| Originally Posted by drlee27 /img/forum/go_quote.gif It is interesting that so many parties are involved in this incident; I wonder what Ken from ALO has to say about his review of the recabled R10. Even Mikhail, a reputable amp builder, was criticized for his recabling skills.Wow! |
| Originally Posted by Ragonix /img/forum/go_quote.gif How do we know that Ken reviewed the JL R10 based on Frog's botched R10? Maybe it was a different one. |
| Originally Posted by JenaLabs BELOW: Here we see a view of some wires removed from yet another set of Sony R10s. The owner had previously sent them to an unknown 'modifier' for a wire change. Later, the headphones were sent to us for replacement of that wire with our Ultra-Wire. What you see is the ear-cup end of the wire harness, removed intact and in-total, and exactly as found, from the disassembled ear-cup. Please note that the person who did the wire exchange previously failed to remove all the original Sony wire. The modifier simply left the ear-cups and their stock internal wire intact, cut off the original wire from the cups as a pigtail of about an inch, and then spliced in the 'new' wire. The joints were soldered and insulated, and then simply shoved backwards into the ear-cup to hide the indiscretion. It was abundantly clear that the headphone cups had never had the transducers removed. Disassembling the R10 ear-cup is a complicated and sensitive procedure requiring knowledge, skill, and dexterity. Reassembly is also difficult, and requires some special tools and several different adhesives to do the job correctly. We can see why someone would be afraid of, or incapable of, _properly_ upgrading the original wire. As you can see from the other photos, we DO totally disassemble the entire ear-cup, including removal of the transducer. This allows us to properly terminate the JENA Labs Ultra-Wire directly to the transducer, leaving none of the sound-squashing original wire in the signal path. |
| Originally Posted by skyline889 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Is anyone else curious why Ken didn't hear these problems when he posted his review of them in his forum? I'm not being accusatory against anyone but a piece of the puzzle is obviously missing here if they went from sounding amazing (As described in his review) to sounding lifeless (As described by the owner), especially since the owner heard the flaws before Jena ruined the voice coils. Sounds to me like, there was some bad soldering work done before it was even sent back the second time. @ Barqy; No, their customer service/public relations aren't good at all for many DIYers anymore. A year ago they used to be great to work with, I don't know what happened to them. Either way, I don't think Jena will be getting my business anymore. Their wire is very good indeed but it's not worth it to deal with a company like this. |
| On our website is a page describing our services to rewire Sony R10 headphones with a special cable system of our design and manufacture. The cost of materials and labor to perform this modification is $1,500.00 US Dollars, plus actual shipping costs. After initial phone calls, S.W. sent a set of R10 headphones to JENA Technologies LLC. Upon arrival it was discovered that the specific set of headphones had been previously modified by installation of a different wire harness by another party, and that the modification was performed by pulling out the factory wires from the sealed ear speaker enclosure, cut off, soldered to the new wire, and then pushed back into the enclosure and fastened in place. S.W. deliberately did not inform us of the previous modification prior to our being engaged to install the JENA Labs wire system. After the headphones arrived at our location S.W. specifically asked repeatedly, about the details of sonic qualities we heard in them if we had heard any break-up or intermittent sound from the headphones, which in our limited listening tests at moderate volume levels, we did not hear. To me it was MOST unusual that SW would SO worried about our hearing some sort of sonic defect. Before our disassembly, only a very brief listening test of a few minuted duration was performed, and at moderate volume levels, and no sonic defects were noted. Upon disassembly, we also noted that on one of the drive units one of the very fine wire strands, a voice coil wire extending from the interior of the drive unit to the solder pad where connections are made, was formed into a slightly protruded loop and had been kinked. It should be noted that the other drive unit, nor any other drive units from other examples of the same make and model of headphone that we have seen, or seen photos of, exhibited such a protrusion. This extending loop would in our opinion represent a fault in the original construction. An attempt was made to stabilize this fragile protrusion of very fine wire by locating it adjacent to the physical boundary of the ear speaker frame, and holding it in place with adhesive. This was a trivial operation and not mentioned in any communications. We also found that in both ear can enclosures, the soft sound absorbing filler material had been displaced around inside the enclosure by the pushing-in of the stiff wires in the earlier modificaion, and that the material had been bunched up into approximately half the volume of the enclosed space, rather than equally dispersed. The absorbent material was re-distributed within the enclosure to a more uniform distribution as part of the following re-assembly. Assembly proceeded and listening test were performed, and performance found to be outstanding. In addition to our own sonic assessment, a leading industry professional, Ken Ball, owner of Audio Line Out also auditioned the headphones and found them to be outstanding, so much so that he created a web page to share his experience. Also present at the same listening session was another pair of R10 headphones with a similar cable installed by JENA Labs, except terminated with independent left and right XLR connectors rather than a single stereo 1/4 inch connector as fitted to S.W.s headphones. Direct comparison of the XLR fitted headphones and the others was made possible with the use of an adapter with 2 mating XLR connectors feeding a stereo 1/4 inch connector. Several sources were listened to by both Ken Ball and Jennifer Crock, including iPod sourced music through several different headphone amplifiers, and by direct feed from a DSD recorder playing back assorted live location symphonic recordings. Also present was stock pair of SonyR10s that you had send along for 'comparison'. The stock R10s exhibited weak bass and slight veil in the midrange and highs. This veiling was quite audible when listening to a specific passage of orchestral music in which a musician turns a page o sheet music, dragging a finger along the upper edge of the paper making a bit of a quiet but audible 'shweep' sound as the paper is dragged along and folded over, all the while the other musicians are playing. With the stock R10s, this faint anomaly was barely heard as an indistinct blurr. With either of the re-cabled R10s, the sound was very clear and easily recognized as the turning of a page of the sheet music. The XLR fitted headphones, with the additional adapter in the signal path revealed the sonic detail, but not quite as distinctly as your re-cabled pair. As mentioned, Ken thought enough of the listening experience that he even created a web page to celebrate the event. http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f70/fu...y-r10s-274275/ At this point our contract was complete and the headphones were packaged and returned along with your S.W.s R10 headphones that were sent 'for comparison', a complimentary kit of Esoteric 3D-X of $80.00 value, and 2 each of our Immersion Cryo treated Hubbell A-C power outlets at $60.00 total value. At this point in time we had completed the contract, installing the new wiring, providing the additional parts you ordered, and had offered a complimentary gift. Upon receiving the package S.W. phoned and indicated that he could not find the A-C power outlets and immediately accused us of lying about their inclusion in the shipment. He also indicated that the modified headphones 'sounded like ****'. Additionally he refused to pay for the goods and services that had been completed and delivered. It should be noted that the headphones that he assessed as "sounding like ****" were found to be vastly superior in every respect to stock harness equipped Sony R10 and other brand and models a by leading industry professional outside our organization. It was at this time we offered to remove the standard JENA LABS wiring harness and replace it with a lighter gauge harness, also of our manufacture, that would have less bass energy. Eventually S.W. returned the headphones to us for this service. We found at the time of the headphones return that there was some occasional intermittent sound from the ear speaker that held the drive-unit on which the defect stabilization had been performed. This performance fault was CLEARLY not present at the time the headphones were shipped, and we can only conclude that something had happened to them while back in his possession that would cause the fault of occasional sound interruption. Upon disassembly we found the kinked fragile wire that we had discovered the first time the headphones were worked on, to have developed an intermittent open circuit at the point of the pre-existing kink. This defect was easily repaired by soldering a fine copper wire of similar size between the intact end of the voice coil wire, and the solder tab. The repair wire was stabilized by adhering it to the body of the drive unit. The lighter gauge wire harness was installed, the phones reassembled, and extensively listened to for a period of approximately 5 hours by 3 different people, with no performance faults noted. An additional 2 duplex outlets were packaged with the headphones and shipped to S.W.. Upon arrival at S.W.s, he found the 2 duplex outlets, but still claimed that the headphones "sound like ****"..again, your exact words. And again he refused to pay for any services and parts delivered. At this time we offer to help by reinstalling the original SONY wiring harness. This time S.W. , or someone under his direction, removed the entirety of the headphone band from the ear speaker enclosures and shipped them to us for installation of the stock harness. Clearly the headphones had been at least partially disassembled by persons unknown and of unknown skill. The arrival of the phones in this condition prevented us from making a reasonable sonic evaluation of them both before and after installation of the stock Sony wire. In a phone call to us S.W. described the reason for removal of the headband as to save shipping weight. We suspect the real reason for breaking down the headphones was to reduce the utility of them to near zero. By this time paid S.W. had paid nothing for the first $1,500.00 rewire job, nothing for the first 2 duplexes he claimed not be able to find, nothing for the second $1,300.00 rewire job, nothing for the second set of 2 duplexes he admited to finding, and nothing for the job of installing the stock Sony harness, for which we would have charged $450.00 if someone had asked us to reinstall a stock harness back into a set of R10s. Additionally he had not paid for any of the shipping and insurance that we incurred in the process. We concluded the real reason that he had the phones and shipped to us incomplete was that he thought we would "file a lien on them" for the full value of services performed and just keep them or sell them to cover our expenses. By sending us incomplete headphones,of highly diminished utility and value, we believe he thought we would be more likely to return them to him. The stock wire harness was installed and the phones listened to and tested briefly by holding the loose enclosures against the head with both hands. No breakup or intermittent sound was noted in approximately 5 minutes of listening, but the sonic deficit of weak bass and slightly smeared mid-range detail associated with the stock harness was there as expected. As much as we were able to listen, the headphones sounded like any other stock R10s and exhibited no breakup, distortion, or intermittent sound. They were packed and returned to S.W.. A few weeks later, in a phone conversation between S.W. and Jennifer Crock, an agreed settlement of $1,000.00 was negotiated for all the work, materials, products and shipmen/insurance costs, which was paid in full. It is our position that S.W.s headphones had a defect in place in the form of a malformed voice coil wire, either internally, and/or additionally, externally, on one of the drive units that may have been further deformed or damaged in some manner during the first modification by another person/firm prior to our ever seen the headphones, or that may have been exacerbated by that and/or some other reason, which may include but not be limited to such reasons as playing at excessive sound level or being exposed to DC current in the audio signal being fed to the headphone . The pre-existing external physical defect and other related voice coil defects not visible from outside the drive unit may have led to intermittent operation of that ear speaker. It is possible that S.W. was likely aware of and had experienced that defect while listening. His specific questions as to our hearing of such an intermittent sound upon the very first arrival of your headphones at our shop are an indication of your prior knowledge of some sort pre-existing damage or defect. In any event, the defect that we could see externally on the drive unit was addressed and repaired in a manner as reasonable as possible without fanfare or mention at our end. At every time the headphones were returned to S.W., they were in perfect operating condition and sounded fine, without break-up, distortion, or intermittent operation. We are not in any way responsible for pre-existing damage, defect, or incipient defect, whether repaired by us or not, nor for any subsequent failure of any product as a result of such defect, use, misuse or neglect. About a month later S.W. apparently experienced an intermittent sound in one of the speaker, but did NOT inform us of such finding until he had engaged another party to disassemble and inspect the phones. That person found the external voice coil wire defect repair job that we had performed at no charge. S.W. phoned and confronted us with the existence of the repair, and we freely admitted to performing it. We DID NOT in anyway admit verbally or in any other manner to any liability for the further repair of the defect, nor are we responsible for such repair, even though you were trying very hard to get us to admit so. He TRIED like a vicious District Attorney to bend words and shape questions so that any answer would be an admission of his acusations. The total value of goods, services, and shipping/insurance provided to S.W. was $1,500.00 First JENA Labs harness $1,300.00 Second, smaller gauge wire, JENA Labs harness $ 450.00 stock Sony harness install $ 60.00 duplex outlet [ forgetting about the first set sent] _$ 226.00 shipping and insurance._ $3,536.00 TOTAL We were willing to stand by the original settlement agreement $1,000.00 for which payment has been received, and to write off the remaining balance. I hope this helps you to understand the situation we were placed in. It is clearly a no-win deal for everyone involved. Had S.W. been honest with us in the first place, and later on when he found an intermittent sound from one channel, if he had called and talked with us about it, we would have arranged to replace the defective drive unit at cost of parts. Instead he said nothing to us, and engaged someone else. Then he comes forth with the claims of our damaging the headphones and tries to extort first $700.00 and then over $1,300 from us with the threat that if we didn't pay, that he would "Ruin Our Reputation" Looks like he has kept his word on that. Jennifer Crock JENA Technologies LLC |
| Originally Posted by gotchaforce /img/forum/go_quote.gif If ken reviewed the same ones that are talked about in the OP.... then its all about relationship of ALO and jena (hint ALO gets the cryod wires from jena). you do the math. |
| Originally Posted by Boilingfrog When I called her and told her what Alex had found she was stunned silent. She then said "What do you want?" I told her I only wanted my R10s fixed. When I asked how the voice coil tore she said it was very fragile and it occurred on the second cable change.She states she had glued it back. I told her it wasn't done properly and hence the problems with the sound. She was silent again. |
| Originally Posted by email Upon disassembly we found the kinked fragile wire that we had discovered the first time the headphones were worked on, to have developed an intermittent open circuit at the point of the pre-existing kink. This defect was easily repaired by soldering a fine copper wire of similar size between the intact end of the voice coil wire, and the solder tab. The repair wire was stabilized by adhering it to the body of the drive unit. |
| Originally Posted by Morph201 /img/forum/go_quote.gif It's stupid remarks like that fueling the BS. And someone asked what does Apuresound have to gain? Hmmm additional business! How's that for accusatory. Both sides have not spoken and already we're ready to run down to JL with pitchforks and torches!
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| Originally Posted by BoilingFrog When I asked how the voice coil tore she said it was very fragile and it occurred on the second cable change. She states she had glued it back. |
| Originally Posted by Morph201 Upon disassembly we found the kinked fragile wire that we had discovered the first time the headphones were worked on, to have developed an intermittent open circuit at the point of the pre-existing kink. This defect was easily repaired by soldering a fine copper wire of similar size between the intact end of the voice coil wire, and the solder tab. The repair wire was stabilized by adhering it to the body of the drive unit. |
