Received my Wurth Elektroniks Capacitors today and installed them on the Liquid Platinum. It sounds much better now. No more hiss or noise floor issues. Job was pretty easy. Only took 45 minutes. The red caps are the ones I installed…6 total.
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I’d imagine they (ZMF) are trying to represent what they have to the best of their ability. These are hand built pieces many one of a kind, especially when you stabilize the Maple. It would suck harder both for ZMF and the potential customer if they ordered thinking they were getting one thing and got something totally different especially in the aspects they placed value / importance on.
I know I’m biased because I just got my dream pair, but I think balls in a vice I’d run a boutique biz the same way. There will always be mistakes as well, cause you know we human, and keeping the human in the biz (which is a major selling point for ZMF) will always have FUBARS …maybe even moreso than streamlined super biz -> producing at higher rates but with less human.
But again just speaks to where one places values. Sucks for both friends but I imagine it also sucked for whomever programmed the mistake as well. Zach’s presence here and other forum and activity within these communities has been amazing and the ease of access and the positive stories faaaar outpacing the negative with ZMF, my picture of reality I’ll chalk them up to growing pains and continue to support ZMF as a company and as individuals…cause you know… we are all really just human.
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They still didn’t give them the best options that are actually available. And they’re holding their money.
I mean, they said "limited quantity with more coming throughout the next month”. I don’t think they’re to blame. They’ve been transparent from the beginning. Your friend ordered, someone else was quicker, and they gave him options. Sounds like pretty good customer service to me.
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They have some made already. They’re making him and the few others wait.
That’s not good service.
Where does it say they have pre-mades?
In an email from Bevin.
They’ve also mentioned it in recent livestreams.
They should just honor the price and then have a build plan through February. People will wait 90 days for ZMF. Better that than a cancelled order.
They should let them choose from already built units of the same color. They have several made already.
Unless they’re reserving them for other, but that wouldn’t be first come, first served.
Yeah, every Stabilized set is 1-off, and what you see is exactly what you’re ordering.
I’m still beside myself for having gotten an early stabilized VC. I’ve been waiting a very long time to see these become generally available, and I’m excited for others to share in the experience of owning such unique sets. Congrats on snagging a stabilized set–the one you got is quite striking. 
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That’s a bummer, but I’m not terribly surprised–the math makes perfect sense when you consider the number of people vying for a stabilized set, the number of sets available, and the size of the company. It’s too bad the site didn’t have a better way of handling the oversell, but those seem like pretty reasonable options, all things considered.
Every stabilized set is super unique, which is why they were selling them 1x1. There won’t be a “same color” available from the existing sets, though there may be something similar. Maybe. But if they start offering the pre-built ones to anyone who missed out due to overselling, then people who were unable to try for this first batch for whatever reason will be disappointed.
There’s no way to make everyone happy. However, offering a guaranteed future stabilized set is pretty generous, despite the wait. Hopefully anyone who tried to buy and got the rug pulled out from them can also try to buy any of the future listings when they come out without forfeiting the offer to have one made. That seems fair enough since it gives everyone a shot at getting one of the other reserved ones and still leaves a remedy for the sting of missing out on the first choice set.
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The difference is that they completed checkout and paid for those headphones.
One of the options given was to wait for them to build them a facsimile. They also mentioned that there were a few of that same color that would be available. Why not let them choose now (there are several built)?
And it was only a handful of people that this happened to, so it’s more than feasible to accommodate them.
It’s just bad service.
Lol what’s your deal dude? Do you genuinely non know how bespoke headphone companies like ZMF work? You keep saying they had a bunch pre-built but there is absolutely no evidence of that.
I know they have some pre-built, but by “some” I’d be surprised if it’s more than a couple dozen.
I ordered a set of VCs back in April and for whatever reason Zach generously offered to make me a stabilized set. Could be because these were my 3rd custom limited ZMF headphone, or because I went all out with a Pendant and extra cable and a bunch of other stuff. In any case, I was in the right place at the right time, and I kind of got a peek behind the curtain at the process. I had an opportunity to choose my set from among a few different cups, and I exchanged a few emails with Zach about the plan for general release of stabilized sets.
I know they have been working on some number of these very limited stabilized sets throughout the year, trying to squeeze them in while demand has also kept all of the backlogs painfully long for people waiting for their orders. Because each stabilized set is so unique they wanted to sell them off one by one so that people could see exactly what they would be getting. It seems they finally managed to get enough built to offer them as part of the ZMF November sale.
I also know from one of the livestreams that stabilized cups cost 15x the amount to produce as regular LTD sets. And it’s not easy to get stabilized pieces large enough for headphones. So these are likely to be extremely limited. I have no idea how many they managed to pre-build, but I do know that there’s not a warehouse full of them; ZMF is simply not that big of an operation.
Honestly, anyone who missed out due to the oversale, but still has an offer for a guaranteed stabilized set has still won the lottery. I imagine that if ZMF offered to let those people have free pick from among the pre-built sets, there might not be many (any?) more stabilized sets to offer. That would really screw up ZMF’s announced plans to roll them out over time. I think what has been offered really is both generous and reasonable. Those folks should trust in the process–ZMF will do their best to take care of folks over time.
Head-Fi has been talking about stabilized sets for months, and I know plenty of people have been waiting for their appearance. Now that they’re here, demand is far outpacing supply. ZMF is a tiny company that is hand-making each one of these and doing their best to offer them for sale, fairly, via a brand new sales model. It’s not at all surprising that there are some hiccups. The fact that they’re offering to make extra stabilized sets to order for people who got short-changed is pretty awesome if you understand the context.
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well somehow this just happened…
good thing i have the desk space now since building my new desk over the summer 
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Ordered an L30 from Hifigo, kind of regret it but hope nothing goes wrong. If the amp arrives sound and doesn’t die then everything should be good…
Also forgot to do the hifigo10 thingy, fuck me sideways…
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I’m really hoping we start seeing some taller ultrawide’s next year. I really want one but 27" equivalent is too short for my uses.
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Meze Rai Solo arrived today. If they are anything like the 99s then I will be very pleased.
They have a sale on the Meze site for €150. Delivery was less than 48 hours within Europe.
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I wanted to cross-post this from head-fi because it sounds like the same discussion was interjected here without an update.
Also - to further explain, we made about 10 sets of these earlier this year to see how we wanted to sell them, and realized they are so unique that we needed to sell the stabilized one by one AFTER they are built, because there’s so much variance (in the wood aesthetic) that it just ended up causing more email exchanges and customer service than a small company like us could handle.
I don’t know where all these rumors started about us withholding sets for any benefit, that was and never has been something we even considered, and I would appreciate those of you who know where these rumors started to help spread the below information so that false rumors don’t hinder a small company like ours from doing what we love, which is make headphones.
My post from head fi:
@ValentineLuke - just to be clear - anyone who has an order in has the option to choose ahead of anyone else from our selection of Verite Stabilized sets, in a private storefront that we are creating just for these customers because of our store mistake. This will happen BEFORE any other customers have a chance to see the next batch of sets.
There simply are no headphones that we are “withholding” from those who decide to keep their money invested in wanting a stabilized set. We sold ALL the sets we had made today and NONE are left. Buyers who missed out will get to choose from ALL sets we make going forward until they either find one they like, or decide to get a full refund. We have offered full refunds without question to those who don’t want to be first in line to see the next stabilized sets.
I’m not sure where you’re getting your information - but we have always and will always take care of our customers, it’s the most important thing to a small business like us. And what I stated here is exactly what’s been stated to customers who made a purchase that wasn’t the first in line for the particular set they wanted via direct emails to them.
Edit: I also want to reiterate globally, that this is just the tip of the iceberg on the stabilized closed Verite sets. I am humbled and amazed by the demand for them, they are super beautiful, and to accommodate demand we have a lot more sets to release. We just can only make them so fast for release, and we are working hard to do so. I promise the rest are just as beautiful as this first batch.
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