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Symphones "MAGNUM" pre-order and discount


Rhydon

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Annoyingly, a quick search online shows that Symphones isn't registered as a business in Canada (unless it's under another name), and whois doesn't show registrant details for Canadian domains, so I can't call him and ask him wtf is going on. Has someone got his contact details just in case we don't get any word in the next few days?

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From HF:

Magnum customers,

After much debate we have decided to keep a portion of the magnum product under development. We feel one of the vital components to the upgrade design- the driver coating- needs attention in order to reach what we feel is its optimal performance and durability. We have identified the issues are working hard to develop improvements. Given our current progress we are confident that we will arrive at a solution within a matter of 3-6 weeks.

Unfortunately, this decision interferes with shipping plans. As result we will be offering two options to address the needs of customers.

If you have already sent in your headphone for modification, you may opt to receive the magnum enhancement with stock MS2/SR325i/s drivers, depending on your original model. Once the new coating has been perfected, we will send you the improved drivers, which can be user installed. The design of the Magnum enhancement allows for interchangeable drivers. With this option you will be allowed to keep your original drivers as well any future upgraded versions. If you choose to go this route your headphone will ship with stock drivers within 1 week.

We will also be offering a second option. For those who do not wish to continue with the magnum development, you may receive a refund for your purchase. Your headphone will be de-modified and returned to you in their original packaging.

By now i am sure all of you understand how devoted we are to producing a world-class product. Such an ambitious goal requires both intense dedication and appropriate timing during the development stages. We feel this short hold will allow us to obtain the necessary resources needed to perfect and bullet-proof our coating design, resulting in a higher quality, better sounding driver.

I hope everyone will understand our decision and I look forward to supplying all of you with a professional high-end product in the near future.

Regards,

Rhydon Rayment

SYMPHONES AUDIO

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Got a shipping confirmation :) Since I live in a neighboring province, it should arrive in a couple of days... am I the first ???

I was promissed they would ship last week, I heard nothing yet though.

I emailed and got my shipping confirmation today, which shows up in both Canada's and Japan's EMS sites, so I guess this week for mine.

Looking forward to it :) ETA is Friday... a bit later than expected but still this week.

Mine are still sitting as Posted/submitted. I have emailed Rhydon to suggest he do something as I am sure they are still sitting in the post office where they were submitted.

Apparently an error with his account # on the shipping labels. "Cock warts!", as you say.

According to Rhydon, Canada Post wont ship them until all the labels are re-printed under the correct account, so they all have to go back to him to be shipped out again. He said they are going out Monday or he will overnight courier all of them, wherever they are destined. I can believe such a fuck-up actually. But yeah, very sucky timing for it on HF.

How does that message from Rhydon square with all of these various posts? Seems damn close to Mikhailese. :chair:

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Your headphone will be de-modified and returned to you in their original packaging.

:confused:

From the Symphones Web site:

Following the removal of plastic assemblies, we extract the existing drivers and carefully mill away excess plastic until we are left with the exposed driver surface – a process of delicate precision as the driver is permanently bonded to its plastic assembly.

Once the driver has been carefully milled, we use a special solution to remove the manufacturer’s original “destressing” compound. The goal of the new coating is to offer appropriate damping while being feather-light in order to promote ideal transient response. Drivers are verified throughout production to ensure they maintain 0.05db matching.

Doesn't sound particularly reversible to me.

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Based on my current time waiting on a Canada post item, people are going to have to leave these headphones to their music nerd nephews. This is a situation where if I were a buyer in the crowd of people I'd be cautioning patience. One foul-up which effects the outgoing items en masse looks disasterous but could be just an unforseen complication by a start up which is jumping in the deep end with the distribution.

I'd certainly rather that be the case than there be an actual gigantic balls-up which is going to lead to pain, misery, frustration and anger.

as far as the "reversing the mods". The description of what is done does sound long and involved and may be a large portion of marketing schpieil.

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Occam's razor would suggest they've actually done fuck all so far and that "demodification" will simply require repackaging of the donor phones for shipment. Should said phones arrive in original condition, this thesis is presumably confirmed.
I'm with stretch on this one -- at worst, they've disassembled the phones in preparation, and that's as far as they've gotten.

Except for the one, which they fucked up. Hence the talk about "bullet-proofing the process".

No idea whose pair that is, though. Probably theirs.

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The bigger question is: why do so many MOTs fail on Head-fi? Don't these people realize the implications of running a business and dealing with customers? Should the H-F rules be more strict, like seeing a finished product before allowing people to promote their business?

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we are mighty classy bunch of folk over here and are a little spoiled from dealing with each other, methinks.

i think stuff like this is par for the course when dealing with green-as-the-grass entrepreneurs. rhydon has clearly made mistakes in his communication plans (not to mention lack of updates...) thus far and has obviously underestimated the complexity of his undertaking. perception is a funny thing and he hasn't been at all careful to control it in his communication.

i had a short email convo with him today and the impression i have at this point is he did try to ship, it got jacked up somehow, he has them back, and wants to keep tweaking...

i continue to hope the engineer in him will shine through at the end of the day with an end product that doesn't suck ass. doesn't excuse the mickey mouse stuff in the meantime but you can bet he's learning a lot from this experience.

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From Rhydon on HF:

Im no stranger to these boards- hopefully i can help.

Development has been a rocky road. When you think something is green and ready to go- a few weeks later it turns out things didnt cure properly or there needs to be another tweak of some sort. We've had no help from anyone, development is done entirely in house.

It is a frustrating process, but we dont mind. We're going to get it right.

We realized this was no excuse for some customers and offered a complete refund option at our expense. While this adds considerable stress to the development- we're not out to burn any bridges. Most companies would not do this.

There are many of you who have opted to stay on board- thank you. We will be sending more frequent updates as things progress.

At the moment the problem is with the curing of the coating- however, we have equipment on order to aid that.

Downgrades and replacement drivers are done at our expense.

We just want what everyone else does- a solid, great sounding headphone- its taking longer than expected of course.

BTW, how do you do "empty" quotes?

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Magnum customers,

After much debate we have decided to keep a portion of the magnum product under development. We feel one of the vital components to the upgrade design- the driver coating- needs attention in order to reach what we feel is its optimal performance and durability. We have identified the issues are working hard to develop improvements. Given our current progress we are confident that we will arrive at a solution within a matter of 3-6 weeks.

Unfortunately, this decision interferes with shipping plans. As result we will be offering two options to address the needs of customers.

Reading this shit just after waking up, combined with expecting to receive them, expecting to receive a new shipping number already and reading up on multiple MOT fails the night before caused me to lose it slightly and send a rude email to poor Rhydon. His email said to me, "We've given up on the shipping idea, we're going to develop your headphones more.", which raised a huge WTF in my brain. Talk about badly wording and very badly timing an email.

If you have already sent in your headphone for modification, you may opt to receive the magnum enhancement with stock MS2/SR325i/s drivers, depending on your original model. Once the new coating has been perfected, we will send you the improved drivers, which can be user installed. The design of the Magnum enhancement allows for interchangeable drivers. With this option you will be allowed to keep your original drivers as well any future upgraded versions. If you choose to go this route your headphone will ship with stock drivers within 1 week.

After I read this more carefully, I sent an apology to the poor bastard ask asked for my headphones to be shipped and i'll take the better drivers once things are sorted out, which can be a couple more months down the track or whatever.

we are mighty classy bunch of folk over here and are a little spoiled from dealing with each other, methinks.

i think stuff like this is par for the course when dealing with green-as-the-grass entrepreneurs. rhydon has clearly made mistakes in his communication plans (not to mention lack of updates...) thus far and has obviously underestimated the complexity of his undertaking. perception is a funny thing and he hasn't been at all careful to control it in his communication.

i had a short email convo with him today and the impression i have at this point is he did try to ship, it got jacked up somehow, he has them back, and wants to keep tweaking...

i continue to hope the engineer in him will shine through at the end of the day with an end product that doesn't suck ass. doesn't excuse the mickey mouse stuff in the meantime but you can bet he's learning a lot from this experience.

I think you're right. I think he's nuts...in a good way and something that, a year down the track, will have become legend and we'll be raving about what he's created.

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I think you're right. I think he's nuts...in a good way and something that, a year down the track, will have become legend and we'll be raving about what he's created.
Don't have my hopes quite that high, but that would be a nice surprise.

Bad timing is just that, bad timing... nothing more. Poor PR sk1llz and rubbish communication are just that, nothing more... at the end of the day The Product will speak... or lack of The Product. But the day's just not over yet.

My mind has been churning on whether to comment on The Community's behaviour here but I can't really see a good point... boys will be boys and everyone loves a good old fashioned witch hunt. Far be it from me to get in the way of the mob, I'm a pretty small guy and will probably just get trampled.

I'll be sitting back with my preferred beverages (might take a few here...), listening to other gear (something we're all fortunate enough to have plenty of here!), and waiting until either it's abundantly clear nothing is going to arrive or something does and it's a) awesome B) okay c) shitty.

Cheers!

edit: btw someone on HF has already received their refund...

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Based on my current time waiting on a Canada post item, people are going to have to leave these headphones to their music nerd nephews.

Like I said, Mikhail Rotenberg, the newest Canada Post airplane technician, has finally ended his upgrade to the only airplane going in your area.....:P

DSC02069.jpg

Amicalement

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