The All Purpose Advice Thread - Part 2

This is a really unfun situation, and I can understand the frustration.

I'm sorry, but who paid for the shipping for the return authorization? Who has the receipt? Edit. I meant to ask if insurance was listed on the receipt.

 

Maybe he sold you a defective unit, maybe it got banged up a little in shipping to you. Hard to say, but FedEx is who the beef should be with at this point IMO. I'd def fight that. I think when you agreed to RMA it, the original transaction was complete as far as PP would be concerned. Everything after that is on good faith. Sucks. But sounds like you're still batting with a pretty good average despite possibly striking out on this one. Will be curious to hear how it gets resolved. Good luck!

 

I did (he was to reimburse me for shipping costs to Schiit, along with any repair costs from Schiit, when all was said and done), and FedEx is claiming I didn't claim a value over the default $100 they insure every package for, despite my telling the FedEx Office kid I wanted to declare for the full value, so I now will have to dispute the initial FedEx claim settlement. I don't have the original FedEx Office point of sale receipt, so it's my word against their's, essentially. It wouldn't be an issue if he had issued the shipping label/paid for shipping, since then it would be on him.

 

If you liked the DT770, why not try moving up the Beyerdynamic line? There's the 1770 or 1990 (closed vs open), or up to the T5 or T1 (closed vs open).

Since mods are on the table, Beyers are easy to work with. Pads are simple to swap out, the cups have plenty of room to stuff things into, etc. You could even get a DT880 shell and plop tesla drivers into them.

 

Unfortunately, if he is still in communication with you and was willing to work with you on the RMA and costs, not the buyer's fault for FedEx screw up. From the value perspective, it's one thing to claim the correct value of the package, but it's another thing that you would have had to pay for the additional insurance to cover higher values. Did you pay for additional insurance? This would have been added to the shipping costs and should be itemized in the receipt/transaction, or maybe captured in their system?

 

Yes, I declared the value of package at the FedEx Office location with the understanding that I was paying for additional insurance - declaring a higher value than $100 is FedEx’s way of applying insurance for that shipment for more than that amount, since $100 is insured by default. It is something like $1 to $2 more per every $100 additionally declared. In their system, they are saying that I did not declare over $100, so I now have to take my chances with a dispute with their claims department, which who knows how long that might take or if it will be resolved favorably. Also, I am the buyer here, not the seller, I just made the mistake of not insisting the seller pay for shipment to Schiit up front or issue his own label for the RA. It seems to me I would be in a better position to ask for a refund from the seller if FedEx lost the shipment on his dime.

 

It does. And I agree with everyone else that the whole thing's unfortunate.

But imagine that when you told him that it failed your inspection, he'd said, "You can either return it to me for a refund or keep it and I'll pay for repairs."

If you'd kept the preamp (along with the promise to pay for repairs) after explicitly being given that choice, wouldn't that mean that you'd accepted it from him rather than rejected it?

To me, it seems like that's what happened. I mean, it doesn't sound like he actually verbalized both options, but of course you knew that they were both available to you.

In my opinion, you owned the thing from the moment you chose not to return it, and that didn't change when you followed the seller's suggestion to send it to Schiit and accepted his offer to pay for the repair. So the preamp you shipped to Schiit was yours, not his, and he's no more responsible for it now than he would be if it had been destroyed in a fire before you could get it to Fedex.

I don't know whether that's the right way to look at it, but so far it's the way that makes the most sense to me.

It's too bad that the Fedex claim is turning out to be such a hassle. If they'd just paid the total value, none of this would even matter...

 

The fire analogy is a good one, thanks for that.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback everyone, was exactly why I posted. I hadn’t mentioned this, but when I messaged the seller explaining how I felt about the situation, I mentioned that I’d be happy with a partial refund rather than a full one given the circumstances. We’ll see what he says. Either way, I’ll likely fight it with FedEx after all.

 

I never heard any Beyerdynamic headphones, but from what you describe, the Mini C might be up your alley in terms of bass, which is really great on that headphone. However, in my personal view its treble response is a bit too dull, which reduces the fun factor. It’s one of the most competent headphones I ever heard for more than a few minutes, and for the price it’s just incredibly good. But I wouldn’t say it has a fun tuning.

If you’re willing to step away from your rig and connect your headphones directly via USB, the Focal Bathys might be a good option. I’m rather treble sensitive myself, but I like the slight V of the standard tuning that isn’t overdone at all. It’s lots of fun for pop and metal and electronic music, provides great bass down to very low. And the typical Focal punch, of course. For classical (and some jazz), I prefer the Home EQ preset that provides more prominent mids—it’s nice to be able to choose. While they are not absolute high end in terms of technicalities, they’re very, very good, much better in fact than I had expected in the price range. Good enough that I never miss anything when I listen with them.

 

Which modern tube amp that can mimic the sound of Eddie Current Balancing Act as closely as possible? Preferably something that can drive planars well too.

I tried the Feliks Envy performance edition finally last weekend and based on memory the ECBA (with Elrog tubes) still has an edge in treble sparkle & definition, dynamics and soundstage. Envy though sounds more tonally dense and definitely much more powerful: bass control is a bit better with the Feliks flagship.

 

Not sure where to put this so...

What's the sweet-spot in the digital era (the appearance of the CD) where sound engineers figured out how to do it right but before the loudness wars? I'm guessing mid to late 90s?

 

Tuesday the 3rd of November 1992

 

The day Whitney Houston released I Will Always Love You and Rage Against the Machine released their first album. I'll take this to heart and never listen to anything else again

 

Does SBAF have a thread that's dedicated to headphone comparos? Or is that not a thing?

Something like the Yggdrasil Watering the Ash thread but for headphones.

 

I don't think so. The closest I've seen are the compendia for headphone brands or mods, some of which are quite old now:

https://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/zmf-compendium.9044/

https://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/hifiman-headphone-compendium.1685/

https://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/sennheiser-hd650-m-compendium.3188/

https://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/fostex-t50rp-mods-compendium.7824/

 

The closest I can think of is @wbass at one point not that long ago auditioned a pretty large number of flagships (and just some popular HP’s in general if they weren’t flagships) before settling on I think Susvara. Fairly sure the impressions were via profile posts, though.

 

FWIW, staring on pg.2 of my status updates. Sort of scattered among several stream-of-conscious posts:

https://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?members/wbass.7274/&page=2

Maybe I should put these (somewhat from the hip) impressions in some thread somewhere? It might be nice to have a general compro threat, but I suspect too many folks would disagree? I sort of found Resolve's headphones.com ranking thread useful but diverge from him in many places. He seems to want neutral tuning, which fair enough, but I like, for example, the LCD-4 quite a bit.