither of the outputs has "high" output impedance. 
 
 

 

[blinkstar]

Yes, obobskivisch, I think you are right. I will take them up on their offer.

 

[estreeter]

Quote:

As far as the two output jacks, the 1/8" has an output impedance of something around 30 ohms, for driving IEMs and other things. That isn't "high" (really), and for a more in-depth explanation of output impedance (and why we can't just look at it in a linear fashion where we want 0.00000 or nothing): http://en.goldenears.net/index.php?mid=KB_Columns&document_srl=1389 
 
The 1/8" jack has a purpose, but neither of the outputs has "high" output impedance. 
 
 

 
I'll leave the reasons why 30-ohms is too high for output impedance using modern IEMs to the experts here, but that figure doesnt gel with Voldemorts measurements, Personally, I've had no audible problem usiing my fullsize cans, but I dont have sensitive BA iems. 
 

1. Output impedance is high enough to seriously effect IEM headphones
2. 3.5mm mini jack output handicapped by 43 ohm output impedance
3. Some volume tracking channel balance error
4. Mediocre noise levels even in low gain mode
5. Mediocre low frequency distortion into low impedance loads

 

 

[obobskivich]

Okay, so 43 ohms, that's still not "high" - high is multiple hundred, like you'd get from a receiver. And even there, it's not always bad. It's context-dependent; based on the impedance FR of the load and the tastes of the listener (in other words, the reactive load will have its FR modified by Zout, but there is no absolute "right position" for that FR in the first place). Having an extremely low Zout can be an advantage with some loads, it can make no difference with others (if they have a flat impedance FR it will just attenuate evenly, and usually devices with huge Zout have HUGE (to headphones) amplifiers behind that impedance), and it can be detrimental to others beyond that. Same for a high Zout (a truly high Zout, like 470 ohms). It's not as cut and dry as "high is bad and we need it to be 0.0" and the only possible outcome is "different" not "better" or "worse." 
 
I know that "damping factor" is usually brought up in these discussions as well, but I submit that DF doesn't matter beyond marketable specs. It's just a clever way to obscure real specs on a device, like "RMS watts" (which don't exist) or PMPO; it gives the ad department some huge number they can stamp up on the device. It too is load dependent (which almost all manufacturers conveniently neglect to mention) and will vary with frequency. It's based on Zout (and the ultimate "problems" associated with a low DF are just the result of the impedance FR interaction). 
 
Does that jive?