[JohnZS]

Reserved

Hi Abyss,

I'm a fan of your headphones, Diana Phi have been so good that I have reviewed and told so many friends about.

Fun Fact for you:
The friend of mine mentioned in the following quote has a Diana Phi(purchase by my recommendation). He is happy with your customer services so far.
He came to me first because Woo was not helpful at all, and he was pissed. So I recommended him to go to you directly.

I know I'm not the first person who had said experience with Mike. In fact, a friend of mine who just had some obvious problem with stuff bought from Woo a week ago. He came to me and told me that Mike pissed him off by shoving some weird technical theory, finding excuses, doesn't believe my friend is having a real issue with the item, overall no help but wasting his time and pissed him off. Then still told my friend to do more self-diagnose. Luckily my friend has the option of contacting the manufacturer, and he did. While Mike is still blaming some weird software stuff, my friend got the RA and has shipped the item for repair.

 

[vwong99]

As I said!

Have put this thread into my 'Watch' list!!

Being part of the service line around 20-ish years and running, 'I'm DONE talking to you' was just FANTASTIC and pure FANATIC, ever thrown by a vendor to a seller.

Should any of my guests I previously served make a note of this to my Line Manager, darn, I may have to look for job in another sector and 20-ish plus experience goes down to the drain.

To whoever in @WooAudio, always remember this golden quote which has been around the service sector for ages, and continue to goes beyond eons:

CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT.

That's the 1st thing I've learnt since day #1 in customer service sector.

 

[Zhanming057]

today is the first time I am seeing this thread.

I find @JohnZS posts to share private email communications on a public forum without letting me or anyone at Woo Audio know to be very unprofessional. I've had no chance to respond to his posts until many others have seen it and commented on his one-sided story. @warrenpchi @jude @AnakChan (moderator).

I've tried to help John with his concerns on WA11 via many emails and phone calls PRIOR to him sending the WA11 to us for an inspection. Up until our inspection of his WA11, we did not know what was going on with the unit other than his explanation of the problems. In troubleshooting, there are many possible causes when it comes to noise concerns. Because I cannot see or inspect the system chain, I can only make recommendations based on what is shared with me verbally.

Long story short, I explained to JohnZs that we designed WA11 topaz's 4.4mm input to the official Pentaconn specs (5-pole). And in order for the analog input to function properly, all 5-poles must be connected. JohnZs told me he was using a Moon Audio made 2.5mm cable to 4.4mm from his A&K player as the source. According to AK website, the 2.5mm output is "only 4-poles supported". I told John, for this reason the cable is not recommended for use with WA11's 4.4mm input which is 5-pole. I never once said that the Moon-Audio cable was the cause to the problems he was having with WA11. I simply explained the tech behind 4.4mm Pentaconn.

The communication between me and John ceased when he emailed Moon-Audio stating I said the Moon-Audio cable caused the damage to his WA11. As you can see in the many posts JohnZs shared in this thread, some are personal attacks and unprofessional. I don't appreciate that nor would take the conversation further and escalate the situation so I looped in Jack Wu (owner of Woo Audio) to further assist JohnZs.

JohnZs WA11 is out of warranty. Jack offered JohnZs a discount on the repair. The out of pocket cost for the repair is $150 which includes parts, labor, and return shipping.

At various times I have owned a WA22, two different WA5s, and a WA11 that I bought from you from the Canjam show floor. JohnZ is a friend of mine and I know that he has voiced his frustrations about the issue in private conversations before he went public with this Head-Fi post. I think that he has been as reasonable as a customer could be throughout this whole process, and your unprofessionalism has made me skeptical about buying from Woo in the future.

There are a few major problems here:

1. Similar to Drew I am not sure why the WA11 requires the 5th pole on the Pentaconn jack but nobody except Lotoo does it, and if you design a portable amp that depends on the 5th pole, that's a bad design period. Abyss's own advertising materials show the WA11 being used, with the 4.4mm, to a Sony WM1Z. I'll make an exception for Astell & Kern (even though this was also exactly how I ran my WA11 back when I had it), but you can't just design a $1,200 amp and say that a $3,000 DAP with the exact same 4.4mm connector doesn't work with it. That's BS.
2. There is nothing unprofessional about JohnZ's decision to take this public. JohnZ is a not a professional. He is a customer who paid money for a device. Telling him that you are done talking to him is however extremely unprofessional and so is blocking his number. What else is he to do except go public if he can't get in touch with Woo? If this were me, I'd have gone public a lot sooner and tried a lot less hard to work with you and Jack. The customer is not supposed to try hard to get his purchase fixed. You can charge the customer money and I don't object to a fee for the repair - even though this clearly seems like a design defect to me - but you never stop talking to the customer.
3. Finally, blaming things on cables is BS. People are going to use less than perfectly made cables. USB-C protocol is a mess, yes, but that's why premium devices are premium devices, because they solve those problems. If you know for a fact that people are going to use your device with 2.5mm TRRS, you design it so that it either works or fails gracefully. You don't leave it there and blame the customer when the customer predictably breaks something.

I like a lot of Woo's amps. I liked the WA11 enough to buy a showroom demo the same day I first tried it with the Diana Phi and Mysphere 3.2. But I can't tolerate the "you're not holding it correctly" thing that you're pulling with customers. It's unbecoming of a brand that sells a $20,000 amp and, frankly, more than a little insulting to ghost a customer over something so easily fixable.

 

[vwong99]

Oh...

Have put this thread into my 'Watch' list!!

Being part of the service line around 20-ish years and running, 'I'm DONE talking to you' was just FANTASTIC and pure FANATIC, ever thrown by a vendor to a seller.

Should any of my guests I previously served make a note of this to my Line Manager, darn, I may have to look for job in another sector and 20-ish plus experience goes down to the drain.

To whoever in @WooAudio, always remember this golden quote which has been around the service sector for ages, and continue to goes beyond eons:

CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT.

That's the 1st thing I've learnt since day #1 in customer service sector.

Sorry for the typo...was meant by a vendor to a customer.

 

[WadaHiFi]

Reserved

WUT? Is this THE Abyss?
I am a big fan of your headphones and very interested to buy a pair of Diana Phi...

 

[JohnZS]

WUT? Is this THE Abyss?
I am a big fan of your headphones and very interested to buy a pair of Diana Phi...

Geez...you guys are too rich. Stop keep buying the things I recommended like it is just another toy.
Could you please at least pretend that you are struggling and finally pulling the trigger. Just for *other people's* feelings, LOL

 

[Currawong]

Edited: Since the only reaction I get to trying to bring some sense to the lynch-mob mentality in this thread is to basically be called a shill for Woo Audio, whom I haven't spoke to anyone from for YEARS, I'm out.

 

[Zhanming057]

Lotoo did theirs 5-pole per Pentaconn specs

Maybe, just maybe, if Sony, who came up with the standard, has seen fit to not implement the 5th pin in any of their DAPs, the design should take that into account instead of assuming that people will all use a (no offense to Lotoo) relatively obscure DAP?

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/sony-nw-wm1z-wm1a.815841/post-13147326

 

[DenverW]

If a company is charging premium prices for their product, they better have premium customer service to back them up.

 

[Currawong]

Edited: Since the only reaction I get to trying to bring some sense to the lynch-mob mentality in this thread is to basically be called a shill for Woo Audio, whom I haven't spoke to anyone from for YEARS, I'm out.

 

[Zhanming057]

I'd have to check with Sony, but I'd be surprised if the ground wasn't connected. If it matters that much, I can ask. Something to consider though is that the Pentaconn sockets on Sony DAPs are all for headphone output. The issues in this thread are with line input.

I still see an assumption about the cable being at fault. I do have at least one headphone cable here with a Pentaconn termination that uses a 3rd party plug that may not be to spec. If it is pushed all the way into some 4.4mm sockets, one channel cuts out. Likewise, many 2.5mm connectors had the same issue and needed a small spacer to work, though as far as I know this was rectified by manufacturers years ago.

I linked a post to Anakchan confirming the lack of a 5th pole connection.

While I don't think that Sony designed the Pentaconn on the WM1Z for line out, plenty of people use it for LO (and this was a setup that, IIRC, Abyss advertised as a portable solution for the Diana Phi).

It's also not at all clear to me what the 5th pole has to do with the device shorting out. There are high power portable amps that work just fine with 2.5mm TRRS, and if you are building an amp it's frankly a bit foolhardy to assume that everyone will run it with the exact device you have in mind (Lotoo, TA-ZH1ES, really?). Someone with more amp design knowledge will have to weigh in on this, though.

 

[koven]

You've been here almost as long as I have, and you seriously believe that?

Maybe, wouldn't be the first time I've seen a controversial thread vanish. Or maybe I'm just craving shoe. Either way, I'm now simply curious if Mike will swallow his pride and do the right thing i.e. issue a sincere apology as damage control. What is Woo's threshold for negative PR?

 

[thatonenoob]

Now that the CS side of this incident is over, I’m curious as to what actually the technical issue here is.

Assuming moon audio cable isn’t broken, I’m confused by why this 5th connection is producing such a problem:


1) where is the ground reference - the case or the ground of the line in device. Reason why I ask is that if the ground reference is the case as is usually the situation it is unlikely that you will develop a circuit breaking voltage differential between the devices. If it isn’t then and the grounding is dependent entirely on the input devic then that should be made very clear.

2) Are we sure this is a short or is the input buffer simply incapable of handling large swing?

3) What DC level does your input expect. If you’re needing a ground reference explicitly does that mean you cannot handle fully differential signals with negative swing? Furthermore is the input buffer performing self biasing as should usually be done to prevent unwanted DC shift?

 

[vwong99]

Maybe, wouldn't be the first time I've seen a controversial thread vanish. Or maybe I'm just craving shoe. Either way, I'm now simply curious if Mike will swallow his pride and do the right thing i.e. issue a sincere apology as damage control. What is Woo's threshold for negative PR?

I bet WA will not swallow that pride. Too EGOISTIC since they started clarifying all, based on their position and not in the customers' perspective and feelings.
Lacks of empathy from my view.

 

[Giru]

The technical part of this fiasco is not relevant here IMHO.
Woo is selling a commercial product and at top tier prices no less. They should assure good aftersales regardless of the fact that the item is under warranty period or not. They could've simply asked John to ship the amp to them and charged him a fair price for the repair; which even if not ideal would've still been face saving. But the blaming nonsense and the blocking antics puts the company under a very bad light. I mean what were they even thinking?
I still hope that they realise that its never too late to apologize. Any problem in this world can be solved with a good healthy attitude. Admit your mistake and move on. Doesn't get any simpler.