Dumb Boutique-headphone Reliability Poll - VOTE NOW!!!!

Looking to get a bead on more recent reliability as reputations can last years after they’re no longer valid. Take the results with a healthy pinch of salt as these things tend to skew toward the negative, even more so the way I’ve set the voting rules. Also, if you want to compare manufacturers do not compare the raw numbers. Compare the ratio of failures to non-failures, assuming we can gather a large enough sample of votes per manufacturer.

Rules for Vote:
1. Major faults only: driver failure, channel imbalance etc
2. Based on your expereince, or someone you know who is not a member of SBAF
3. Original purchase made in 2016 or later, even if not by yourself
4. Votes for failures only for those that occurred one month or later from original purchase date
5. Votes for no problems only after 6 months or more from original purchase date


If you have had more than one failure please elaborate in a post. If you’ve heard any anecdotal info on failure rates from dealers you trust then please share. Also interested in Oppo, Focal, Enigmacoustics, and Stax. But I had to adhere to a poll limit of 10 entries.

EDIT:
Solid reasons not to take any of the results to heart

 

Any particular cutoff date? I had a pair of stax where one of the drivers died, but it was a pair of lambda pros older than I am.

 

The year two-thousand-sixteeen was mentioned more than once, yet less than three times. So clearly the cuttoff is either the year 4032, or 0, or perhaps simply 42.

 

Reframing things: Is this actually a planar reliability poll?

 

I mean, BenjaminBore went out of his way to specify Focal as well, so rather than it being a poll on whose planars are the most reliable I think it's more a matter of planar-magnetic diaphragms just being a somewhat more fragile than traditional dynamic ones. Guess that's what happens when you chase after nanometer-thin diaphragms.

FWIW, I do think that HFM and the like are on to something. I got to try the HEK (not sure, but might have been v2?) out of an iCan Pro not too long ago and pretty much fanboyed in the store. Unfamiliar gear, the only album on their playlist I was familiar with was TSwift's Reputation (shhh, I know, I know), and while these are very unreliable impressions I remember liking em a lot. Maybe not the best in resolution that I've heard, maybe a bit clinical/unengaging-sounding, but I might certainly make a use case for em if the price weren't so painful

 

There's a bit of an underground Hifiman appreciation faction here, though we tend to keep our heads down most of the time ;-).

(When I say "Hifiman", I mean the house sound... not the wanky overpricing or the hit & miss build quality).

 

Include me in that faction! Their sound is the only positive quality. The HE1000's soft yet well extended signature is a great companion for a punchy, slightly anemic headphone like the Utopia.

 

Ah, I missed the mention of the other brands in the post. I eas just looking at the poll options (though obviously ZMF and HifiMan have some dynamics). That said, it seems like this is might be less a measure of boutique brands’ than of planars by boutique brands, given the inherent fragility involved.

 

@Josh83 Not sure why it matters, but in the interest of bumping the thread and increasing the sample size: My initial thoughts were of Audeze and Hifiman’s reputation, and the reports that the former had gotten their shit together at the end of 2016. But the thread was intended to be about all high-end full sized cans (which I forgot to specify) and really maximising the usefulness of a small voting pool covering a fairly short timeframe. Due to the poll being limited to ten entries I felt these were the most pertinent choices, and it just so happens most boutique manufacturers sell planars.

@pedalhead @Lyer25 I had a quick listen to a variety of Hifiman cans at an event a few years ago. I liked them all, if not for focal I’d have moved in their direction. Judging by the voting also there may well be a fair few people who have them, and I’d love to read their longer term impressions. SBAF has good reason to love dynamics but they have their own pretty heavy flaws, and the Senns as good as they are in specific areas are in my limited experience overrated when considering their overall performance and characteristics. More activity here in non-dynamics would be a healthy occurence.

 

My inner statistician declares this invalid and useless.

My outer headphone enthusiast voted anyway.

My inner statistician appreciated the increase in sample size that the headphone enthusiast provided even though the exercise is still ultimately without merit.

 

This poll does not also address what kind of issues. From what I hear, issues are mostly due to headband or housing issues, not really diver issues.

Planars are kind of like ribbon mics and not as rugged as dynamics, but how well the high dollar headphones get treated fairly well by most.

 

Sorry! I was pretty sure I replied to this way earlier but I think it might have gotten lost in the "my net connection keeps dying GDI" abyss. Sigh.

Anyway, I definitely agree that their house sound and "presentation" aren't quite as bad as some on here make them out to be. While I agree that dynamics still do some things much better than 'stats and orthos, I still giggle a bit when I play something ridiculously bottom-heavy on an Audeze planar, for example. The bass you get on those is just silly-awesome.

Good catch. Between wooden veneers falling off and headband mechanisms snapping, I can see how drivers might be less a concern than these other issues. Still, given the limits of the polling system I think it's as good as can be done to determine what products people are more likely to experience troubles with (even with the limited sample size). I mean, a more in-depth survey would require a LOT of manpower, and sorting truth from BS on the internet isn't exactly easy.

And whether or not expensive headphones get pampered more than commuter cans doesn't mean that knowing which is the more durable/reliable/hardier option is pointless. While I doubt many people are buying planars to wear on the metro, probably blasting them to unsafe volumes to counteract ambient noise (coughLCD-XCcough), it'd still be reassuring to know that a piece of tech someone's likely sinking a lot of money into will be able to stand up to some abuse.

(P.S. I don't do too well with statistics and can barely navigate SPSS or R without wanting to flick my monitor but largely agree with @Skyline that this isn't likely to generate much useful data. Still fun though, I'd have voted if I'd bought any of the above )

 

Fun, perhaps. But bad data is worse than no data.

*Insert Debbie Downer gif here*

 

@rtaylor76 the scope of the poll is constrained both by intent and forum function. The type of failures were stated. I chose to focus on faults where there is no recourse other than manufacturer intervention. ie no possibility of a chewing gum and duct tape fix for their primary function.

The first word people see is “Dumb” for good reason. @Skyline if you’d be so kind as to write a few concise sentences as to why it shouldn’t be taken seriously I will quote it in the first post, you’d do a much better job than I. I’ve also struck-through a paragraph on comparing ratios to avoid encouraging misuse.

Reputations form solely based upon whether an individual feels they have heard one too many negative reports. Once enough people take that stance it is repeated enough to become accepted knowledge, lasting long past relevance. The poll isn’t statistical by intent. It’s an experiment exploring whether it would allow us to gain an even slightly better feel for things versus the above by gathering a larger number of reports and having them all in one place (heathen types may insist upon referring to this as a gathering of useless statistical data ), with the hope of it being a less bad alternative if taken in the correct context. I can see though that due to various deficiencies in the poll it’s specificity could actually make it more bad, or for reasons I have not much more than a gut feeling for completely useless.

Interestingly, or not, having watched the votes come in the trend hasn’t fluctuated wildly between failures and non-failures.

 

I can take this one...it's called sampling error. An we are not talking digital sampling.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampling_error

SBAF regular members are not a wide enough sample.

 

No Kennerton here, don't we even hit "Dumb Boutique" status?

 

- Voluntary response sampling is biased. I could stop here and it would be more than enough.
- Small sample size
- Should have individual models listed to see if it's widespread or an issue with one particular headphone in a lineup.
- Groupthink is alive and well here, despite what people would like to think. This ties into issues with the first two points.
- Many members of this community may be harder on their gear than the average consumer. What if mods were attempted?
- Response bias due to wording of poll options. You make some clarifications in your post that many responders probably haven't read. Without your clarification, the voting options can be confusing and lead to inaccurate responses. Could be simplified to binary options of no failures/failures since purchase in 2016 or later.
- As started by others, "major failure" is subjective.

I could go on, but there is coffee to drink and music to listen to.

Again, I know the poll was just in good fun. So, carry on. But, when you teach this stuff for a living it's sometimes hard to keep your mouth shut, haha.

For the record, I've owned a good # of headphones including some from the above manufacturers and I've never experienced a failure of any kind. Now that I've said this, I'm sure I'm due...though this is also a common statistical misconception.

 

@Skyline no that’s all great. Just going through the process both before and after the original post has been a learning experience, if only to see the mistakes I made and the inherent flaws in such an endeavour. You’re input has been very helpful in crystilazing those issues and more. Also helping to publicly contextualize the usefulness, or lack thereof, of all such polls.

@Drakkard Kennerton who? The intent was more “dumb poll”.