OK—final update on my long Nio B-stock journey. Quick recap: I got the B-stocks, they looked (literally) flawless, but it emerged that the right monitor had a bad socket and would occasionally lose about half its volume. (I wouldn't be surprised if this socket problem is common given the way the stock cable seems to stress out the connection point.) The problem emerged within about a day of use, and so warranty covered it. I packaged them up and with some sadness (since they sounded so so good when they worked!), sent my new purchase back to 64 Audio. (I had to pay for return shipping.)
While I had been under the impression that they were either going to repair it immediately or send out a replacement pair if the repair was going to take more than a day or so, it took about a week and a half for them to do the repairs. Had this been a repair in the sense that my once-functioning product became damaged, I would have been super excited about the quick turn around time. But it did seem a little weird for it to be treated as a standard repair given that the IEMs were dead on arrival, and I had thought their customer service rep said it wouldn't be treated that way when we spoke on the phone to arrange for the RMA. (I may have misunderstood, of course. And they did comp me a case and some extra foamy tips as an apology for the bother and for making me pay for return shipping, which was very generous on their part. They also seemed to pay for faster shipping to get it back to me, which was also very appreciated.)
I've been enjoying the repaired Nios for the past few days, and after switching the stock cable out for something without memory wire, I couldn't be happier with the IEMs themselves.
Would I recommend going B-stock? Before going through the long rigamarole of getting them fixed, with what I felt was not the best customer service policies (requiring me to pay for return shipping even though the IEMs were defective on arrival; treating it as a repair and putting it in the normal repair queue; what I felt was not clear communication about timing) I would have said unreservedly "yes." There was no cosmetic defect at all! Given that I had the experience of receiving a defective unit and that addressing it wasn't the best experience, I'm not so sure. The savings on B-stock were so good, that I'd probably go this route again if I ordered another universal IEM from 64 in the future, but I'd do so much more warily and with an appreciation that things might very well not work out at first.... The warranty is there for a reason, though; so it's less that I'd fear something will go horribly wrong than that one might suffer what is in the end some inconvenience.
On to the sound: I really love these IEMs! I am coming from Andros and use Focal Clears as well, and I love these, especially since I do so much of my listening on the go. A lot of reviews (understandably) focused on the sound with the M15 module. But having listened to
a lot of classical music over the last week with the MX module, I think its a great IEM for a more neutral, open sound as well, where one still gets the richness of that DD bass. For that matter, even the M15 sounds great for classical music if one is willing to sacrifice a little spaciousness for some extra, delicious bass. I'm not at all experienced with listening to lots of different high-end IEMs, and as a tuba player, I am probably about as bass-head of a classical music lover as they come, but I do think that the Nio worked out super well for my tastes, especially with the flexibility of the modules. (For folk, rock, and bluegrass, the joy of sticking in the M15 and knowing some thickkkk bass is headed my way is just a joy.)
Now the
next question is do I try out the N0 module from FiR.... If anyone has one they want to get rid of, hit me up!
Also super super big thank you to
@twister6 who helped me out over some DM's in making the final purchase! Very appreciative of the help!
