Only had mine for 1 day, finally arrived after a return to Penon, and Chinese New Year's, and and..so to actually took from order to finally receiving a pair working took..around 3 months! Penon audio was really good, after they had a mild heart-attack after I requested return and inquiry on AliExpress, they got on the ball and very quick to answer emails.
I purchased off AliExpress end of jan 2018 a pair of kinera h3's, which took a while but arrived in Sydney around 3.5 weeks later. Immediately noticed one was off, the Dynamic Driver seemed dead in left IEM, even after switching R/L cables, trying every amp in the house, sound source etc. Sent a quick mssge off to Penon and also Kinera. After no replies for a week, used the AliExpress method of taking up complaint/rescinding purchase. Penon replied very quickly thereafter, asking I send product back for free replacement (as cheaply as possilble). Did so from Aus, was still AUD 20 or something for tracking. On seeing tracking received by Penon in HK, messaged them asking how long for a turn-around and replacement. Received reply, factory was closed next few weeks due to Chinese New Year's, could I please be patient? OK then! Had obviously researched the reason for the defective dynamic driver (has 2x BA and 1 DA), due to a glue problem in the manufacturing process, for early batches. Never Mind. Sure enough, get message (after some nagging) from Penon that replacement earbuds are on the way, with hk tracking number. Took a while, but sure enough see it show up in 17track etc. Sat in HK for a while, then around 5 days from HK to Norway (I relocated, and Penon had no problem re-addressing), then of course took around a week to get from Oslo to Bergen (now 28th! march! so around 3 months all up for a working pair of IEM's). Penon been super about replying to emails the whole time..I dunno, but suspect is 2 guys in a small HK apartment doing this! Kudos guys!
And how do they sound? Well only reference is my old Shure SE-215's which got ripped off, which these are replacing. So very comfortable, but noise isolation wasn't great, until I picked up some Comply tips here in Bergen, and really JAMMED them in my ear-canals. And then..wow! Pretty stoked! Not as comfortable as my open cans (akg-k612's and many superluxxes later!)..but not bad straight from my Galaxy s5's and tidal hi-fi, much better through same setup via uapp and fiio q1 (keeps crapping out on me!), and pretty good through my pc with phoebus and v-can v1. Still not as comfortable as say proper cans, but WOW for the size, how tiny they are..pretty stoked! So haven't heard preperly expensive iem's or only BA iem's yet..but for mobile use...yeah good enough! At least compared with my se215's..prbly about the same.
So this was at least as much a review of PENON audio as the kinera's, and despite a LOT of problems, they were always respectful and on the ball, answered emails quickly, etc..well done. However, ordering from AliExpress or china, it DOES present challenges, so there ya go! I would still have more faith ordering from China than most companies in the EU/US tho! They always arrive, maybe tracking disappears a few times, but the product always amazingly arrives somehow! No matter the value! From my purchasing 20 dollar batteries to thousands of dollars worth of cpu's! It just somehow..works! Cannot say the same for our part of the world..murphy's law rules!
