Hi. What companies would you avoid, cus of poor quality control? How are Audeze, Hifiman and Focal stand with quality control these days?
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Quality Control of headphone companies
- Thread starter Snikibiki
- Start date
Focal should be good, HiFiMan's reputation is mixed as you'd expect, and Audeze has a lot of variation which is annoying (e.g. John's LCD-4 is different than Jimmy's).
You hear a lot of horror stories about HiFiMan but I have 3 pairs and they all are over 5 years old and no problems other than cables and a lot of that was my fault. Audeze used to have channel imbalance problems but haven’t heard much about that lately and only have the LCDi4’s and don’t have a problem with them either. Haven’t heard anything bad about Focal but don’t follow them much so can’t say but I’m sure they are fine. I really can’t think of a brand I would not trust but some I wouldn’t buy because I don’t care for the sound but that’s not many.
Before even reading the thread I wanted to write Hifiman.
My HE-500's pleather pads, which I never used, exploded in boxed-storage. I opened the box up last summer and found the foam completely free of it's black-pleather bondage.... it's not for everyone it seems.
Also, my same HE-500's developed a slight channel imbalance after a few years.
The same HE-500's headband screws need to be tightened periodically, as they simply becomes loose with normal use.
At least the headband screw problem shouldn't be an issue any more.
I've read a lot of Audeze horror stories too, to be fair, but that was mostly the early models wood-vaneer peeling and cracking, which doesn't happen nearly as often today.
No other companies spring immediately to mind, other than the recent nonsense with the new AKG K361/371, but that was isolated to that specific model, and probably speaks more about Harman than AKG.
My HE-500's pleather pads, which I never used, exploded in boxed-storage. I opened the box up last summer and found the foam completely free of it's black-pleather bondage.... it's not for everyone it seems.
Also, my same HE-500's developed a slight channel imbalance after a few years.
The same HE-500's headband screws need to be tightened periodically, as they simply becomes loose with normal use.
At least the headband screw problem shouldn't be an issue any more.
I've read a lot of Audeze horror stories too, to be fair, but that was mostly the early models wood-vaneer peeling and cracking, which doesn't happen nearly as often today.
No other companies spring immediately to mind, other than the recent nonsense with the new AKG K361/371, but that was isolated to that specific model, and probably speaks more about Harman than AKG.
How about hifiman and audeze customer's service?
Hifiman customer service was a joke.
They gave me two options: pay for a $130 'repair' including postage, with no guarantee of me actually getting original HE-500 drivers installed, or I take an 'upgrade' ptah to sundara or he-560 if I shipped them my HE-500, paid $330 (300 for the 'new' headphone and 30 shipping), and then I would still have to pay the difference for the new headphone depending on which one I choice and it's current MSRP.
That would have put their value of my HE-500 at around $150, which is insane considering they would be gaining TWO usable working HE-500 drivers which they could use as spare parts.
In the end, I spent around $15 on DIY parts, and built a resistor adapter to correct the imbalance.
Never looked at Hifiman again.
They gave me two options: pay for a $130 'repair' including postage, with no guarantee of me actually getting original HE-500 drivers installed, or I take an 'upgrade' ptah to sundara or he-560 if I shipped them my HE-500, paid $330 (300 for the 'new' headphone and 30 shipping), and then I would still have to pay the difference for the new headphone depending on which one I choice and it's current MSRP.
That would have put their value of my HE-500 at around $150, which is insane considering they would be gaining TWO usable working HE-500 drivers which they could use as spare parts.
In the end, I spent around $15 on DIY parts, and built a resistor adapter to correct the imbalance.
Never looked at Hifiman again.
On the other hand, Audeze's customer service is excellent.
ThanatosVI
Headphoneus Supremus
I owned several (like 6) Hifiman and Audeze Models over the past decade and never experienced any issues, all of These are still working like New.
Build quality seems to be higher on the Audeze cans, can't comment on variance since I only heard my own exemplars
Build quality seems to be higher on the Audeze cans, can't comment on variance since I only heard my own exemplars
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