"Anyone who feels cheated can get a refund or replacement"... I call bs. I've been trying to get KZ to replace 3 sets of faulty SK10 since December. They are totally non-responsive through Aliexpress and Facebook.
Lies upon lies. I'm getting angrier and angrier as I listen to the excuses. One main advice is: as soon as you see that your lies have been discovered, acknowledge your mistake/lie and contain the problem. Denying and trying to build another layer of lies will just amplify the problem. Stop it. Acknowledge. Apologize. Refund if you will and just stop it.
There's an elephant in the room here that has not been addressed. The youtubers who pulled apart these IEM's did not do so because the sound was suspect IIRC. They actually sound good which means the tuning was done with essentially only the DD in action. They must have known what they are doing. From a different perspective: KZ are just rubbing customers' noses into their strange beliefs that more drivers equal better sound and that multi-driver IEM's can be tuned to give a coherent, seamlessly integrated sound for less than $40. They are just giving us the marketing BS that many of us seem to crave. The non-functional drive units are just marketing cost.
Yeah although the term good is pretty vague and subjective especially when we're talking about something like a sound signature. But it's also worth noting, a lot of these reviewers didn't even mention the fake drivers, told everyone to buy the products, and got rich off affiliate links.
@@michaelcorcoran8768 If a driver is designed to contribute meaningfully to the sound, then its failure will cause the sound to be seriously deficient, not just a slight mis-tuning. So there was no reason to believe something was wrong and reviewers recommended these products only until KZ-gate broke out.
Maybe it's because I live in the United Corporations of America and thus I've been subjected to world-class bullshit my whole life that I'm not impressed by these weak answers. "We moved factories and our workers are incompetent" is such an easy hand wave to explain really nothing. Hi-Fri literally makes his own custom IEM's from scratch, I'm sure he is aware of the proper way to remove and test drivers, as does Akros. The interesting thing to see going forward is if they really do start to make all of the drivers start firing, will they have the tuning expertise to make those extra drivers actually sound good and coherent with the main driver? The KZ rep seems to think you can change tone and timbre of an IEM with a driver that isn't making any audible noise. If he can explain that sonic wizardry to me I'd love to learn a thing or two. Edit: a name
Bro, they're representatives paid to say BS to try and win people back, you'll get what you expect, weak answers and more bullshit. Workers being inexperienced can be true, and since its manufactured solely in China and owned by a largely Chinese management, you're not gonna get the quality westerners are used to (to a degree). I highly doubt it's only KZ and CCA, all these chi-fi IEMs that get pushed out every other market boom probably have "QC issues" as well.
I believe them when they say their factory style is very traditionally. When I was an engineer I have often visit factories in China Dong Guan(not KZ), a multi-national company (not KZ) Despite an American & Swiss company in China Dong Guan, their production ground people even the head of department do have hard time keeping up with QC and production consistency. Especially when they have a change of people in the production and departments, trainings and technology transfer are very time consuming, and they do often misunderstood and pressured for production quantity over quality. I am aware of all this because I was responsible for SQC (Statistical Quality Control) & SPC (Statistical Process Control) for a Swiss/American company covering South East Asia. KZ has admitted their error and their representative has come out to address it instead of users just bashing each other’s on the digital world. All and all I wish KZ well and there’s really no need to turn the joy of enjoying music to hatred, it’s really not worth it. 💙
I'll still check out their inexpensive earphones if they get good reviews (if any of the honest reviewers even review them after all these shenanigans). But paying for extra drivers that don't add to the sound profile is just weird and wasteful, even if they technically "make sound". It seems like they got tired of people talking about how metallic sounding their Balanced Armatures were/are, so they limited their output. Then they could continue to put them in their IEMs and recoup costs by charging more because they added said BAs (even though they are overpowered by the dynamic drivers). I do hope the issue of the DQ6/DQ6S's 6mm drivers being wired with reversed polarity was unintentional. But it's hard to believe given when they were each released and the problem persisted on both models. That would be EXTREMELY bad quality control over a long period of time and not because of a new factory or workers. I could be wrong though, it just seems highly unlikely that mistake went under the radar for well over a year.
I've been using ZSN Pro for 3 years that most people said "to harsh" probably it's due to when the BA still working, thus making the sound to sibilant. People don't like and so comes to your conclusion by tunning down the BA so it's not to harsh.
Problem is the reviewers benefit from giving positive reviews because people click on affiliate links. Half of them are now doing collaborations. Either way they have a financial interest in getting you to consume. We need to find reviews that aren't so attached to increased consumption that honestly at this point the best bet is relying on community feedback. Even then have the community has a parasocial relationship with the creators involved so it's tricky
I have old KZs like ZS3, EDR1, ZSN Pro, AS12 and now CRA. All the drivers are working fine on them and they are fantastic value. Just because a couple of models like ZEX Pro and DQ6s had issues doesn't mean I have to bash KZ. KZ should definitely improve their quality checks though or else they'll be losing business big time in general from now on
People will bash KZ and rightfully so, because they lied about their marketing, now granted you are still getting good sound for the price that still doesn't make it ok. If anything, we should be opening up all sorts of Chifi IEMs every now and then because you can't really trust them anymore, this isn't just a one thing with KZ, it's an entire industry of lies.
Thank you for this interview, Ian. It's good to hear it directly from someone on their staff rather than just a statement that they posted. I'm glad they owned up to their quality control being subpar, and their intent to their designs. I still don't fully trust them yet, but if they truly own up to it, perhaps in a few years their products might be worth buying. Do you think it will affect CCA, as well? I know they're a sister company to KZ, so I'm not sure if their products are made in the same factories or suffer the same QC issues.
On March 10th, I asked them to look into (batch production explained) whether or not mine is affected, citing their official statement saying that 'a percentage of potential risk that it is blocked by glue'. I'm still waiting for their response. Subscribed!
KZ LIED comprehensive explanation or comprehensive honest explanation?, kz has been producing and selling iem for many years?, NO DOUBT IN THEIR CAPAILITY of design from electronic circuitry, plastic molding and tuning. the problem in there is big BUT, if you have THREE electronic accoustic filter to tune , THREE transducer you have to tune, THREE physical accoustic filter/damper to tune, one shell to tune. in case of dq6 it has 3 dynamic driver, do you know how much trouble, tuning, and rnd you have went thru to properly tune THREE dynamic driver? fine tuning is not goes well with mass production and low production cost especially for multi dynamic driver. kz INTENTIONALLY disabled the 2 micro dynamic driver because, they dont have the time to tune it, they dont have the worker to tune it, they DONT HAVE THE TIME to tune it, why? BECAUSE LOW COST MASS PRODUCTION.
Im not sure how much i could trust KZ. I snapped 1 of BA in the right nozzle piece of my Zs10pro accidentally, then the pair doesn't sound balanced anymore, the right side volume lowered, some details missing compared to the left piece. Probably i need to snap the little BA 1 by 1 just to find out which one functioning & which one is decoration.
This video is excellent, the KZ man could have been more honest i feel, he isn't willing to fully admit maliciousness behind DQ6, because the smaller drivers do nothing on ALL units.
@@Rorensuwl8 maybe are 3, and maybe they really have a problem with quality of workers/glues/quality control. You really have a proof that everything is staged, or just rely on the 2-3 people on internet? On the stores that sell kz I saw tens of thousands opinions that confirm the quality of sound. For me that's enough. Of course will be problems with some of the products (Ferrari/Mercedes/Sony etc have them also) that's why you have a warranty, laws etc in the case of malfunction.
@@alxdava2004 KZ employee spotted. Me and two other reviewers with PERFECT DQ6 and DQ6S units have experimented and CONFIRMED that the DQ6 is only 1DD, hence the controversy. do your own due diligence if you don't believe the facts. the earphone costs $25
3 important points "root cause" "corrective " & " preventive" from his explanation they have only fulfilled 50% if they do not perform a recall Im confident the next 2 years will be difficult for them as manufacturer & OEM to regain the consumer confidence as they themselves destroyed the "BRAND" by being complacent
The same explanation is done by apple(even more lame ones) , Samsung, Toyota etc when they screw up. What do you really need to be convinced? And if this is not enough than go and buy Sennheiser or anything else that give peace of mind. So many complaints for almost nothing.
@@alxdava2004 correct so if KZ is not interested to repair its reputation with it will take a minimum of 2 years before ppl forget of this episode and not only end user market but OEM market as well as users will avoid any produce by KZ so I would dare say its main revenue stream is OEM manufacturing and once thats effected maybe they will be ready to repair now I would dare say they r not very interested in doing so.
@@dthliat1 where did you see that they are not interested in repair the "harm" done?! They did this declaration and they point out exactly the things that anyone who owns a business would have wanted to improve considering the field of working.
It makes absolutely zero sense that they would do any of this on purpose. It would be like purposefully building a million-dollar log cabin with diseased wood. You paid for the wood (working drivers and crossover) so why sabotage it? Makes no sense.
It wouldn't make sense for them to put worthless drivers in the IEM? I think it's pretty clear it's because people are more willing to spend on a product that they think has multiple drivers. Many of the reviews that came out before this was exposed cited the multiple drivers as a huge benefit. There is an obvious benefit for promotion in claiming you have a multi driver IEM. Or at least there was until this debacle.
Whatever the explanation, I'm still amazed that RU-vid's community of audioshills couldn't detect a problem and lavished praise on a faulty product. The explanation is similar to claiming a car is the fastest in the world when its turbo is disconnected. Having owned a Dunu EST 112, the difference between a purely dynamic driver earphone and hybrid design is glaringly obvious even with my damaged hearing. I'll set up my own channel, add sh!t background music to some random audioshill verbiage and collect lots of bribes from manufacturers.
Yeah to me that's probably the bigger scandal. In fact some of the reviewers are double dipping. They release one video shilling the product and making money off affiliate links. And then if they're asked about it on a live stream or something they wag their finger at KZ as if they weren't totally complicit and making money off this. I think the RU-vid audio review community is one of the most overly monetized, conflicted places around. At this point I tried to avoid any products that are hyped up on RU-vid. If a products good it'll survive the test of time. No need to rush out and buy a product at lunch anyways, there's no software or batteries in these things. And they all want us to click on the links and buy stuff.
Good initiative Ian. I reckon your Chinese standard is quite telling and u could have scripted your questions beforehand. We knew u wanted to ask them for their remedial course of actions but u just couldn’t put it into Chinese. Quite a typical Singaporean, becoz I’m one too. 😅
Well I guess we have to take his word for it and see what the future holds for KZ. I for one I will thread lightly from now on when it comes not just to KZ but other products as well.
They say they are so big in China and not in the rest of the world, the real numbers will never be known, but I'm sure they must have felt a serious decline in sales since the rumours started, which will have mainly been heard outside of China, because is RU-vid used in China? Second: otherwise they would heve never reacted to the negative comments to their products. Third: most of my remarks have already been made below. Last: My KZ X Crinacle CRN sound much better than the other ones which are much cheaper, so for the time being I'm pleased with my IEM's from KZ!
Advice to Chinese brands and manufacturers, do a proper quality control and don't be afraid to charge more for it. Most of the consumers will gladly pay more if they know that the item they are buying will work properly and won't fall apart. This price race to the bottom is stupid and does not benefit consumers when items break and it does not benefit manufacturers because they don't get properly compensated either.
It benefited us the poor people that have monthly paycheck of just $80. KZ is a hero for poor people that want good sounding IEM for cheap. The problem is why they are selling those extra useless drivers if with single DD they can sell more stuff to poor people
bullshit. there is no winning here. this is beyond repair. Either they purposely designed the drivers to not produce sound and the factory did the correct job, or they designed it correctly and the incompetence of manufacturing is at a level not seen in ANY of their other IEMs. It would be better for them to say... "we could not get the three drivers to integrate properly, but had already designed the shell, so we simply disabled the two 6mm drivers. If you feel that you would not have bought the IEM knowing it was functionally only a single DD, here is the email to our refunds department specifically for the DQ6."
Great interview ian.. It's good to get more insight and clarity into this situation... It's good to see kZ take full responsibility for their mistake...I don't know if I'll ever trust them again but it's nice to hear.
I dont buy the word, Traditional. Because, How many years now that KZ making IEM to the international market? Anyone who doing this hobby more years then I do, know how this brand sound signature, price and value. Don't get me wrong I love my KZ ZS10 pro, my first KZ IEM. Then Defected DQ6 (electric shock faceplate, reseller not approve return and change) ZSN Pro X. If KZ are care about this issue, they should know better by now that international market is NOT you can do the same in China. They have to improve the QC process for the market first then to quantity. Before getting it out of factory and oversea. This mean they are zero adapting to the market at all. all they care is pumping the product quantity, sell it and forget about it. They already get our money why do they need to care. Seriously, I'm plan to get CRN, DQ6s to know how the influencer tuning is like, but I stopped all of it at this point because I cannot trust the brand atm. In Addition, I'm curious for quite a while now after I got my defected DQ6 and this Incident are clearly to me that they don't care as much as I hope for. They look honest though, but atm I can't trust them until something is can get me trust back on par.
It was found out that the extra drivers other than the DD makes just 5-10% of the sound making it barely audible and useful. Basically, if you cut those drivers (BA/MST/EST etc.) off/disconnect, they barely make a difference in the FR graph. A lot of people got offended because of the fact that they're paying extra for the supplementary drivers only to realize that they could've just bought it for just the DD alone and have the price set cheaper.
@@ammmm_4803 How was this measured? As in I gather people have the right equipment to be able to tell in the first place. Just measuring the FR i don't see as a proper way to tell if a driver is working or not. Whats funny about all this is they are not that expensive and yes it matters by principal but what are people expecting from a Chinese company that only does cheap audio equipment.
The DQ6S had 3 dynamic drivers (DDs), and the 2 small ones could not emit sound into ear canals due to glue blocking their specific channels. Now the original DQ6 had been out for months, but people complained about its tuning. So, a tuner HBB who is a respected Frequency Response measurer and reviewer came on board to tune the DQ6 resulting in the DQ6S. In the process of the tuning, KZ must have known that the original DQ6 was glued up and the DDs were dummys as it must have been opened up the DQ6 and various tuning modifications done.
If is sound good it's ok. If not, returned. It's all that it matters: work and look at your level of expectation for the money. All the rest is just waste of time and neetpeacking just to have more views maybe.
Please. Learn from your mistakes and stop stuffing in a bunch of inaudible drivers. Revamp your whole products, and focus more on tuning. 1 driver with good tuning is good enough.
I'm not sure to understand. Why people think they would wiring incorrectly their drivers on purpose ? Yes I understand the logic that more drivers = higher price (in theory) But why wiring them incorrectly ? What's the fucking purpose ? Anyway I have many objections toward people that want to bash KZ. Firstly KZ is may be the tree hiding the forest. Many others brands are potentially concerned. Secondly now KZ will be checked at the magnifying glass so unlike others brands they will not be able to "cheat" anymore for sure. Ultimately I have KZ earphones (IEM) myself and I can say that compared to my old big brands (Sony, Philips, JVC, etc) earphones (IEM) the cheaper KZ literally killed them in term of price / performance ! Those big brands IEM cost around 20€ - 25€ in a shop. My KZ HD9 (3€) killed them in term of sound quality. Not even talking about my CCA Ca4 (12€) which ones are way over anything I previously had. If they keep their promises to refund the DQ6s and CRN buyers and inspect more their products before to sell them and they send free samples to independent testers to verify if everything is OK, ... I think we can accept their apologies. They've made a mistake on purpose or not OK that's fine we can excuse them. But if in the future they make it again then they will have no more excuse. I hope they understand that. But bashing them is to easy when you also know they have released very good products for a very cheap price...
Tired of it. Enough! This is not interesting at all. Now everyone like to imitate the drama “hero” or “expert”. I'm not a fans of KZ but does feel it maliciously. Keep your own brain from those drama queen who want to be famous.
Is this a joke from kz. What a fu..... stupid excuse . I bet if people start to open every driver they build with more than 1 drivers we will find maybe 10 models with the same thing. It's called fake lip sync. The other speakers are not tuned and kz wants people to think they work at full blast when they not. It's like a singer that can't sing and they place her mic on volume 1 and the backing tape at volume 10. Simple they cheated us. What a fu.... excuse .
@La merguez à Walid 2 that's the point. Even if you connected them they work 1% is like a mini driver that costs 1 cent just to be connected and look good.
@La merguez à Walid 2 not connected. Lol. What you talking man. Having a driver between 2 drivers with no way for the sound to pass its called what. Lol
@La merguez à Walid 2 not allnsera buddy. 15 sets I paid 800 bucks. I could get a good set instead of this 15 sets for sure. My fault for believing in them
Happened with CCA NRA as well. I wonder if the CCA ca16 is just a DD rather than a 7ba+DD. I think it is and these guys are all liers. I like the NRA tuning mind you but it's just the knowledge that they've lied to me selling something that wasn't as advertised. Go away kz and bury yourselves in shame.
KZ.. To honest, you are done. The reason is not the faulty units BUT the reason you are trying to think, us, the customers are stupid enough not to see through your BS. This is just a failed try to wash your faces by claiming its the " factories fault". It is not, its 100% yours. First you tried to claim its the customers fault. You are just done. Done.
I personally don't give what they do inside as long as the product is working as I expected and marketed. Don't care about glue, 5 dd BB cc etc, I care if they work and do the job for the price asked.
The point is that the iem will be more expensive than it really is if they stuff more drivers into it. Might as well buy a cheaper single DD iem and will perform just as well. not to mention that's causing e-waste and false advertising, customer trust.
@@LISTEDGames you should buy something considering price/performance ratio not for the "technology" advertised. Is stupid to buy a million dollar car with a performance of 50k car. And if that's the case for you, maybe you have been fooled by all these youtubers/reviewers that are running for visualisation.
At least 50% of people commenting on this issue can barely comprehend tying their own shoes, much less the intricacies of sound reproduction. Seriously, this is why the U.S. ranks so low in mathematics as well as a plethora of other subjects. The man gives you a comprehensive explanation of what happened and you still can't grasp what happened and why. It's disgusting, and all you people that made such a fuss about this should just quit life altogether.
