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!
- 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.
- 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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