[antdroid]

Looks like they have steel reinforcement in the new headband now:

http://store.hifiman.com/index.php/the-newly-enhanced-comfort-headband.html

 

[HungryPanda]

I attached a photograph of the broken yoke in the email I sent to customer support

 

[koover]

I would assume it’s a bit difficult to tell if the glue/resin is going to fail when otherwise it looks perfectly acceptable out of the box. How would you suggest they qc this problem better? Just bend them all untill they break? They announced a while back that they had an issue with an unannounced change their plastics manufacture made and have said they will replace any faulty units and that going forward they have addressed the issue with their manufacture. It sucks that stuff breaks, but it’s how a company reacts in such a failure that is what matters.

Yes, you’re absolutely correct on how to handle after said opportunity has been recognized. It is quite simple.
What they’re doing is lazy and taking the easy way out. These aren’t manufactured through automated machinery on a conveyer belt.
It’s shotty workmanship and or/materials. You betcha, if you got this type of widespread issue, maybe you DO bend every 5 or so from each batch to ensure you’re selling a quality product. Yeah, stuff happens and it’s unfortunate. It isn’t like they sell 500 a day . Bottom line what we’re talking about is the way they’re handling the situation after the fact. This isn’t a few random owners. Recall the entire run/lot and replace.

 

[antdroid]

I just took my two headbands out of storage - one is a brand new one that I never installed from Hifiman and a broken one. I just noticed something while bending back my glued on yoke... there's a void running spanwise right down the center of the yoke. I wonder if that is intended or a defect - which could explain why these are breaking so often. I dont imagine it's intended to be there, or if these were intended to have the steel reinforcement of the new "comfort" bands and they forgot to put it in the mold prior to injecting resin into it.

 

[HungryPanda]

As I opened my case and picked them up the left cup just fell back into the case. This is the photograph I sent in the email to HifiMan

 

[Motocrossman24]

Yes, you’re absolutely correct on how to handle after said opportunity has been recognized. It is quite simple.
What they’re doing is lazy and taking the easy way out. These aren’t manufactured through automated machinery on a conveyer belt.
It’s shotty workmanship and or/materials. You betcha, if you got this type of widespread issue, maybe you DO bend every 5 or so from each batch to ensure you’re selling a quality product. Yeah, stuff happens and it’s unfortunate. It isn’t like they sell 500 a day . Bottom line what we’re talking about is the way they’re handling the situation after the fact. This isn’t a few random owners. Recall the entire run/lot and replace.

I still don’t share your sentiment...the yokes are absolutely being made on an assembly line, that’s exactly how molded plastic is made, yes they install the finished product when assembling the headphone and I’m sure they have caught more then a few...it’s entirely possible that whatever test they’re doing to ensure strength is passing, and simply through repeated packaging/unpackaging from the box(most stressful thing the headphone will ever go through) when someone buys them, the other shoddy plastic breaks. Maybe I just don’t look at everything so pesamistically. Or maybe I’m just a realist. But a company like hifiman doesn’t become a major player in one of the “snobbiest” markets in the world without having good products with good support.

 

[antdroid]

I still don’t share your sentiment...the yokes are absolutely being made on an assembly line, that’s exactly how molded plastic is made, yes they install the finished product when assembling the headphone and I’m sure they have caught more then a few...it’s entirely possible that whatever test they’re doing to ensure strength is passing, and simply through repeated packaging/unpackaging from the box(most stressful thing the headphone will ever go through) when someone buys them, the other shoddy plastic breaks. Maybe I just don’t look at everything so pesamistically. Or maybe I’m just a realist. But a company like hifiman doesn’t become a major player in one of the “snobbiest” markets in the world without having good products with good support.

I work in aerospace and qualify suppliers to do plastic molding, composites etc. In our world, we typically have them run through a qualification where we break and examine a handful of them that are representative of their production process and see if it is to our specs. If it is, we green-light them to move forward with production as long as they follow their stable, robust process. Sometimes there may be end item inspection and testing, but it's usually not more than visual and some ultrasonic or x-ray inspection. If things do go sour, systemically, we may go back and ask them to do a sampling plan, where they break every so many depending on the batch size. Granted, the supplier's quality engineers should already be doing this anyway without our input.

It's very likely something wasn't being followed correctly. This can happen if there's a new person on the job, or someone got lazy. Or maybe a bad batch of raw materials came in and wasn't known. Or they didnt clean their mixers and it got contaminated, or a variety of other escapements.

 

[koover]

I’m just perplexed how you can look at this as pessimism. It’s a faulty product and it’s a no brainer to recall when it’s this widespread. How many 560’s do you think they sell? The % is pretty high on this batch (maybe close to 100%????) and who knows how many others have a faulty HP that doesn’t subscribe to Headfi. Just because the mold was made somewhere else, doesn’t mean the company with their name on it isn’t 100% accountable and responsible for their finished “expensive” product. This isn’t food where it’s an easy return and a refund is issued. You can say no biggie, they made a mistake, but this has affected more then likely hundreds+ of consumers and we’ll just let it slide and they’re doing a good job handling this? They’ll hassel me by making me ship it back, waiting for the return, then expecting me to install the new yolk MYSELF . Lol. That’s a joke. They’re lazy and again, taking the easy way out. If you can’t see that, well?
We can just agree to disagree and leave it at that.

 

[Motocrossman24]

I’m just perplexed how you can look at this as pessimism. It’s a faulty product and it’s a no brainer to recall when it’s this widespread. How many 560’s do you think they sell? The % is pretty high on this batch (maybe close to 100%????) and who knows how many others have a faulty HP that doesn’t subscribe to Headfi. Just because the mold was made somewhere else, doesn’t mean the company with their name on it isn’t 100% accountable and responsible for their finished “expensive” product. This isn’t food where it’s an easy return and a refund is issued. You can say no biggie, they made a mistake, but this has affected more then likely hundreds+ of consumers and we’ll just let it slide and they’re doing a good job handling this? They’ll hassel me by making me ship it back, waiting for the return, then expecting me to install the new yolk MYSELF . Lol. That’s a joke. They’re lazy and again, taking the easy way out. If you can’t see that, well?
We can just agree to disagree and leave it at that.

Let’s put it this way, go through this thread and individually count the number of broken yokes...Iv read the entire thing and would guesstimate less then 20 pairs of headphones. There have easily been thousands of these sold...who do you hear from on a public forum 90% of the time? The ones who broke their products or are unhappy...calling the he560 a failed and flawed product because of a stupid small number of failures is simply ignorant. Iv dropped mine from standing head level(roughly 6’) onto concrete and they’re A-OK.
A mistake happened, whether it was hifiman a fault or their supplier it doesn’t matter...they are taking care of their customers whenever it happens, sometimes even giving them a metal headband(which costs more) per customer request, to keep them happy. crap happens, freaking audeze had how many driver failures? That entire thread is filled with issues, yet people still love them. If you don’t want the headphones don’t buy them. If you listened to them and weren’t happy then they’re not for you, time to move on. But going on public forums and bashing a product and a manufacture with rediculous unthought out blanket statements is not right...do you even own these headphones?

 

[Midgetguy]

Looks like they have steel reinforcement in the new headband now:

http://store.hifiman.com/index.php/the-newly-enhanced-comfort-headband.html

Interesting. You think they did this as both a response and preventative measure for the future or do you think it was in the pipeline already? A new headband with internal support structure shows a response to the broken ones, but also acts as a preventative measure for the future as a sort of backup; in case some future run has a batch of bad plastics, the steel reinforcement could at least sort of keep it together even if the plastic starts to go a bit. They could get cracking but not total breakage like the ones we've seen so far.

 

[koover]

Absolutely own the headphones and have zero issues with mine. This isn’t about me. Let me say it even again..... this is about the batch, the lot from Adorama. I’ve stated that and the word ADORAMA, BATCH, LOT but I guess I have to again. I didn’t purchase from them and im quite happy with the build quality and sound signature. But I’m guessing others aren’t as happy as me. It’s about recalling the 560’s from a certain batch that was produced from a certain establishment. It’s quite simple.
Listen I’m done. You’re more then welcome to respond but I don’t feel the need to continue. We see things differently and I’m absolutely cool with that.

 

[antdroid]

Absolutely own the headphones and have zero issues with mine. This isn’t about me. Let me say it even again..... this is about the batch, the lot from Adorama. I’ve stated that and the word ADORAMA, BATCH, LOT but I guess I have to again. I didn’t purchase from them and im quite happy with the build quality and sound signature. But I’m guessing others aren’t as happy as me. It’s about recalling the 560’s from a certain batch that was produced from a certain establishment. It’s quite simple.
Listen I’m done. You’re more then welcome to respond but I don’t feel the need to continue. We see things differently and I’m absolutely cool with that.

While I think a recall probably should have occurred (and it may have, who knows), their CS has been great so far with the broken headbands I've had. You either deal with it up front or you deal it post-sale. They seem to have chosen to deal with it post-sale. I never had to ship mine back so I was able to still enjoy the headphones while a new headband was in transport. A little tape to the yokes made them usable again temporarily.

That said, this headphone is still great. I love the sound of these. I did sample the Sundara recently at AV Source while on a biz trip and I thought it was also a solid offering. I didnt particularly like the new headband though. It wasn't as comfortable (though it was not uncomfortable either) and actually didnt really look that great in person. I couldnt A-B them side by side with the HE560 but I thought they sounded nice.

 

[koover]

While I think a recall probably should have occurred (and it may have, who knows), their CS has been great so far with the broken headbands I've had. You either deal with it up front or you deal it post-sale. They seem to have chosen to deal with it post-sale. I never had to ship mine back so I was able to still enjoy the headphones while a new headband was in transport. A little tape to the yokes made them usable again temporarily.

That said, this headphone is still great. I love the sound of these. I did sample the Sundara recently at AV Source while on a biz trip and I thought it was also a solid offering. I didnt particularly like the new headband though. It wasn't as comfortable (though it was not uncomfortable either) and actually didnt really look that great in person. I couldnt A-B them side by side with the HE560 but I thought they sounded nice.

I love the sound of the 560’s. I have a Headfi friend who always was encouraging me to get these headphones. He knew my gear and my music likes. And sure enough, he was right and I’ve been very happy with these. They can sound a little thin and bright after listening to my AFO, MDR-Z7, Elear, etc. Bit when I give them steady headtime, I really enjoy them immensely.

I did Misspeak by saying you had to ship them back when you had a broken yoke where you don’t/didn’t have too. My bad!

 

[Motocrossman24]

I recently got to audition the aeon flow closed which before I got the he560 I was on the fence between the two. And I’m so glad I bought the he560. The aeon’s are very nice headphones, but they are pretty much the standard imo for a ‘flat or neutral headphone”. And while very resolving, they sounded completely lifeless compared to my he560. For someone who thrives on analytical listening the aeons would most likely be far superior. But they just missed that toe tapping energy I get from the 560. Zero bass punch, lifeless mids, and there was a peak around 10k that is the first time I actually had treble issues with a headphone(I was able to massively minimize this issue with a new tube selection in my amp to make them more enjoyable).

 

[gardibolt]

Hungry Panda, I'd see if you can get them to send you one of the steel reinforcement headbands since you're having to deal with international shipping and you sure don't want a repeat. You're still under warranty so they should.