The discovery thread!
Apr 20, 2021 at 7:01 AM Post #56,056 of 100,413

Quite a big dip in the 5 - 9 kHz region! I'm assuming there's a resonance coupler peak at the 9 kHz area?

I bought a moondroop aria on aliexpress but the seller never sent them. Today i opened a dispute and i was immediately refunded. There is any topic about trusted sellers on aliexpress?

Thanks

I've bought north of 200 products from Aliexpress, and in my journey, there're a few trusted Aliexpress shops eg NiceHCK, HIFIGO, KBEAR, TRN, Audiosense, VS Audio store. Some shops are unfortunately banned from discussion on headfi. I've maybe had about 10% of purchases turn bad and had to have a refund or just lost the deal. It's easy to just buy from the cheapest shop, but some shops out really out to scam. There are some usual tricks Aliexpress sellers play on you, such as:
- the seller claimed item was sent but never arrived after half a year. They keep trying delaying tactics by asking you not to file disputes and some sob story that it will affect their rating, and ask you patiently to wait. Once the Aliexpress protection period ends, they escape and refuse to refund you. So please check when the protection period ends and do file for a dispute a few days before the due date expires!
- seller uses fake tracking number. Very common, and sometimes the item is reflected as delivered when you have never seen it arrive. Use https://www.17track.net/en to trace the real location of your items. I'm amazed that sometimes the tracking location on 17track is way different from the Aliexpress tracking service (that followed the stores' fake tracking number).
- if a defective product comes, seller will demand videos or evidence of it. Some stuff like IEM channel imbalance or stuff wired out of phase may be difficult to show without measuring gear or running thru hoops. Sometimes sending stuff back to China for warranties is also a pain, it might even cost more than the item you bought!


Anyways, some other tips for knowing a reliable shop are:
- If u see the first photo below, if u hover your mouse over the shop name, some details will appear, such as how long it's been open, is it an Aliexpress "top brand", their positive feedback etc.
- Go for shops that are established for years, and that generally have > 95% positive ratings. Beware of some shops that have generic names such as numbers, or that are totally new, or those with no ratings or even poor ratings.
- There's a lot of shops that are fly by night and just sprout new names after a few bad reviews harmed their first shop's reputation. One way to know is to click the "business license" tab (see photo below in yellow). That will show their shop address in China. I've realized to my astonishment that a lot of Aliexpress shops under different names, are all using the same address. Aliexpress is much much smaller than we think it is, I know of some more well known shops of which even 4 shops use the same address!

Capture.PNG



- another tip is to look at the customer reviews tab (see photo below) for an item you wanna buy. You can see the stars they were rated. Some customer reviews are obviously planted, but there are some genuine customers that write some detailed info.
- obviously, for the same IEM being sold in different shops, if you get a bigger denominator of reviews say something with 77 reviews, versus an item with just 1 review, I would think by averaging customer reviews, the 77 review one would probably be more reliable.

Capture2.PNG



- maybe another good way is to just ask on forums like here on whether the folks have tried this shop before and how was their experience (be it negative or positive). But don't always go for the cheapest shop.
 
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Apr 20, 2021 at 7:03 AM Post #56,057 of 100,413
Quite a big dip in the 5 - 9 kHz region! I'm assuming there's a resonance coupler peak at the 9 kHz area?
It indeed looks like they inserted the iem quite deep so they get the coupler peak at 9,5khz instead of the standard 8k.
 
Apr 20, 2021 at 7:22 AM Post #56,058 of 100,413
Thank you so much for your help and your great post baskingshark!
 
Apr 20, 2021 at 8:56 AM Post #56,059 of 100,413
I bought a moondroop aria on aliexpress but the seller never sent them. Today i opened a dispute and i was immediately refunded. There is any topic about trusted sellers on aliexpress?

Thanks
Unfortunately with AE, I get about 10 to 20% of sellers that either: 1) never ship product, 2) Ask for MORE money for Shipping after sale was paid for, 3) "Say" that the item is out of Stock After accepting paid order. NiceHCK has sent 2 orders with no problem... Then in this last Anniversary sale, they pulled the "sorry not in stock/available" and "please cancel your order", two days after accepting paid order. For the buyer, this means you lose the value of any coins, or coupons that you used for that purchase; Something I still blame the seller for. It also may make Aliexpress lower your "status" as an unreliable buyer who cancels orders. NiceHCK did refund about a week later, but I hate it when an AE Seller does not honor the order that they accepted; especially during these sale periods that are limited in time. (One loses their chance to order the same item at a sale price from an alternate seller.) I seems that many sellers do not carry ant inventory; and only order from Their Supplier/Manufacturer AFTER they receive a customer Order.(like a small shop, or "middle man" might need to do)

I know lots of folks love NiceHCK, but they are not perfect; Not sure any AE sellers are... Just sharing my experience.

Lots of good IEM info and Experience gets shared in this thread!
 
Apr 20, 2021 at 8:58 AM Post #56,060 of 100,413
So I got a reply from ApeSonic rep here at headfi. They are having a sales on newegg for their products to launch them which had them silent for a bit. Will post my review of these soon but they seem to have them in stock now.

https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?d=ApeSonic Link dont seem to work. Just type in Apesonic on the search bar.
1618923474559.png

They have a purple color too
1618923568781.png
 
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Apr 20, 2021 at 9:02 AM Post #56,061 of 100,413
Unfortunately with AE, I get about 10 to 20% of sellers that either: 1) never ship product, 2) Ask for MORE money for Shipping after sale was paid for, 3) "Say" that the item is out of Stock After accepting paid order. NiceHCK has sent 2 orders with no problem... Then in this last Anniversary sale, they pulled the "sorry not in stock/available" and "please cancel your order", two days after accepting paid order. For the buyer, this means you lose the value of any coins, or coupons that you used for that purchase; Something I still blame the seller for. It also may make Aliexpress lower your "status" as an unreliable buyer who cancels orders. NiceHCK did refund about a week later, but I hate it when an AE Seller does not honor the order that they accepted; especially during these sale periods that are limited in time. (One loses their chance to order the same item at a sale price from an alternate seller.) I seems that many sellers do not carry ant inventory; and only order from Their Supplier/Manufacturer AFTER they receive a customer Order.(like a small shop, or "middle man" might need to do)

I know lots of folks love NiceHCK, but they are not perfect; Not sure any AE sellers are... Just sharing my experience.

Lots of good IEM info and Experience gets shared in this thread!
I had similar experience with NiceHCK Audio Store on this Ali sale. I bought bunch of stuff and when parcel arrived my Xduoo Xd-05 basic was missing. You can imagine my emotions at the time 😄 After chasing them it turned out it was out of stock due to shortage of available stock and will only be back in stock at the end of the month, so they shipped everything else and "forgot" to tell me about it.
As I have purchased the xd-05 at really low price on sale I decided to wait for them to restock. So yeah it is better to check with them do they really have the stock they are selling.
 
Apr 20, 2021 at 9:54 AM Post #56,062 of 100,413
I bought a moondroop aria on aliexpress but the seller never sent them. Today i opened a dispute and i was immediately refunded. There is any topic about trusted sellers on aliexpress?

Thanks
1. Check ratings before the purchase!

2. Even those trusted shops could mess up orders at times, so make sure to open disputes for refund. Communication could mean little as they'll most likely ask you to wait until the end of estimate delivery date.

I'd consider an instant refund actually a decent result. Sellers could drag this out to 3-5 months if they keep declining your proposals.



Ps. Is it just me or anyone experiencing delays for Ali combination delivery? Three weeks and they haven't reached the custom yet..
 
Apr 20, 2021 at 11:23 AM Post #56,063 of 100,413
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Aiderlot M5 :)
 
Apr 20, 2021 at 1:41 PM Post #56,065 of 100,413
Afternoon of comparisons between the new DAC/Amps that have arrived: the Tempotec Sonata E35 (DUAL CS43131) and the Xuelin H7 (Dual ES9038Q2M). I have a good afternoon of testing to do. I'll leave the measurements for another day.
The first thing that makes me happy is that the E35 seems better than the BHD, with a more authoritative sound, even though it has a 3.5mm SE output. Tempotec is planning to release an analogue version of the E35, called E44, with 4.4mm balanced output and 4V RMS. The E35 claims 80mW @32 Ohms.

The H7 is something else, but I need to get the best IEMS to enjoy it. If the E35 has authority, the H7 has more precision, detail and nuance, that analytical point that extracts that information I didn't know. But, on this occasion, the sound doesn't come across as very cold, rather neutral.

Tempotec Sonata E35 22.jpg
 
Apr 20, 2021 at 11:43 PM Post #56,068 of 100,413
EXTRA, EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT!!!

For my KZ fanbois, I present to you the KZ AZ09 Bluetooth Adapter!

LINK

Just got in contact with KZ. Says that there's no stock till next week. Will be able to give you guys a first impression by early May, hopefully. And maybe, just maybe there will be other connector options.

UPDATE: They brought the listing down. Don't know if price is finalized. Hopefully it's cheaper.

1618976527533.png
 
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Apr 21, 2021 at 1:40 AM Post #56,069 of 100,413
EXTRA, EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT!!!

For my KZ fanbois, I present to you the KZ AZ09 Bluetooth Adapter!

LINK

Just got in contact with KZ. Says that there's no stock till next week. Will be able to give you guys a first impression by early May, hopefully. And maybe, just maybe there will be other connector options.

UPDATE: They brought the listing down. Don't know if price is finalized. Hopefully it's cheaper.

1618976527533.png

Seems they are trying to muscle in on TRN's turf for BT adapters (eg TRN BT20, TRN BT20S, TRN BT20S Pro), which have been quite successful for TRN.

But of the KZ TWS stuff I've tried and read on reviews, they generally seem to have crap battery life or crap BT connectivity. One of my friend's KZ TWS set had 3 hours battery life OOTB. After 3 months it became only 45 min LOL. Battery life is expected to drop with repeated charging, but 45 min lifespan is not too cool IMHO. So maybe best to wait for early reviews to filter out first before getting a blind purchase for KZ wireless stuff.
 
Apr 21, 2021 at 1:52 AM Post #56,070 of 100,413
Seems they are trying to muscle in on TRN's turf for BT adapters (eg TRN BT20, TRN BT20S, TRN BT20S Pro), which have been quite successful for TRN.

But of the KZ TWS stuff I've tried and read on reviews, they generally seem to have crap battery life or crap BT connectivity. One of my friend's KZ TWS set had 3 hours battery life OOTB. After 3 months it became only 45 min LOL. Battery life is expected to drop with repeated charging, but 45 min lifespan is not too cool IMHO.
I have two TWS here, the first gen Xiaomi Airdots and the Soundpeats Truedots. I'd consider myself an early adopter as I bought the Airdots within the month of its release. Can't remember the last time I put those two in my ears 😂 At a lower price point, wired still reigns supreme. Can't say anything in the upper spectrum as I haven't tried one yet.

So maybe best to wait for early reviews to filter out first before getting a blind purchase for KZ wireless stuff.
They said I'd be able to review it so 🙈. Nothing to lose.
 

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