Symphones "MAGNUM" pre-order and discount

[some1x]

Haven't heard back since I asked for a refund. Hmm.....

[some1x]

Haven't heard back since I asked for a refund. Hmm.....

Heard back and should be getting refunded Friday.

[some1x]

Heard back and should be getting refunded Friday.

Got my refund Was charged PayPal fee, but whatever. Good luck to those who stayed onboard.

[n_maher]

Got my refund Was charged PayPal fee, but whatever. Good luck to those who stayed onboard.

That's somewhat ridiculous. If you paid through paypal they could refund you through paypal and no one would be charged any fees.

[Hopstretch]

Fee-free refund is only for 60 days, I think.

[n_maher]

Fee-free refund is only for 60 days, I think.

I believe you are correct, in which case they should have made sure not to shaft customers that funded their development.

[Hopstretch]

Yeah, well I hope I'm wrong and Eejit is right, but the get-out-right-now-for-a-small-loss strategy still looks the smart option to me. From bitter experience, early signs of flakiness often reliably foreshadow later proof of fakiness.

[Currawong]

I opted to have the headphones shipped now, as they are, with the original drivers. That way, if the driver mod and the business falls through the floor afterwards, at least I'll have a working pair of headphones. If he succeeds, then I get a new, hopefully better pair of drivers and have a pair spare in case whatever they did to them falls apart.

[Aimless1]

Yeah, well I hope I'm wrong and Eejit is right, but the get-out-right-now-for-a-small-loss strategy still looks the smart option to me. From bitter experience, early signs of flakiness often reliably foreshadow later proof of fakiness.

This is my experience as well. Every time I hung on expecting things to get better I got burned ... usually badly. The current signs say bail now.

[penger]

I opted to have the headphones shipped now, as they are, with the original drivers. That way, if the driver mod and the business falls through the floor afterwards, at least I'll have a working pair of headphones. If he succeeds, then I get a new, hopefully better pair of drivers and have a pair spare in case whatever they did to them falls apart.

Do you get the cool looking cups now with old drivers in it?

[Currawong]

Do you get the cool looking cups now with old drivers in it?

Seems that way, with the promise of better drivers down the track that I have to solder in myself.

[justin]

That's somewhat ridiculous. If you paid through paypal they could refund you through paypal and no one would be charged any fees.

That's just paypal being jerks, google checkout lets you refund like 2 years later

[Currawong]

My pair have been shipped and have moved through a couple of postal facilities in Canada, so something is happening.

[Currawong]

Mine arrived with the stock drivers and I'm listening to them now. Quick summary (or maybe not so quick):

1. They were nicely boxed, Grado-style, but the box was a regular brown thing. No issues there.

2. I'm guessing for the modified drivers, they are held in place with a few allen screws (of a size which I don't have an allen key for -- Rhydon, please add an allen key in when you ship the drivers. ). The stock drivers seem to be held in by friction, as the screws were loose but the drivers weren't. One driver wasn't seated perfectly, but nothing a bit of finger pressure wouldn't rectify. However, how I'm going to get them out will be an interesting matter, but not one I will worry about now.

3. The new half-ring that the cups swivel on has a half-moon cut-out where the cable passes through. It needs some sculpting IMO as it rubs against the cable, scuffing and squashing the cable a little. Since Grado cables are covered with the best generic PVC tubing (ok, I'm being a smart-ass but you know what I mean) this isn't really an issue.

4. The sound:

Understand I usually listen with HD-800s or Stax, so my standards are high, and that these are preliminary impressions. They are brighter than HF-2s without the mid-bass bloat, all in a pleasant way. Turns out they are brighter than the HD-800s possibly as well (but I have to do some proper testing, I only did a bit of quick headhone switching just now). The thought that comes to mind is that they are what HD-600s are to HD-650s compared to the HF-2 with regards to tonal differences. With the Kind of Blue 50th anniversary album, the sound is more open and clear. I feel there is a little roughness compared to the HD-800s, which I suspect the new drivers and a re-cable will help with. Overall, tonally, it has that HD-800 trait of "What do you mean is there enough bass?" with there being enough of it, neither overwhelming nor thin, but mostly "just right", though probably more than the HD-800s with the stock cable. There does appear to be a little bloat in some songs, such as with the bass in "Shining Moon" by the Cowboy Junkies. It sounds as if there is a bit of emphasis, possibly at slightly different frequencies than the HF-2s have. Mids (vocals) are very good, but get boxed in by bowl pads, which is a fact of life, making them a bit recessed, which is fine with me, and gives a sense of space in the recording. This didn't at all prevent Norah Jones distracting me from writing just now (from The Peter Malick Group Featuring Norah Jones CD). The treble is a bit squished as well, and in some cases they are brighter than my HD-800s, so may be sensitive to the quality of the rig they are used with, but is otherwise very clear. I am, of course, used to listening with the fastest headphones available, so these sound a bit lacking in detail overall.

Overall though, I really can't wait for the upgraded drivers. So far they make the HF-2s sound dull and bloated to my ears, and aside from the big change in soundstage, switching to the HD-800, when I switched to them just now, I actually want to go back to the Magnums. Once the last 10% is fixed, I reckon these will be very kick-arse headphones. If they are designed to sound like the discontinued HP-1000/HP-2 etc, then I entirely understand why people wax lyrical all over those models. Sure this is just the first hour of listening, but I'm already scared that this pair could potentially knock off both the HD-800s and HF-2s, neither of which I planned to sell (in favour of Stax and possibly orthos as my other headphones).

One thing to note is that my rig doesn't at all present issues with headphones with peaky trebles (except with a lot of sibilance in the recording, which then is unavoidable) and that I've only listened to about a dozen songs as I've written this (and written somewhat poorly).

Pictures to follow. I can't be bothered uploading them now. Workmanship (apart from the obviously stock driver and small quibble with the cable) is fine. The MS2s I bought were a bit battered to begin with so there's not much to see.

[Currawong]

Pics are here: MobileMe Gallery

Notes: The latter pics were to show how the cable can get rubbed. It needs a couple of layers of heat-shrink around it. Also, it only came with half the screws. I hope the rest will come with the updated drivers.

[feckn_eejit]

I let Rhydon keep my SR325s in their entirety until the whole shebang waw ready. Got a tracking # on the 29th, regular plain jane Canaduh Post... was kind of expecting overnight at this point but hey what's another couple weeks!!?!?

[Dusty Chalk]

...unless indians attack, in which case they may have to drive in circles for a while.

[Currawong]

My drivers just arrived.

[jigster]

Mine arrived yesterday, running in as we speak. Left the Alessandros with Rhydon to mod and ship as a complete headphone. Didn't want to bother with exchanging the drivers. But then I would have a spare stock driver, oh well.

Now people, give Rhydon some slack, he came through in the end.

Haven't heard a stock MS2i before, think I may just go and audition a pair for comparison.

[Salt Peanuts]

Glad to see people are finally receiving their cans. Hopefully, the wait was worth it for you guys.

[jigster]

Glad to see people are finally receiving their cans. Hopefully, the wait was worth it for you guys.

Have to admit, the excitement and anticipation kind of fizzled out. But its always a great feeling to receive a package in the mail, especially on Mondays! Even more so, after the holidays.

[postjack]

stop "running them in" and start posting impressions, or aardvark will ban you.

[n_maher]

Now people, give Rhydon some slack, he came through in the end.

I'm not going to cut him any slack when he can't be bothered to run the fracking heatshrink up into the driver housing and make his product look professional. Do I also see a zip tie poking out of the housing too??!??

[Voltron]

[jigster]

To be fair, that's an APS cable I sent him to install but I guess he could have shortened the lead up to where the heatshrink ends. But to me its a minor no-no. I'm just glad I got the headphones, unlike my ugly experiences with a certain SPA-hole.