KZ Has a MAJOR Problem... 

what did I do

KZ was so close to getting respect from the community and reviewers. Imagine the success they could have had 🤦‍♂️

Is "performance" in audio a psychoaustic phenomena? Having said that, marketing in audio has always had a healthy account of snake oil added

I would imagine KZ has seen this video,so my question is this,have they done anything about it? Are the new KZ IEMs any better like the KZ ZSN pro x ?

Very well put. This has caused alot of unhappiness. Some people rely on these expert reviews. The captain didn't build the ship but if it goes wrong we all know what happens.

I ordered 2 sets of these, never saw these videos to today and emailed them as that was 5 days ago and asked why not sent them and they're apparently haven't sent due to being shut down from covid. Or is it cause everyone now knows.

planning to buy the kz eda, do you think it is a good idea?

Even with 1DD they manage to get it wrong timbre wise, zex pro and dq6 never sounded good to me. A blon, chu or T2 sounds correct and if you're willing to get a bit above that the aria sounds a lot better than buying multiple 20-30$ iems

What's the current situation on KZ's fake driver controversy? Drama I don't know enough about headphones to fully understand either side here, but I found two conflicting arguments and I don't know what to think. Here's a great summary of the whole KZ situation where I got all this from. A couple months ago, Facebook user Delta Fyre made a post about how his KZ CRN graphed almost no different after removing the EST and BA drivers. He claimed the drivers were for all intents and purposes, "decorative". Crinacle himself (who worked with KZ to tune the CRN) made a whole statement on this and promised never to work with KZ again. Everybody hated KZ. However, I just found that apparently Delta Fyre made another post down the line, explaining that he noticed the exact same thing with another headphone manufacturer. Curious, he then asked the EST driver manufacturer themselves for clarification, but found out that this was apparently normal behavior, and that the drivers were for tuning purposes and not for taking over a band of the FR as you'd initially expect. DF says he essentially takes back the whole initial exposé against KZ. This is the first time I've ever heard this alternate angle. On one hand, I'm tempted to believe him because he essentially started the whole KZ flame war. On the other hand, it's hard for me to believe that the EST and BA drivers have an actual intended purpose other than marketing fluff considering they're a hundred or so times quieter than the DD in the CRN (he compares ut to the TRN BAX which had the same "issue"; with the DD at 118 db, the EST would be at 90). I've never heard anyone else in the audiophile community address this last bit and I don't know what to believe. Any ideas? Are adding additional drivers to IEMs to change timbre and tuning normal, rather than wiring everything through a typical crossover? Edit: Final thoughts After reading through the comments and the explanations, I'm pretty certain KZ was in the right here. Delta Fyre expected the drivers to work a certain way (as tweeters/subs), and when they turned out to work differently (for tuning and detail retrieval to assist a full-range DD), he mistakenly thought they were fakes meant to up the driver count, as he explains in the apology post I linked.

My prediction is that KZ is just the start. I believe other companies do the same thing. The person taking apart the earphones found this and it seems nobody else does this but a few others I know of. It's new to the community and important because it will educate us about what really matters when it comes to the technology and tuning techniques these companies use. I can understand from a reviewers prospective that this discovery has caused a procived value in how many drivers are used and how all the drivers work but it's never really made since to me tbh. It seems the reviewers and customers feel deceived and lied to yet gave a positive review. If the crossover drivers really don't work then why does it sound good? That's the bigger question

after this (im entirely new to kz) what kz set would you suggest buying for under $50? they have a loooot of iems to look through

I'm not sure what going on

i have a KZ ZEX claims to have a 1dd 1est driver but the high freqs sounds terrible and bass don't kick that much

Is there a list of KZ earbuds that are in question ?

My experience with KZ has been great. Got the ZAS model, after owning custom molded Ultimate Ears. Something happened to one of the UE ones and having them fixed was gonna cost about $300 bucks. They were $700 brand new. took a plunge with the ZAS's. They sound VERY similar to the UE's, maybe with a little more bass, but at $70 bucks, worth 10% of the cost of the UE's. But yes, they claim to have 8 drivers per side... I don't know, the UE's were 3 and worked pretty much the same, these ones with 8 drivers?? they sound great, but I do believe they are still 3 actual working drivers per side.

This aged better knowing what happened.

I have a ZS10 Pro and after a few months the bass on the left earbud stopped working but still has highs and mids. I dont know what is going on.

just got the KZ Castor, EDX-pro and a few other KZ's for about a buck fifty each on ali-express black Friday lol i have no complaints.

I bought the kz zsn pro last day for 13$ they are good the sound is clear but I didn't feels that there is more than 1 driver like tye bass is not that loud I said to my self maybe this is how 2 drivers sounds like But after watching your video Im now sure but in the end for 13$ and that build quality not bad and there is one problem I found there is some noise sound when I Lower the sound

Although I bet they probably included it in their marketing (I'm unaware) I can see why those drivers are left in, its very expensive to get new machining and a lot of stuff in china is made almost at material cost and those drivers are tiny, would take more money to make little pieces of something to fill the space they took up in a way that wouldn't effect the tuning on the main driver.

I already bought the zex pro about a month ago and seeing this now, im kinda disappointed, i mean all im hearing is the dynamic (which would answer my question of why there is distortion at high but not highest volumes) and its something i shoulda paid 1/3 to 1/2 of the value ☹️

I think crynicle said this in his video as well.

I just seen this video after receiving my DQ6 iems. Regardless they still sound better than the sures i was using. So they made a phenomenal single driver iem. I have no issues for the money vs spending over 100 dollars for a entry level iem that sounds like crap.

Apparently putting more drivers is not wasting money, but a marketing move... People wants more,

I have a pair of KZ-ZSN Pro X and tbh, I love them....even if there are unused drivers, it doesn't change just how good the sound is for so little cash.....shame.

i am listening to this all the way through, but i cannot waiver my love for the KZ ED9, ZS10 PRO and now ZS10 PRO X i don't use them for critical listening/mixing, but for audio pleasure i love the sound. please don't attack me i love you

what about qkz

Is the CRA better than the ZEX PRO? Regardless of the issues

Im jus seeing this after buying 2 zsn pro x

CZ from binance and KZ from IEM both doing same 😅

Are you gonna review the moondrop Chu and Crinacle's new collab (with truthear)

i bought a pair of kzs and they were UNUSABLE i mean the static was louder than the audio the sound quality was just simply not good and i even OVERPAYED for them kms

A truly entertaining story. Imagine them watching these videos. You need to provide translations. ;)

I don't think KZ are the only ones doing this.. 🤔

@9:20 - we can't prove what was the intention unless they volunteer or caught red handed. But there is the "specification subject to change without notice" (legal) loophole. This scam is relatively tiny compare to the cell[phone industry ( non-user replaceable battery and glass cover ) .

To give the devil its due, many companies are being pushed to use more drivers or be shamed to be lacking innovation and being greedy. Look at Sennheiser for example, they are being blamed for having the same driver in many of their IE line of IEM while asking for more money. However, Sennheiser is strong enough, smaller companies have a higher risk. So from their perspective, you have to have multiple drivers, otherwise it will be hard to segment your product. This will create an internal pressure which could lead to this. I would would put some of the blame on the community alao instead of putting it 100% on KZ.

Happened with the CCA NRA as well. I like it a lot. Really. I still like it a lot. But I was sold something that wasn't what was advertised. Shame on them. KZ REALLY ?!?!?! Come on if you can tune things that way why do you need t lie about it? Shame on you

I'm done with KZ too.

Got a KZ pr1 pro for 3 months, left side got quieter :.) Edit: apparently pushing the membrane with a screw driver made it louder :l

Casually watching this with Kz zsn 10 pros

You should check out the Tin Hifi T3 +, fell down a rabbit hole of your channel and have been enjoying the videos!

Kabear lark is better i think. I've used both kz zex and Kabear is now on use. No one talks about kabear. Although they've little on low on the bass but still enjoyable. I'd like to know other people's experience with iem's around 30$

Good that I waited. Would have been a feeling of getting scammed

ye. i came here looking for bad opinions on this brand as someone who has only bought the bottom barrel price edxs on aliexpress, this definitely tracks for this type of brand to me. Id say their respect gained from the general or entry market is always gonna be more important to them.

надо попробовать отключить основной драйвер, услышим ли мы арматурные драйвера?

which is KZ's best iem?

Have you or anyone else verified this claims?

Should I order the zar’s?

They are gaining respect finally... Few good models now.

finally some common sense, yeah while Crinacle or other tuner and reviewers take no responsibility on engineering, these people pride themselves as connossieurs that can tell apart driver timbres like DD, BA, coherency and other stuff, all of then blame the "BA Timbre" but it turns out it's just one driver doing everything and their pride is what let their guard down against these fake drivers. All their reviews and endorsements influence people buying decisions, and now all of them and their followers pit all the blame on KZ while washing their hands clean from their mistakes as reviewers that can't even tell brands are faking them even though they're so proud of their tastes and "Golden ears". I say they are put to the highest standard since they claimed that they know what "good earphones" sounds like from all sorts of price range and are influencing a lot of people buying decisions. Oh and nobody bothered to test ZEX Pro and VK4 Old Batch since they look very similar on Crin's database, well i did, and they sound different, the ZEX Pro has a real peak on 8k that cause the dreaded "BA timbre" while VK4 is free from peak in my ears while using Sine Sweep and ZEX Pro is rolling off heavily after 12k while VK4 still has energy up to 14k which caused better treble extension on VK4. so yeah, even Crin can't guarantee his graph is a measure of quality.

isnt it possible that the other driver arent ussles they could be used to reduce noise or workd on a frequency that human basicly cant hear :D

For me the KZ ZS 10 PRO lost their bass. Dunno what they used or how much balanced armatures or dynamic they used. But the fact is that after the 3rd month the right one lost its bass and responds from ~220hz and up and 3 more months later the left one lost it as well and they now sound thinny only mids and Highs just like cheap ear buds. So that tells me the eather the smd filters on the pcb failed do to shock or whatever my phone can do while plugging them in or the balance armatures where used and some of them failed (I'm guessing some of them where responsible for the bass).

i have the KZ EDX Ultra and i payed 25€ and the sound is much better than my SONY WF-1000XM3 wich costs 90€ and better than my EOZ ARC II at a price of 120€with a sound on a 200€ lvl...

Bro, I am sorry for your misunderstanding but don't worry, i am here to help you clear this. it's the PCB that controls audio distribution between drivers. Every driver is protected by a NOR gate. It is engineered in such a way that if a consumer damages one of his drivers by accident or willingly by avalanching audio frequencies at high volume, then the diver will fail, in that case, he/she will continue to get the sound uninterrupted out of the remaining active drivers at least. This is not like a home theater speaker bro, where you disconnect a subwoofer and then the bass will be cut off. Engineers are not fooled either. IF they manufacture headphones like a home theater speaker, then easily some noob consumers might damage those sensitive drivers by blasting them at high volume, and then suddenly they will not hear certain frequencies of the audio. How bad it will be? Nobody will then like to hear a partial speaker if you get what I mean. On average consumers often break their headsets already but we don't get aware of it. The engineer hence has thoughtfully implemented a method where one can take advantage of all of the drivers if used by care and if unexpectedly something breaks, they can at least get a normal headphone performance instead of cutting out / null audio. So here is the ECE that they implemented correctly, it's like a switch. As soon as a driver will fail, the audio will be rejected by those drivers and only Dynamic will be fed with the audio signal.

I tried the KZ and found them very very bright. Too much high frequency. I returned them to Amazon within 24 hours.

Anyone do this to the kzsn or kz s10 pro? Cuz i love this brand Sounds better than $180 beats on bluetooth So I really don’t care. Lol

I think kz lack good engineer they have the driver but they dont have a skill to make them all work together and sound good. So they just think that if they couldn't make many driver sound good together. Why not mute other driver and tune only 1.

I hate how the person doing this stopped at just a few KZ iems. I mean is it all KZ iems? is CCA doing it too? how many other companies do this and what IEM's are actually safe?

How can you say that the CCA NRA's at less then $20 are BAD?!?!?! They go seriously loud with absolutely 0 distortion even when I drive them with my Fosi Audio N2 which can drive 600Ω headphones! I mean at $20 come on, they're not that bad!!!

Also, piggybacking on the thread, i texr below..i also noticed this blind, loyalty , of audio people, that stuck with em..in thee 8 months, ive watched and read bout kz products...the number one thing i said to myself..I ave no clue why people endorse kz...in 8 months, thats what it came too..blind loyalty to a company who, before this debackle, made some really bad products..

Great video, I didn't know anything about this before. But, I do have to criticize the point about multi-level incompetence. Engineers may very well have wanted to, and had the capability to tune the other drivers. Management or C-Suite employees could have pulled the plug on that R&D due to time constraints. Or, one shady employee (at or above management level) could have insisted "no more tuning", then lied to upper management. Having worked in a corporate setting, these things can happen for all sorts of bonkers reasons. There are TONS of different ways this could have happend. Now, the fact that it did happen does cause distrust from me, but I would forgive this bizarre behavior if they are able to explain what happened. I believe an apology and reasonably detailed explanation is in order. If we don't get that, then I'll remove them from my list of contenders for my next purchase.

Fuck KZ! but I do still like my CRN.

100% agreed Gus very honest opinion.

Shit. I almost buy a $50 above kz

Sorry man. Kz did the Katy and cheap job. They tune one driver and that's all. They cheated . And even the pro is never better than the mele for 50 bucks. I bet all of their iems are the same. They cheated . Let's built a iem that has 7 drivers . But we concentrate in one and the rest does lip sync. That's what they did. Simple. Creating holes. Tubes. Filters. Distance . They did not bother with that their dd drivers is not worth 20 dollars to be honest

Couple of years ago I bought KZ ZSN - based on all the "audiophile" "reviews". Far from comments from reviewers about sparkle, or recess, or bright, or all of the other trendy terms everybody uses, I'd use terms like pungent or stench. These IEMs are really, really bad, no matter what amp, tips or fit I achieve. My reference is a pair of bluetooth connected pair of Sony 7506s. So, this news about including non - or barely functioning - drivers isn't relevant. The whole chi-fi scene, as far as I'm concerned, and from my own experience with other purchases, is a huge scam. At least this stuff is not expensive.

I think the BA is empty its only a housing its fake

The worse blahblah I ever heard. Nonsense😂😂😂😂

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.

Too much editing here... It is misleading. Of course KZ has to take responsibility of they want to retain their customers..

Hello…. Do you know that other brand IEM where cracked open and tested at the same way and the other drivers doesn’t have audible sound. You guys put it on RU-vid slamming KZ etc but no one rectify and corrected this issue yet out a brand to shame. You guys are RU-vidrs and not engineer and not manufacture and shouldn’t add fire to the oil. Do your homework. Or at least do another video to clear this incompetent message.

I wish you people would quit speculating and spreading misinformation. How many of these have been opened, 2? You're a horrible reviewer. Your fake outrage is just cringe. Frankly, I think you're just taking info from other reviews and regurgitating and perpetuating more hate. Just stop it.

Oh yeah, unsubbed.

In my 8 months on my tws/ iem tear, buying great tws, like the jvc ha a7tgumy, sabbat e12 ultra, lypertek sf s20, votomy v22, just to name a few...ive looked and liztened to alot of reviewz, on, tws/ iemz...ive watched, quite a few vidz on kz, vx 10, sk 10 , s2..anyway, if a tws, doeznt ave a volume control onboard, im not buying it..also errd, the kz twsz, ave tons of bad connection..saw a video of guy, who was doin a kz video, and said, that kz, has realeased alot of bad products..now, i started this back in july of 2021..ok..i neva had theee inklin to wanna purchase, any kz product. So, what am i missing hyere...notta god damn thing. Glad i watched and read bout kz, to avoid bullshit like this.. Kz izza bad brand...period..therez tons of tws/ iem brands out there...luv my bt, and itz not just for the convience, the great sound is there, with no cables, amps, etc..itz all there in the tws, for alot cheaper..i did just buy an iem, bought the whizzer bs1...quite a nice sounding budget iem..open back too..peace

Check out the whizzer bs1 openback iem.. 26 bucks for a nice, nice iem, that works..oh yeaah

I bought KZ Zs10 PRO and they sound flat, metallic, super high-frequencies boost, no mids, no bass at all. A little bit of basses are just on the right side, then I discovered a leaking of glue (or something similar) near the connectors... Unusable, they sound worse than a 5$ generic cheap chinese earphone. I tought I was unlucky to receive a fault device, but searching on the web I notice that A LOT of people has this kind of issues, so the Quality Control is very poor, there are too many KZ IEM with factory defects, I will never bought them again...

You don t speak a truth!