[Pellepennan]

Quote:

As of Monday it will have been two months since I sent payment.  There have been two issues that both delayed things (mistakes on their part, once in shipping and once in the actual creation of the earphones), in addition to the standard "we don't have enough people" thing they addressed, which I'm more understanding about.
 
I'm not going to lie, this is quite frustrating at this point.  I know they're a startup and I've tried to be patient and optimistic, especially because they seemed like nice people when I briefly met them, but I'm really hoping the final product winds up being worth this.

I know, it´s frustrating. From the day I payed til I got my in ear monitors (made from Shure 535) it took almost four months. But with that said, I am very happy with how they sound. I think it would be a good thing if InEarCustom from the start was more clear how long it can take.

 

[sethsez]

Like I said, I accept that they're a startup and got more orders than they could handle.  I'm understanding of that, especially in light of seeing them bring more people on to get the work done.  I also don't want them to rush the product... I'll gladly wait longer if the result is better.  After all, a year from now I'll care more about the quality of the headphones than the extra couple weeks they took to get.
 
What gets me are the issues I've encountered that are really just the result of someone not double-checking a piece of paper or an email first.  The first time I placed my order, sent my money, and was shipped an invoice with a... cleaning tool.  No impression kit.  They got tidied up pretty quickly but it still didn't inspire confidence and took up an extra week.  The second time was Wednesday last week, when I got an email saying my headphones had been finished... in the wrong color (they made them clear rather than translucent blue like I had asked), and asked whether I wanted them redone or would take them as-is.  I wanted them redone and am currently waiting for that.
 
I know everyone has an outlier experience with a company at least once, and I hope this is just a streak of bad luck rather than actually being indicative of their service in general.  I'm also hoping the final product is good enough to make the rest of this moot, and I really do think they're just a small company that got overwhelmed and is trying to keep up with demand.  If it all winds up good in the end I'll still be happy, and if everyone else in the thread has good experiences I'd still be willing to recommend them.  But right now I'm frustrated and worried about what the possibility of a refit could entail.
 
Edit: I'd also like to note that they were very apologetic about both incidents.

 

[Turrican2]

I was quite excited about the prospect of getting some triple-Fi 10's custom shelled, especially at the price Rob is charging.

I've always liked the tf-10's but they were a terrible fit for me. So I bit the bullet in Nov last year. eBay sale said up to 10 working days after they receive the impressions I believe. Received the impressions within a week or two (I'm in the uk) and sent them straight back to Rob the next day.


I received the reshelled tf-10s in feb and they were a reasonable fit but not good, little to no isolation and the sound was awful. Bass did not exist at all. I told Rob, and he said send them back for a refit. So I sent them back straight away.

Yesterday I received reshelled iems.

These ones fit quite well, very comfortable but the sound is not there. If I press quite lightly on both earpieces they sound great, like the tf-10 i remember - nice sparkly highs, solid bass and smooth mids. But let go and there is no bass to speak of, just a hollow, tinny sound. I think they are so close but ultimately useles. After 6 months I'm over it, I'm quite disappointed really.

I believe the reason for my fit problems stems from the crappy impression kits, which I believe he has now changed. I wanted to get some pro impressions done but couldn't get sorted out with an audiologist. I'm kicking myself now as I still believe, given a good impression that rob could make a great budget ciem.

Think I'll take this as a learning experience and move on.

 

[jay19]

Quote:

I was quite excited about the prospect of getting some triple-Fi 10's custom shelled, especially at the price Rob is charging.

I've always liked the tf-10's but they were a terrible fit for me. So I bit the bullet in Nov last year. eBay sale said up to 10 working days after they receive the impressions I believe. Received the impressions within a week or two (I'm in the uk) and sent them straight back to Rob the next day.


I received the reshelled tf-10s in feb and they were a reasonable fit but not good, little to no isolation and the sound was awful. Bass did not exist at all. I told Rob, and he said send them back for a refit. So I sent them back straight away.

Yesterday I received reshelled iems.

These ones fit quite well, very comfortable but the sound is not there. If I press quite lightly on both earpieces they sound great, like the tf-10 i remember - nice sparkly highs, solid bass and smooth mids. But let go and there is no bass to speak of, just a hollow, tinny sound. I think they are so close but ultimately useles. After 6 months I'm over it, I'm quite disappointed really.

I believe the reason for my fit problems stems from the crappy impression kits, which I believe he has now changed. I wanted to get some pro impressions done but couldn't get sorted out with an audiologist. I'm kicking myself now as I still believe, given a good impression that rob could make a great budget ciem.

Think I'll take this as a learning experience and move on.

That sucks to hear, hopefully if you ever decide to go thru the CIEM route again things will go better. I don't trust doing the impressions myself either, and working 7 days a week during the day it was hard to find an audiologist around here. After much research and phoning around, I found an audiologist who was nice enough to go in to work early one day to help me with my impressions, and it only cost $30 for both ears. Really crossing my fingers that i wont need a refit. Been waiting for about 1.5 months now but i hear they are starting production on mine

 

[Pellepennan]

Quote:

I was quite excited about the prospect of getting some triple-Fi 10's custom shelled, especially at the price Rob is charging.

I've always liked the tf-10's but they were a terrible fit for me. So I bit the bullet in Nov last year. eBay sale said up to 10 working days after they receive the impressions I believe. Received the impressions within a week or two (I'm in the uk) and sent them straight back to Rob the next day.


I received the reshelled tf-10s in feb and they were a reasonable fit but not good, little to no isolation and the sound was awful. Bass did not exist at all. I told Rob, and he said send them back for a refit. So I sent them back straight away.

Yesterday I received reshelled iems.

These ones fit quite well, very comfortable but the sound is not there. If I press quite lightly on both earpieces they sound great, like the tf-10 i remember - nice sparkly highs, solid bass and smooth mids. But let go and there is no bass to speak of, just a hollow, tinny sound. I think they are so close but ultimately useles. After 6 months I'm over it, I'm quite disappointed really.

I believe the reason for my fit problems stems from the crappy impression kits, which I believe he has now changed. I wanted to get some pro impressions done but couldn't get sorted out with an audiologist. I'm kicking myself now as I still believe, given a good impression that rob could make a great budget ciem.

Think I'll take this as a learning experience and move on.

That is disappointing, but send them once more to Rob, you have nothing to lose. If the earphones don´t work after that you get a refund or that he replace them. I suppose that mean that you can send new ear impressions.  

 

[Turrican2]

That is disappointing, but send them once more to Rob, you have nothing to lose. If the earphones don´t work after that you get a refund or that he replace them. I suppose that mean that you can send new ear impressions.  

Good point, I've sent an email now. This was kind of an entry into the custom world to see how I liked them (as well as making my tf-10s usable). If I like them I plan to get a nice pair of customs in the future, maybe the SE-5 way or such. Might be worthwhile trying to find an audiologist and getting some proper impressions done.

 

[leehopper]

Rob received my impressions on April 12. One day last week I emailed him asking for an update and they replied that they had apparently lost the impressions. The sent me another impession kit out... AND I LOST IT!!! I'm now waiting on another impression kit.

GRRRRR!!!!

They were very apologetic and communication has been great so far!!!

 

[leehopper]

But as far as getting impressions done myself versus getting them done professionally...

I did a much better job myself. I posted pics earlier in this thread.

 

[komrade]

Hmmm...

1. Let's say my band booked a gig for Sat. June 1 @ 9:30 pm, and took full payment up front.
2. Then did not show up for that gig.
3. When the club owner contacted us (after 4 or 5 emails sent to different addresses over a period of 3 days) to ask us what was up ?
4. We simply replied with, "We are dedicated to providing you with only the very best possible music, sometimes that takes more time than anticipated."
5. The club owner then reminds us of the agreement we had and the payment already made.
6. We respond with "We know you will be happy with the show we provide. We can't tell you when that will be."
7. "If you are not happy, we will do another show sometime in the future at no charge other than transportation"

 
Seem absurd ?

1. Maybe you order a pizza from the new place in town.
2. instead getting your meal after 45 min as promised, it takes 6 hours !
3. After waiting 6 hours, the pizza has pepperoni instead of sausage like you ordered
4. When you complain, they are very apologetic and start on your pizza again
5. after another 6 hours or so you might get the right pizza, but it tastes a little bit "off"

 
You see where I'm going ?
 
For those of you who want to tell me how hard it is to start a new small business, save it. I started my business in my garage 15 years ago.
 
For those of you who want to excuse Rob because "he's a nice guy", please take some time to read up on  a couple of "nice guys"
http://www.talkbass.com/forum/f15/dr-bass-marc-serio-cab-builder-accepted-%2410k-payments-never-delivered-gear-603775/
http://www.talkbass.com/forum/f8/darrin-huff-basses-over-ten-years-still-waiting-256053/
 
Seriously, go back through this thread and see for yourself. Out of 20 + customers, how many have even received their order since January ? Of those who have received their order, how many have had fit and/or sound problems ? I have little to no faith my order will be correct when I finally do receive it, simply based on what I have read here.
 
Based on first hand experience, at best, he is ignorant. At worst, he (or whoever answers his email) is flat-out dishonest.
 
Frustrated ? Yes, I am. Chances of me being a repeat customer ? I would say 3%.
 
You're still reading ? I'm impressed ! I'll leave you with a tired platitude,  " A happy customer will tell 10 people about you, an unhappy customer will tell 100 people about you !"
 
Okay, rip me apart, tell me how wrong I am.

 

[sethsez]

For the most part I agree with you.  My whole "he's nice" and "they're a start-up" thing is mostly because I don't want to bum myself out (edit: though I want to make clear, I absolutely don't think this is a situation like what your links mention.  I honestly don't think Rob is trying to screw anyone).
 
To some degree I do sympathize with them simply getting overloaded, and to their credit they did hire more people to handle the load.  The problem is that when it became clear the workload was increasing, they should have either stopped taking orders for a little while or informed people that they would take extra time due to their circumstances.  Some people are ordering these things for work of their own, and it's pretty irresponsible to not let anybody know how bad things are backed up until they already have peoples' headphones.  When I placed my order in late March (March 27 to be exact, precisely two months ago) I was told that it might take "up to ten business days" for them to be done once they got my impressions and headphones... suffice to say that wasn't the case.
 
To me, however, the bigger issue is the lack of communication over the past month and the simple, sloppy mistakes that have occurred.  I can be forgiving of a delay to an extent, given the nature of the work done, but finding out on May 15 that they had made my headphones in the wrong color when I provided them with both emails and a hand-written letter stating exactly what I wanted... that's harder to forgive, especially for the price I paid (I was told they could provide me with a very thin cable with no memory wire for $50 extra, on top of the regular price).  And needless to say, it is now May 27 and I still don't know when I'm going to be getting them.
 
I still want to come out of this happy at the end of it.  I want to have a nice set of comfortable, customized Super.fi 5 Pros with thin cables that don't bother my ears in a color that appeals to me and with the sound I liked.  I'm hoping that's how this all ends up.  But that still wouldn't excuse the process up to this point.  I want to see them succeed because I like competition, I like small business, I like local business, and I like people who offer a good service for a good price.  But they're going to have to step it up, especially considering how close they are to InEarz, JH Audio, and Clear Tune Monitors (all of which are within about an hour of each other at most).

 

[leehopper]

For the most part I agree with you.  My whole "he's nice" and "they're a start-up" thing is mostly because I don't want to bum myself out (edit: though I want to make clear, I absolutely don't think this is a situation like what your links mention.  I honestly don't think Rob is trying to screw anyone).

To some degree I do sympathize with them simply getting overloaded, and to their credit they did hire more people to handle the load.  The problem is that when it became clear the workload was increasing, they should have either stopped taking orders for a little while or informed people that they would take extra time due to their circumstances.  Some people are ordering these things for work of their own, and it's pretty irresponsible to not let anybody know how bad things are backed up until they already have peoples' headphones.  When I placed my order in late March (March 27 to be exact, precisely two months ago) I was told that it might take "up to ten business days" for them to be done once they got my impressions and headphones... suffice to say that wasn't the case.

To me, however, the bigger issue is the lack of communication over the past month and the simple, sloppy mistakes that have occurred.  I can be forgiving of a delay to an extent, given the nature of the work done, but finding out on May 15 that they had made my headphones in the wrong color when I provided them with both emails and a hand-written letter stating exactly what I wanted... that's harder to forgive, especially for the price I paid (I was told they could provide me with a very thin cable with no memory wire for $50 extra, on top of the regular price).  And needless to say, it is now May 27 and I still don't know when I'm going to be getting them.

I still want to come out of this happy at the end of it.  I want to have a nice set of comfortable, customized Super.fi 5 Pros with thin cables that don't bother my ears in a color that appeals to me and with the sound I liked.  I'm hoping that's how this all ends up.  But that still wouldn't excuse the process up to this point.  I want to see them succeed because I like competition, I like small business, I like local business, and I like people who offer a good service for a good price.  But they're going to have to step it up, especially considering how close they are to InEarz, JH Audio, and Clear Tune Monitors (all of which are within about an hour of each other at most).

WELL WRITTEN!!!

 

[KimChee]

Not to be a jerk, but the same thing happened with Inner Ear Fidelity and Kozee, and I was hoping it wouldn't with this company.  Kozee was a hearing aid company too that had been established, and by the end it had gotten ugly.  I hope everyone gets their reshells back.  Inearz still gets my vote.

 

[frozendarkness]

Not to sound any alarms, but I've been trying to contact them for a week and a half and no response at all. I'm getting really worried, is someone having an ACTIVE conversation with Rob?

 

[sethsez]

The last time I heard anything was last Tuesday.
 

 

[Turrican2]

Not to sound any alarms, but I've been trying to contact them for a week and a half and no response at all. I'm getting really worried, is someone having an ACTIVE conversation with Rob?

I got en email from Rob yesterday.