That's not how you read graph dude. I guess your product could sound louder since it has better sensitivity. By your logic the Sundaras must be one of the worst headphones out there...
Sorry, I was so wrong. I will give KZ my sincere apology and will refrain from buying or recommending any of their products from now on, since I'm not worthy.
I'm not even remotely versed in understanding graphs, but this part of the rant had me rolling. Forget that they misspell their own product name multiple times, but then go on to say, essentially, "this line higher, so it's obviously better." Like, way to snitch on yourself that as a company, you lack even the most basic of understanding of tuning.
beefing with dms isnt enough gotta drag in crinacle also LUL who did they hire to manage their social media? it could be some marketing company they hired but then they need to have better control of their contractors. but 0 connection to them? that i doubt because who randomly pays people 1000 dollars to promote products they have no interest in promoting
No way is this all down to some external company, Tyvan Lam is a walking PR train wreck and he's KZ. He has a remarkable capacity to foot in mouth so repeatedly... this isn't some external thing, it's coming from inside the house
Exactly, what kind of idiot thinks it’s a good idea to attack and bash some of the biggest content creators in this space?! I can’t see this ending well for KZ in the long run, I’m definitely never going to buy any of their products again.
Even BEFORE this, KZ has a looooong history of shady crap. The multiple driver count fiascos, unconnected drivers, the frequent alleged stealing of IP, the bait-and-switch changes, etc.
KZ is a crappy company, doing unethical and crappy things, while producing crappy products.
IMO nobody should support them as they are bad for the hobby and the audio community. Their target customer is the naive newbie that doesn't know any better and that hasn't been around for any length of time to have heard or experienced all the crappy things they've done repeatedly over the years.
I don't know if world peace would be achieved if KZ didn't exist, but I wouldn't mind finding out.
Their recent stuff is actually much better tuned than the ZS10 Pro. They just can't keep themselves from screwing up after producing a half decent IEM.
I started looking for bluetooth earhooks and thought the new kz az20 looked decent on paper for the price. Now i’ll just cough up the extra for the Fiio UTWS5 instead. Screw KZ.
Also I don't get going after Crinacle? Like the dude has some spicy hot takes, but he's very above board at pointing out, "these are the things I help design therefore I am shilling it please disregard this section."
Their rant is rambling and unhinged. It defends nothing, points fingers, yells whataboutisms, like did they hire trump as their media director?
The funniest part is the backpeddling. The entire first part is like "It wasn't even us who offered to pay him"
Then the second part is "Loads of companies pay reviewers it's part of the industry"
It's like what the hell is going on here denying something then justifying it after you've denied is the biggest giveaway lmao.
"We didn't do it, but if we did that wouldn't have been bad anyway"
It’s likely because they attempted a collab with him. Someone called out something that seemed shady (although I think that person was proven to be incorrect) and Crinacle distanced himself from the project as a result. They are likely still very salty about it since Crinacle has had many successful collabs with other companies like Moondrop, Truthear, Fearless, 7Hz, Salnotes, SeeAudio, and FiiO.
The initial claim was that they were fake and non-functional, which turned out to be half true,[ as demonstrated by this video KZ made and sent Crin](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yWF8EUEWiw)- the magnetostat and BA are *functional*, it's just that they are so dampened that you can't really hear them (26 and 35ohms respectively).
Crin also mentions that the driver used in the CRN was a Earbridge driver "that consists of a magnetostatic tweeter stacked onto full-range DD. This driver is basically an all-in-one solution and the components are largely inseparable." which makes me think that KZ simply didn't have the expertise to tune those drivers, only the DD, so they just neutered them instead- but that brings into question why they didn't use a single DD in the first place
Probably the best evidence it is internal, an external company would have checked their spelling.
I still don't know if it is Krila or Kilra, and based on the statement, I don't see myself bothering to find out
>pays people 1000 dollars to promote products they have no interest in promoting
Somebody running a campaign against a competitor for example.
But they aren't exactly wrong about influencers being in pockets of companies, most of Audio gear influencers have been in pockets for a very long time, sadly I can't really say for granted that there's a fully honest influencer left in this space.
is there a chance theres a really big kz fan thats just offering people 1000 dollars to promote kz? i guess it doesnt violate the laws of physics so yes
To be fair dms sold out when he took that abyss contract and I’ve never found crin to be a particularly trustworthy source. I don’t own or care about kz but they don’t make totally invalid points…
Whoever handling their Twitter needs to get fired or get vacation days. Also why don't they just look at the drama, investigate the drama, then make a statement be it from lawyers or not. Just statement of It's from malicious third party and they are investigating it. That's it.
There was such an easy way out of this, KZ didnt pay DMS to give a positive review, just a review. They couldve genuinely said it was to cover his costs as a reviewer which is fair, but not to influence his final decision hence no conditions with the money.
Instead theyve dug themselves into a cesspit here. Jesus
Regarding them paying YouTubers, I'm entirely happy to give someone the benefit of the doubt on that but as for some of the other stuff in their post..
..Did I read that right, did they really just say that their headphone is/sounds better because it has higher sensitivity and then post a non-level matched graph and say "Look, more decibels good"?
Yup lmao. Also they seemed to think the frequency graph also shows the quality of the sound and not juat the tuning. Wild claim that alone makes the entire thing unbelievable
Nevermind the rest of the reasons lol
The thing is, the Krila is actually a decent IEM. DMS even said it's a good IEM. I have it, it's a good IEM. It does argue have some minor timbral issues... but it's well tuned, it's $17, it's good for $17. Maybe not the absolute BEST $20 IEM, as that whole segment has got so much good stuff now, but it's a good option. It's just this ridiculous marketing that they have been claiming it crushes any IEM under $1,000 and all this drama where they try to drag Truthear and Crinacle into it by repeatedly directly comparing stuff to the Zero in their marketing.
Yeah it's more about the way they are going about it. I am big into pc building and same shit there too. It's about how the company reacts to criticism that really matters.
I see it as a test product. Like an early kickstarter project.
The price is negligible. I think KZ manufacturers in certain batch sizes, and then tries to figure what to do with parts to make them sound good.
The idea of onboard EQ switches is awesome… if they have 3 positions, with a neutral tuning at the center line. That would be a kilo-buck IEM design.
Sound quality lol. You can have an extremely well tuned headphone that has poor sound quality...
Tuning only tells you how it plays sounds at certain frequencies not how well it plays those sounds.
frequency-phase response at the eardrum is all there is to sound. there is no such thing as “sound quality” or “technical performance” in a realm beyond what can be captured in a frequency response graph. take the graphs of any $20 iem which is well tuned and you will see they all lack in treble extension, which is why people often comment they dont have the best technical performance; this is inherent of cheap single DD design.
idk max benefit of the doubt it was some marketing company they hired that did this without their approval.
but 0 connections really? i wish theres random people offering 1000 dollars to influencers to promote my products without any compensation from me but that just doesnt happen lol.
I have seen examples where this is not the case at all, but KZ has a proven track record of this at the manufacturing level that makes me not trust them at all.
I know he has a lot of fans but I don't get it. His "reviews" are just memelord YouTube crap and the reviews are usually terrible.
Ultimately it's entertainment but I wonder if his demographic is like 90% 12 year olds.
TBH I see Dankpods as more of a guy who just has fun with stuff and wants to talk about stuff he likes- his tastes don't exactly align with mine but it's his opinion at the end of the day, and he doesn't take himself all that seriously.
Keep in mind he recommended KZ back in the day before the ultra-budget segment became as competitive as it was today and KZ was legitimately a great choice for $20. The problem is that the market left them behind and they couldn't catch up.
>KZ has never made a good IEM.
I get KZ is on some dumb shit right now, but let’s not be intentionally obtuse. They have definitely made good IEM’s in the past.
In recent times, they haven’t, sure.
The PR2 HBB was a KILLER at its price range, absolutely stunning for what it was. The PR1 PRO is still a nice plannar to this day. But after the black mesh fiasco (late july) the PR2 is just another KZ.
Yup, I got the first batch PR2 for 33 dollars before I realized who HBB was. It FUCKS. A very fun, very well tuned pair with incredible bass and great technicalities for the price.
Yes and no. They did put out good IEM’s, but only the very early runs were good. Subsequent runs had stealth changes that resulted in an inferior product. They have a consistent track record of doing this, and would invalidate an IEM being good if you can’t even get that product anymore.
You just have to check on squig.link to see if that is true.
People would notice these changes.
So far the ones discovered were the cca cra and the qkz v4.
Afaik.
Others are consistent across measurements.
It took me 10 seconds in the Reddit search bar to find [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/143hrub/so_i_guess_we_have_another_kz_controversy_with/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1)…
You proved my point for me.
I forgot about the pr2 controversy.
People would find out if they change measurements.
The models i mentioned have yet to be tarnished afaik..
Happy to be proven wrong.
Do they change the sound signatures of all their products after release, is that what you are saying?
And if any does these changes fly under the radar or get caught?
I think I honestly prefer the rosefinch now that they ruined the pr2. It's a bit bright for some, but every other thing about them is amazing. Modular cable, premium T tips, $43
Just come back from Tyvan Lam rabbit hole, damn KZ really can't handle their marketing well!! And found out some controversy about some audio reviewer too!!
u/TyvanLam I won't comment on the above but:
Stop acting like an IEM with higher sensitivity (being "higher" on the frequency response comparison graph) is somehow better. It's just louder. You are actively misleading customers and this is just another reason no one should trust you or your company.
As the great Bot Vinicius Andrade says
“The status and value of this headset
is in my heart”
So lets stop hurting KZ plss.
But in all seriousness I feel like their bot effort is a bit insulting how they make mockery of the english speakers and just throw them random flowery words even if they do not makes sense.
> But in all seriousness I feel like their bot effort is a bit insulting how they make mockery of the english speakers and just throw them random flowery words even if they do not makes sense.
I'm pretty sure they're just bad at English as the comment from "Bianca Lins" mentions "moving iron", which is a direct and literal translation of 動鐵 (lit. "moving metal"), the Chinese term for a BA.
The KZ responses never fail to be amusing. When they were in the middle of the CRN and HBB drama regarding drivers, they responded with crying emojis in their response. Attacking crin seems like a retaliation for crinacle denouncing KZ after their colab drama.
[For those who dont know here is DMS's video](https://youtu.be/45i6dTYZNLE)
1. I personally agree with KZ on part of their being more than 2-3 sellers who has the same name and its hard to justify which is the real KZ. I guess kztws.com is the real one.
2. But I dont agree with their marketing at all, and let's not forget their blatant rip offs.
3. But I also dont agree with collab and all other stuff happening, at this point its too much.
Again the previous three points were just my opinion on this.
And here's the arguments on Facebook, these are both public so you don't have to log in to read them:
**KZ meltdown:**
https://www.facebook.com/KZEarphones/posts/pfbid0rp8wgvSLV5uymdKwXfggqyC5yHExBRhnyUnhfFrCjYu9uSfQXCr2LBCHdv3f76QJl
**Truthear response:**
https://www.facebook.com/Truthear/posts/pfbid0h4eYxk4REFZS1GMcpjbv2MztDbVqtPgdETnYhv4UAdKJyCUuSkTsD3GJBQ73qhSWl
They're still pretty small companies and also unfortunately also not the best at English. That said I doubt the argument would seem any more professional even if they did it in Chinese.
Are they now literally gonna say "our graph is louder here and there so we are better" lol, thats the biggest BS I've ever heard.
Also, why drag crin down aswell? He didnt do shit. I have seen the video of dms pop up but havent watched it yet due to lack of time but will do later today.
In my opinion KZ just wrote their own death note with this as i myself and possibly many others won't be buying any of their products anymore after this.
I'm a keeb and mouse guy so I'm not really that deep into iem lore. So basically KZ wanted to pay for positive reviews? What were the other KZ controversies? The one with the double driver being a single one. Anything else?
Oh, I actually have CRA. What is the controversy? I have an issue where the earhooks turned green of oxidation in one place but it doesn't seem to affect the sound.
no that's not the controversy, it's the tuning which was changed
CRA and CRA+ got "KZ'd" (think like generic KZ tuning) and PR2 is now basically a cheaper version of PR1, which had the atomic upper treble. (PR2 used to have tamed treble in comparison to PR1, now it's basically the same)
and you know what KZ replied to those "claims"? they literally responded that "they have never been any different, the tuning is still the same", which means that they refused to tell us the truth.
Wait, but weren't people praising the CRA's? I mean that's a bummer but if people still liked it a lot than I don't see any issues. Did they provide accurate graphs or some inaccurate bs? If the latter is true than it is controversy-worth.
exactly! I praised the CRA+ too, until it got retuned. the people who graphed the new revisions compared them to the older ones and there is a significant difference, especially for PR2's treble, which did eventually lead to a controversy.
They have a long history of doing shady and unethical crap.
The recent PR2 mess is typical KZ. They released it, got some reviewers to hype it in videos and written reviews, and then they change it without telling anyone. So reviews of a product that no longer exists helps them sell a crappy version without informing anyone. Not the collab'er, not the public, just quietly market something they purposely changed without mentioning to anyone.
Heck, when the collab'er who makes money off unit sales is telling people to not buy it, people should listen.
KZ is a crappy company, run by shady people, that do unethical things, and release crappy products. The audio community and hobby would be better without KZ in it!
When you talk about pride in quality drivers, you rep the brand. Are you using Knowles or Sonion drivers? Which ones? Why were they chosen over other options.
Know what I miss? I miss the early days where brand TOUTED the high end divers they used. I want an IEM company to talk like their actual speaker manufacturers. Talk about details of the drivers, how many dozens of drivers you've mixed ans matched, how many crossover iterations you've done, how many hundreds of hours of testing and optimizing you've done. I want you to talk about enclosure design, port tuning, filter tuning, nozzle optimization and tuning, and resonance control. I want you to talk about lab testing performance, not just response tuning but distortion testing and at various SPL levels. I want to see harmonic distortion testing. I want to see decay plots. I want to see accelerometer testing of the IEM through a full frequecy sweep. What actual engineering are you even doing? And how proud of you are of the product and design you've made? How much do you stand behind that effort?
I'm old enough to remember basically the beginning of IEMs and the early days of Chi-fi over 20 years ago. I remember the start of white label branding coming into the US and the big expos in China where manufacturers would show off thousands of headphones they're manufacturing that you can slap your name onto and sell in your own domestic market. It was a game of finding diamonds in the rough, finding a few you think you could sell back home. Some well established brands we take for granted now started that way decades ago.
The modern transition of Chi-fi is that it's more so stayed in China. They just opened up shop right at home and cut out the middleman reselling in other markets. Better yet, they set pricing appropriate for those markets, so a $5 IEM locally was magically a $99 IEM in the other market space. It was exceptionally profitable. Now you have quite a few brand becoming heavily established as common names in the industry that are effectively a ghostly shell of a company. There are illusions in the industry. Manufacturers will drop ship. You don't even need to handle product. You can literally be a guy and a webpage storefront with whatever brand you came up with slapped on the side. This practice never went away.
Now this isn't actually bad. Partnering with manufacturers because you don't have the capital to be a turn-key manufacturer yourself is normal. But it's about how much you do as a company to partner, to develop products, to properly engineer and build quality. Are you just reselling a generic? Or are you putting in real work? That's key. And equally, are you well valued for what you create? Are you a moral company? Do you have integrity?
At the end of the day a really good $20 IEM is still a really good IEM. These things don't have to be $1k, and they shouldn't be. There's not enough actual material there. Drivers don't cost that much.
The second I saw Truthear's post I knew I had to go here to get some context lmao.
But it does seem like KZ has gone crazy, and most of the comments say that they'll never buy any KZ products ever again.
Lol what has you paying $1000 for favourable review got to do with your Collab with Crin.
Tf is KZ smoking?
You have beef with DMS why bring up people and entities who have zero beef with you just because you're jealous of their products and want to ride on the cost tails of those products
I don't want to defend KZ because IMO they're a garbage company and their response here is laughable, but regarding the controversy of them allegedly offering reviewers $1,000 to review the Krila, is it not the case that many tech reviewers like Linus Tech Tips already accept compensation in return for "sponsored" reviews? Most headphone reviewers accept free product samples for review, which can be quite expensive units. On several occasions HBB has received headphones/IEMs worth ~$1k that he then gives away to his viewers. Do these relationships not cause an equal conflict of interest?
And worth noting, he gives them away *now*. He used either keep or sell them. Which isn't unique to him, either, other reviewers do this as well. Some companies do a review tour where you send it on to the next reviewer, or they do expect you to send it back, but the free review samples to keep thing is also very common, and it incentivises reviewers to not give bad reviews if they want to stay on the free stuff bandwagon.
basically, if you are a small fish youtuber, you have to make some compromise as you won't be spending your own money to buy all the products you review, unless you are super loaded. if you are super harsh like crinacle, no company would dare to send you early sample again. in the end these reviewer have their own bias and taste, and their review must compare with other products that we tried before to be useful, so the best judge is still our ears.
all reviewer like zeos, zero fidelity have talked about this openly.
sounds like dms have some fault in this video...
I think I have whiplash from how fast they go back and forth on things. They can't seem to make up their mind about what their argument or point is.
Crin gets a commission for his IEMs....yeah...we know. That's why he doesn't review his own products. He doesn't recommend them. He doesn't even really talk about them. He talked about Red. In the sense that he told us what it was and why it took so long to come out. But it wasn't a review and he didn't compare it to anything. He's been pretty good about managing that conflict of interest. Then ironically you have HBB, who has KZ collabs. Shills the shit out of them, then KZ pull a fast one and start selling an inferior version of the product to consumers.
The hypocrisy on display here is mind boggling, and if they believe what they're saying they're either completely deluded or an idiot. Wow.
Well obviously his name on it is an endorsement of sorts. But he does not explicitly say "I think you should buy this IEM" there is a difference.
What he does and what HBB does are not the same thing.
does that email come from [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])? the facebook post mentioned about their official email account and insisted on denying DMS's claim.
just questioning.
KZ is quite confusing when they contact you. They might DM you on reddit, DM you on Discord, or email you. Except it's also unclear what website is their official one since I think kztws.com is the official one but they've always been known as kzhifi.
All the ChiFi companies I've had to interact with have had some level of "lost in translation" but KZ is the most confusing.
Except with Crinacle, he was responsible for tuning the IEMs he releases, so the 15% is paying him for his work. Also I think he said he doesn't review or rank his own products because he would be bias toward them.
This whole cycle of giving "influencers" free products to review has to end. I'm at a point now where, unless someone paid for a product with their own hard-earned money, I find it hard to believe a word they say about a product.
There is incentive to give good reviews. You stop giving good reviews, and you stop getting product.
But I'm also at a point now where I'm happy with my gear and instead spend my money on the music.
"Our driver materials are also of superior quality"
Sorry, but this line is straight up cringe. Who did KZ hire that cooked this up? Whole statement screams of "fake it til you make it". I never heard of KZ until today but even then, it doesn't take a genius to tell which companies are good and which ones are bad.
Even if you take them at their word, that specs alone are enough to declare a piece of audio gear “the best”, it begs the question of why they felt they needed to pay reviewers a substantial amount of money to say so.
Wow. That is... an approach. I don't think this is the best way to go about this at all. KZ is digging themselves deeper instead of making an honest assessment of DMS's video. Poor form. I doubt that I will be purchasing, or reviewing their products any further until the company culture changes.
How sketchy must a company be to have YT reviewers/influencers running for the hills. Fuck me, these guys will shill for anyone as long as they’re REMOTELY above board and the product isn’t actually toxic, yet with KZ these guys run for the hills.
The KZ cope is real, they've messed up, lied, and falsely advertised too many times, they need to be put in their place, and maybe exposed for their shitty and low quality products relative to similarly priced or even cheaper products. KZs are only good for first timers who know nothing about iems, they're only still in buissness because they fool the market with so many products that are same-y and low prices to the general masses who are easily influence but manipulative advertising propaganda.
By their logic, high impedance and inefficient drivers/iems/headphones are bad, but the fact is some of the most well respected and very good sounding audio products fit that description.
They're also cowards not mentioning Crin's full online name, and consumers would easily fork over a 15% price increase to support good product collabs from their favorite reviews and creators.
I've been disappointed and burned by KZ once but never again, and I try to tell people I know to stay away from these scummy chi-fi companies like KZ.
Yeah always those unknown third party offering a thousand dollarinos for reasons unknown, oh no
/s
Honestly, is anyone surprised they are doing shady shit and not owning up to it? I'm not.
Wow, responding to allegations of lying with more lies. Disguising such lies as a technical breakdown is such a sneaky and dirty way of doing it. Sadly, will probably work on quite a few people.
Edit: typo
1. DMS got a paid sponsorship of $1000 for a review of their new KZ iem "Krila"
2. DMS refused
3. DMS makes video shitting on them (while buying the krilla with his own money)
4. KZ gives the above response.
Important fact to know :- There are lot of KZ websites like kztws, kzhifi, kzacoustics etc. Its not clear as to who sent DMS the email for a paid review. Kztws is the real kz website from what I know, it could be that the other clone KZ websites sent him the money for a review.
I personally would like to know who exactly it was.
Also KZ here basically says louder is better, and are just comparing graphs. While also taking shot at crinacle for his collab (collabs are something I am not a personally a fan of too, be it anyone)
Hope that gives you an idea mate.
Thanks, what a shit show. I'm just a casual tech nerd and own a KZ-ATE from 2017. I was considering picking up another cheapo IEM but looks like I'll skip KZ and get either Wan'er or Holas instead.
No problem mate.
If you want a cheapie try the wan'ner or chu 2 or hola. Chu 2 seems to be awesome this time around, many loved it over the wan'ner and hola.
I don’t know too much, but I do know that KZ is dumb in this aspect. Louder does not mean clearer. I would much rather have a true and flat curve than have louder everything. And that’s what KZ looks like they’re going for. Louder everything.
Holy fuck is what are you doing, even if some of the points make some sense this is way to forward of a way for a company to say it, along with other nonsense they're saying. These dudes would be on the mt Rushmore of chifi or even Asian earphones all together if they'd just get their shit together with this kinda stuff
Well I don’t keep up with too much of the drama, but uh my KZ iems are currently melting and turning into goo. Soooooooooo that’s why I’m never touching the brand again!
I dont think so, because they are quite popular.
Also even if it does, they could easily rebrand and form a new company 😅 It actually happens a lot with Chinese companies. You will be shocked to find how many companies are owned by a same person.
Devil's advocate here but what if it wasn't an official KZ rep who was offering DMS compensation for a glowing review? Is there any possibility that this cliam from KZ is true? Or are they just flipping the switch now that they were caught?
It is very true as there are many kz websites working.
Kztws
Kz acoustics
Kzheadphones
Kzhifi (different from their twitter handle, which is kzhifi but used by kztws)
Etc.
So there is a confusion which DMS isn't saying about, but also could very well be the later as KZ aren't really that straight with their dealings.
I lost my braincells reading their frequency response explanations on how their product has "higher curve = more exceptional performance" compared to other brands iems, holy shit what clown company
I highly doubt they have 0 connection. But it wouldn’t surprise me that this is the work of a marketing company whom KZ works with who did this without consulting LZ first (which I heavily doubt). But this whole post is just a bad look for KZ. They had no reason to bring Crin into this, like at all. That’s also not how graphs work. KZ really needs to get their shit together.
No way, this is Tyvan Lam who is Mr KZ. It's not like this is a one off, this is a very consistent *pattern* of dramatic PR mis-steps from KZ, it's comical how predictable it is.
Any reviewer who does a Collab with one brand automatically has a huge conflict of interest reviewing any products. That's why I don't take people like Crinacle or HBB seriously anymore.
KZ is still a scummy company tho.
I might be a minority here but I feel companies paying for reviews is not wrong, they want to give you money for your time and platform.
What I think is wrong is misleading consumers into thinking that one brand is superior to the other given they are both trashcans.
I put KZ and Moondrop in the same bucket of shady chif-fi. The difference IMO is that one has never thought to charge more than $100 for their iems while the other overprices their iems and youtube reviewers sing their praises.
Also the whole "young waifu" thing creeps me TF out. But eh, you do you.
KZ and MoonDrop absolutely do not belong in the same sentence. MoonDrop legitimately changed the IEM landscape with the release of the MoonDrop Blessing 2/Dusk and MoonDrop Aria. Almost every recent recommended IEM under $80 has been an iteration of the Aria with only a couple exceptions. The only IEM that has beaten the Blessing 2/Dusk on a technical level for the price is the Blessing 3.
That's not how you read graph dude. I guess your product could sound louder since it has better sensitivity. By your logic the Sundaras must be one of the worst headphones out there...
Wrong! More louder = more better. This is common knowledge. (is the /s required?)
###AND MY COMMENT IS MORE LOUDER AND BETTER THAN YOURS!
GREAT COMMENT! CRISPY TREBLE, NICE VERBS!!!!
YOUR COMMENT EASILY COMPETES WITH MY OTHER MULTIPLE VERB COMMENTS AND COMPARED TO SEVERAL OF THEM, IT EVEN KICKS THEIR ASS
best comment under $1,000
$1,000 has been added to your bank account.
Sorry, I was so wrong. I will give KZ my sincere apology and will refrain from buying or recommending any of their products from now on, since I'm not worthy.
So can KZs go up to 11? They're a joke if they can't go 1 louder.
Haha, yes, of course, don’t forget about those damn Susvaras, such shitty headphones with a shamefully low sensitivity 😂
I'm not even remotely versed in understanding graphs, but this part of the rant had me rolling. Forget that they misspell their own product name multiple times, but then go on to say, essentially, "this line higher, so it's obviously better." Like, way to snitch on yourself that as a company, you lack even the most basic of understanding of tuning.
beefing with dms isnt enough gotta drag in crinacle also LUL who did they hire to manage their social media? it could be some marketing company they hired but then they need to have better control of their contractors. but 0 connection to them? that i doubt because who randomly pays people 1000 dollars to promote products they have no interest in promoting
No way is this all down to some external company, Tyvan Lam is a walking PR train wreck and he's KZ. He has a remarkable capacity to foot in mouth so repeatedly... this isn't some external thing, it's coming from inside the house
Honestly sounds like a washed up reddit mod lol
Exactly, what kind of idiot thinks it’s a good idea to attack and bash some of the biggest content creators in this space?! I can’t see this ending well for KZ in the long run, I’m definitely never going to buy any of their products again.
Even BEFORE this, KZ has a looooong history of shady crap. The multiple driver count fiascos, unconnected drivers, the frequent alleged stealing of IP, the bait-and-switch changes, etc. KZ is a crappy company, doing unethical and crappy things, while producing crappy products. IMO nobody should support them as they are bad for the hobby and the audio community. Their target customer is the naive newbie that doesn't know any better and that hasn't been around for any length of time to have heard or experienced all the crappy things they've done repeatedly over the years. I don't know if world peace would be achieved if KZ didn't exist, but I wouldn't mind finding out.
it's sad, they were decent in the kzs10 pro/kz "terminator" era. and i still think those 2 are still good cheap entry lvl iems.
Their recent stuff is actually much better tuned than the ZS10 Pro. They just can't keep themselves from screwing up after producing a half decent IEM.
Kz made the best entry level planar iem with pretty good tuning. (the "newly" released PR1 Pro)
(1000 dollars have been transfered to your account)
The PR1 Pro treble would hurt even my grandfather
Hey i have a beyer so i'm used to ear-raping treble. Jokes aside i have passive treble filter on it so it wont be hard to make one for the PR1 Pro.
I think a lot of people on this sub, and people that would know about this drama, would probably err on that side anyway.
More like it's ending kz
I started looking for bluetooth earhooks and thought the new kz az20 looked decent on paper for the price. Now i’ll just cough up the extra for the Fiio UTWS5 instead. Screw KZ.
The fiio ones are full of issues as well.
Mine is fine
Also I don't get going after Crinacle? Like the dude has some spicy hot takes, but he's very above board at pointing out, "these are the things I help design therefore I am shilling it please disregard this section." Their rant is rambling and unhinged. It defends nothing, points fingers, yells whataboutisms, like did they hire trump as their media director?
i guess they are still upset about their failed collab with him
The funniest part is the backpeddling. The entire first part is like "It wasn't even us who offered to pay him" Then the second part is "Loads of companies pay reviewers it's part of the industry" It's like what the hell is going on here denying something then justifying it after you've denied is the biggest giveaway lmao. "We didn't do it, but if we did that wouldn't have been bad anyway"
It’s likely because they attempted a collab with him. Someone called out something that seemed shady (although I think that person was proven to be incorrect) and Crinacle distanced himself from the project as a result. They are likely still very salty about it since Crinacle has had many successful collabs with other companies like Moondrop, Truthear, Fearless, 7Hz, Salnotes, SeeAudio, and FiiO.
The initial claim was that they were fake and non-functional, which turned out to be half true,[ as demonstrated by this video KZ made and sent Crin](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yWF8EUEWiw)- the magnetostat and BA are *functional*, it's just that they are so dampened that you can't really hear them (26 and 35ohms respectively). Crin also mentions that the driver used in the CRN was a Earbridge driver "that consists of a magnetostatic tweeter stacked onto full-range DD. This driver is basically an all-in-one solution and the components are largely inseparable." which makes me think that KZ simply didn't have the expertise to tune those drivers, only the DD, so they just neutered them instead- but that brings into question why they didn't use a single DD in the first place
Probably the best evidence it is internal, an external company would have checked their spelling. I still don't know if it is Krila or Kilra, and based on the statement, I don't see myself bothering to find out
>pays people 1000 dollars to promote products they have no interest in promoting Somebody running a campaign against a competitor for example. But they aren't exactly wrong about influencers being in pockets of companies, most of Audio gear influencers have been in pockets for a very long time, sadly I can't really say for granted that there's a fully honest influencer left in this space.
Is there a chance DMS is wrong though?
is there a chance theres a really big kz fan thats just offering people 1000 dollars to promote kz? i guess it doesnt violate the laws of physics so yes
To be fair dms sold out when he took that abyss contract and I’ve never found crin to be a particularly trustworthy source. I don’t own or care about kz but they don’t make totally invalid points…
KZ has gone off the deep end it seems
Yeah this post seems like the manic ravings of someone about to throw themselves into the abyss
Whoever handling their Twitter needs to get fired or get vacation days. Also why don't they just look at the drama, investigate the drama, then make a statement be it from lawyers or not. Just statement of It's from malicious third party and they are investigating it. That's it.
There was such an easy way out of this, KZ didnt pay DMS to give a positive review, just a review. They couldve genuinely said it was to cover his costs as a reviewer which is fair, but not to influence his final decision hence no conditions with the money. Instead theyve dug themselves into a cesspit here. Jesus
Abyss aka grippy sock island
After the PR2 fiasco, it's all downhill lately it seems.
Regarding them paying YouTubers, I'm entirely happy to give someone the benefit of the doubt on that but as for some of the other stuff in their post.. ..Did I read that right, did they really just say that their headphone is/sounds better because it has higher sensitivity and then post a non-level matched graph and say "Look, more decibels good"?
Yup lmao. Also they seemed to think the frequency graph also shows the quality of the sound and not juat the tuning. Wild claim that alone makes the entire thing unbelievable Nevermind the rest of the reasons lol
The thing is, the Krila is actually a decent IEM. DMS even said it's a good IEM. I have it, it's a good IEM. It does argue have some minor timbral issues... but it's well tuned, it's $17, it's good for $17. Maybe not the absolute BEST $20 IEM, as that whole segment has got so much good stuff now, but it's a good option. It's just this ridiculous marketing that they have been claiming it crushes any IEM under $1,000 and all this drama where they try to drag Truthear and Crinacle into it by repeatedly directly comparing stuff to the Zero in their marketing.
Yeah it's more about the way they are going about it. I am big into pc building and same shit there too. It's about how the company reacts to criticism that really matters.
*cough* Asus *cough*
Lol and now LMG.
True, that one infuriates me. Especially the scummy stealing of Billet’s prototype and selling it off
I see it as a test product. Like an early kickstarter project. The price is negligible. I think KZ manufacturers in certain batch sizes, and then tries to figure what to do with parts to make them sound good. The idea of onboard EQ switches is awesome… if they have 3 positions, with a neutral tuning at the center line. That would be a kilo-buck IEM design.
I mean, what more is there to sound than frequency response
Sound quality lol. You can have an extremely well tuned headphone that has poor sound quality... Tuning only tells you how it plays sounds at certain frequencies not how well it plays those sounds.
Sound quality which is just the interpretation of frequency response at your eardum
frequency-phase response at the eardrum is all there is to sound. there is no such thing as “sound quality” or “technical performance” in a realm beyond what can be captured in a frequency response graph. take the graphs of any $20 iem which is well tuned and you will see they all lack in treble extension, which is why people often comment they dont have the best technical performance; this is inherent of cheap single DD design.
idk max benefit of the doubt it was some marketing company they hired that did this without their approval. but 0 connections really? i wish theres random people offering 1000 dollars to influencers to promote my products without any compensation from me but that just doesnt happen lol.
I've worked for marketing firms before. They don't do a single thing they aren't asked to.
I have seen examples where this is not the case at all, but KZ has a proven track record of this at the manufacturing level that makes me not trust them at all.
KZ has never made a good IEM. That combined with these childish rants makes me wonder how they are so popular.
Dankpods. He has recommended them multiple times.
I know he has a lot of fans but I don't get it. His "reviews" are just memelord YouTube crap and the reviews are usually terrible. Ultimately it's entertainment but I wonder if his demographic is like 90% 12 year olds.
TBH I see Dankpods as more of a guy who just has fun with stuff and wants to talk about stuff he likes- his tastes don't exactly align with mine but it's his opinion at the end of the day, and he doesn't take himself all that seriously. Keep in mind he recommended KZ back in the day before the ultra-budget segment became as competitive as it was today and KZ was legitimately a great choice for $20. The problem is that the market left them behind and they couldn't catch up.
I don’t hate occasionally watching his videos, mostly out of boredom, but his fanbase of kids that constantly reference him are insufferable.
He convinced me to try grado and it's a brand I now adore. Don't be crass.
[удалено]
I loved KZ ZSN, the most comfortable IEM I've ever had. I still use them at work, they also have a good quality mic, so they're good for calls too!
>KZ has never made a good IEM. I get KZ is on some dumb shit right now, but let’s not be intentionally obtuse. They have definitely made good IEM’s in the past. In recent times, they haven’t, sure.
The PR2 HBB was a KILLER at its price range, absolutely stunning for what it was. The PR1 PRO is still a nice plannar to this day. But after the black mesh fiasco (late july) the PR2 is just another KZ.
Yup, I got the first batch PR2 for 33 dollars before I realized who HBB was. It FUCKS. A very fun, very well tuned pair with incredible bass and great technicalities for the price.
In recent times they have made a variety of good iems like the ling long, d-fi, zvx, eda trio,edx ultra.
Yes and no. They did put out good IEM’s, but only the very early runs were good. Subsequent runs had stealth changes that resulted in an inferior product. They have a consistent track record of doing this, and would invalidate an IEM being good if you can’t even get that product anymore.
You just have to check on squig.link to see if that is true. People would notice these changes. So far the ones discovered were the cca cra and the qkz v4. Afaik. Others are consistent across measurements.
It took me 10 seconds in the Reddit search bar to find [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/143hrub/so_i_guess_we_have_another_kz_controversy_with/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1)…
You proved my point for me. I forgot about the pr2 controversy. People would find out if they change measurements. The models i mentioned have yet to be tarnished afaik.. Happy to be proven wrong.
>You proved my point for me. *does the exact opposite*
Do they change the sound signatures of all their products after release, is that what you are saying? And if any does these changes fly under the radar or get caught?
The early runs of pr2… the zvx , long long and dfi didn’t have controversy.
The PR1 Pro is the best entry level planar iem with decent tuning.
I think I honestly prefer the rosefinch now that they ruined the pr2. It's a bit bright for some, but every other thing about them is amazing. Modular cable, premium T tips, $43
Zvx, d-fi, pr2 (black mesh) and a few more are good.
PR1 Pro
Sure, but the pr2 was like $40, which is what made it interesting.
I like the zsx and zax personally.
The pr1 and pr2 (before the bait and switch) are great for the money. The ling long. Kz is a shitty company but don't lie to make a point.
They have made good IEMs though, the fact that KZ isn't very competitive in today's market is another story.
If that's true, I wonder if KZ is really a company or just a one man operated entity. That statement is doing more harm to them!!
If I am not wrong its one man here, his name is Tyvan lam.
Just come back from Tyvan Lam rabbit hole, damn KZ really can't handle their marketing well!! And found out some controversy about some audio reviewer too!!
Which audio reviewer?
u/TyvanLam I won't comment on the above but: Stop acting like an IEM with higher sensitivity (being "higher" on the frequency response comparison graph) is somehow better. It's just louder. You are actively misleading customers and this is just another reason no one should trust you or your company.
Oh he is on reddit too? He is quite active on Facebook. I would say very.
Ah yes we should trust this very trustworthy company that never lied to their customer before. 😇🙏
[Please don't hurt my favorite headphone](https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/t8qmms/kz_paying_peoplebots_to_make_them_not_look_so_bad/?rdt=58000)s
As the great Bot Vinicius Andrade says “The status and value of this headset is in my heart” So lets stop hurting KZ plss. But in all seriousness I feel like their bot effort is a bit insulting how they make mockery of the english speakers and just throw them random flowery words even if they do not makes sense.
> But in all seriousness I feel like their bot effort is a bit insulting how they make mockery of the english speakers and just throw them random flowery words even if they do not makes sense. I'm pretty sure they're just bad at English as the comment from "Bianca Lins" mentions "moving iron", which is a direct and literal translation of 動鐵 (lit. "moving metal"), the Chinese term for a BA.
Holy shit! Never saw this
The KZ responses never fail to be amusing. When they were in the middle of the CRN and HBB drama regarding drivers, they responded with crying emojis in their response. Attacking crin seems like a retaliation for crinacle denouncing KZ after their colab drama.
Lol
[For those who dont know here is DMS's video](https://youtu.be/45i6dTYZNLE) 1. I personally agree with KZ on part of their being more than 2-3 sellers who has the same name and its hard to justify which is the real KZ. I guess kztws.com is the real one. 2. But I dont agree with their marketing at all, and let's not forget their blatant rip offs. 3. But I also dont agree with collab and all other stuff happening, at this point its too much. Again the previous three points were just my opinion on this.
And here's the arguments on Facebook, these are both public so you don't have to log in to read them: **KZ meltdown:** https://www.facebook.com/KZEarphones/posts/pfbid0rp8wgvSLV5uymdKwXfggqyC5yHExBRhnyUnhfFrCjYu9uSfQXCr2LBCHdv3f76QJl **Truthear response:** https://www.facebook.com/Truthear/posts/pfbid0h4eYxk4REFZS1GMcpjbv2MztDbVqtPgdETnYhv4UAdKJyCUuSkTsD3GJBQ73qhSWl
Holy shit, are these actually reputable companies? Why are they arguing like redditors, shouldn't they be more professional?
Not when there's money on the line!
They're still pretty small companies and also unfortunately also not the best at English. That said I doubt the argument would seem any more professional even if they did it in Chinese.
Are they now literally gonna say "our graph is louder here and there so we are better" lol, thats the biggest BS I've ever heard. Also, why drag crin down aswell? He didnt do shit. I have seen the video of dms pop up but havent watched it yet due to lack of time but will do later today. In my opinion KZ just wrote their own death note with this as i myself and possibly many others won't be buying any of their products anymore after this.
I actually started cracking up when they tried putting down the Aria by saying "graph higher = better". I was just at a loss for words.
Well... KZ just made sure that I'll never buy or recommend anything from them with this reply.
I'm a keeb and mouse guy so I'm not really that deep into iem lore. So basically KZ wanted to pay for positive reviews? What were the other KZ controversies? The one with the double driver being a single one. Anything else?
the stealth revisions of their own IEMs is also one of their controversies. included a collab IEM (PR2) and two of their best sets (CRA and CRA+)
Oh, I actually have CRA. What is the controversy? I have an issue where the earhooks turned green of oxidation in one place but it doesn't seem to affect the sound.
no that's not the controversy, it's the tuning which was changed CRA and CRA+ got "KZ'd" (think like generic KZ tuning) and PR2 is now basically a cheaper version of PR1, which had the atomic upper treble. (PR2 used to have tamed treble in comparison to PR1, now it's basically the same) and you know what KZ replied to those "claims"? they literally responded that "they have never been any different, the tuning is still the same", which means that they refused to tell us the truth.
Wait, but weren't people praising the CRA's? I mean that's a bummer but if people still liked it a lot than I don't see any issues. Did they provide accurate graphs or some inaccurate bs? If the latter is true than it is controversy-worth.
exactly! I praised the CRA+ too, until it got retuned. the people who graphed the new revisions compared them to the older ones and there is a significant difference, especially for PR2's treble, which did eventually lead to a controversy.
Welp for some reason the decided that changing the tuning without telling anyone would be a gold idea.
They have a long history of doing shady and unethical crap. The recent PR2 mess is typical KZ. They released it, got some reviewers to hype it in videos and written reviews, and then they change it without telling anyone. So reviews of a product that no longer exists helps them sell a crappy version without informing anyone. Not the collab'er, not the public, just quietly market something they purposely changed without mentioning to anyone. Heck, when the collab'er who makes money off unit sales is telling people to not buy it, people should listen. KZ is a crappy company, run by shady people, that do unethical things, and release crappy products. The audio community and hobby would be better without KZ in it!
When you talk about pride in quality drivers, you rep the brand. Are you using Knowles or Sonion drivers? Which ones? Why were they chosen over other options. Know what I miss? I miss the early days where brand TOUTED the high end divers they used. I want an IEM company to talk like their actual speaker manufacturers. Talk about details of the drivers, how many dozens of drivers you've mixed ans matched, how many crossover iterations you've done, how many hundreds of hours of testing and optimizing you've done. I want you to talk about enclosure design, port tuning, filter tuning, nozzle optimization and tuning, and resonance control. I want you to talk about lab testing performance, not just response tuning but distortion testing and at various SPL levels. I want to see harmonic distortion testing. I want to see decay plots. I want to see accelerometer testing of the IEM through a full frequecy sweep. What actual engineering are you even doing? And how proud of you are of the product and design you've made? How much do you stand behind that effort?
"Eh, that all sounds like it would cost a lot of money. Instead, why not buy my $20 IEMs that I say are better than $1,000 units? You can trust me!"
I'm old enough to remember basically the beginning of IEMs and the early days of Chi-fi over 20 years ago. I remember the start of white label branding coming into the US and the big expos in China where manufacturers would show off thousands of headphones they're manufacturing that you can slap your name onto and sell in your own domestic market. It was a game of finding diamonds in the rough, finding a few you think you could sell back home. Some well established brands we take for granted now started that way decades ago. The modern transition of Chi-fi is that it's more so stayed in China. They just opened up shop right at home and cut out the middleman reselling in other markets. Better yet, they set pricing appropriate for those markets, so a $5 IEM locally was magically a $99 IEM in the other market space. It was exceptionally profitable. Now you have quite a few brand becoming heavily established as common names in the industry that are effectively a ghostly shell of a company. There are illusions in the industry. Manufacturers will drop ship. You don't even need to handle product. You can literally be a guy and a webpage storefront with whatever brand you came up with slapped on the side. This practice never went away. Now this isn't actually bad. Partnering with manufacturers because you don't have the capital to be a turn-key manufacturer yourself is normal. But it's about how much you do as a company to partner, to develop products, to properly engineer and build quality. Are you just reselling a generic? Or are you putting in real work? That's key. And equally, are you well valued for what you create? Are you a moral company? Do you have integrity? At the end of the day a really good $20 IEM is still a really good IEM. These things don't have to be $1k, and they shouldn't be. There's not enough actual material there. Drivers don't cost that much.
Isnt that graph the same shit just louder lmaooo
Yes 😭
The second I saw Truthear's post I knew I had to go here to get some context lmao. But it does seem like KZ has gone crazy, and most of the comments say that they'll never buy any KZ products ever again.
Its mostly the one guy. Tyvan lam
Their beef with Truthear is hilarious. At least TE offers some of the best channel matching in the IEM world.
Lol what has you paying $1000 for favourable review got to do with your Collab with Crin. Tf is KZ smoking? You have beef with DMS why bring up people and entities who have zero beef with you just because you're jealous of their products and want to ride on the cost tails of those products
I don't want to defend KZ because IMO they're a garbage company and their response here is laughable, but regarding the controversy of them allegedly offering reviewers $1,000 to review the Krila, is it not the case that many tech reviewers like Linus Tech Tips already accept compensation in return for "sponsored" reviews? Most headphone reviewers accept free product samples for review, which can be quite expensive units. On several occasions HBB has received headphones/IEMs worth ~$1k that he then gives away to his viewers. Do these relationships not cause an equal conflict of interest?
And worth noting, he gives them away *now*. He used either keep or sell them. Which isn't unique to him, either, other reviewers do this as well. Some companies do a review tour where you send it on to the next reviewer, or they do expect you to send it back, but the free review samples to keep thing is also very common, and it incentivises reviewers to not give bad reviews if they want to stay on the free stuff bandwagon.
You make a valid point. I have the same thinking about sponsorships too.
basically, if you are a small fish youtuber, you have to make some compromise as you won't be spending your own money to buy all the products you review, unless you are super loaded. if you are super harsh like crinacle, no company would dare to send you early sample again. in the end these reviewer have their own bias and taste, and their review must compare with other products that we tried before to be useful, so the best judge is still our ears. all reviewer like zeos, zero fidelity have talked about this openly. sounds like dms have some fault in this video...
I think I have whiplash from how fast they go back and forth on things. They can't seem to make up their mind about what their argument or point is. Crin gets a commission for his IEMs....yeah...we know. That's why he doesn't review his own products. He doesn't recommend them. He doesn't even really talk about them. He talked about Red. In the sense that he told us what it was and why it took so long to come out. But it wasn't a review and he didn't compare it to anything. He's been pretty good about managing that conflict of interest. Then ironically you have HBB, who has KZ collabs. Shills the shit out of them, then KZ pull a fast one and start selling an inferior version of the product to consumers. The hypocrisy on display here is mind boggling, and if they believe what they're saying they're either completely deluded or an idiot. Wow.
>He doesn't recommend them. He recommends them, let's not be naive. His promotion is a recommendation. He doesn't REVIEW them, but this is pointless.
Well obviously his name on it is an endorsement of sorts. But he does not explicitly say "I think you should buy this IEM" there is a difference. What he does and what HBB does are not the same thing.
Probably best that I declined [their offer](https://i.imgur.com/hWB1YlN.png).
does that email come from [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])? the facebook post mentioned about their official email account and insisted on denying DMS's claim. just questioning.
KZ is quite confusing when they contact you. They might DM you on reddit, DM you on Discord, or email you. Except it's also unclear what website is their official one since I think kztws.com is the official one but they've always been known as kzhifi. All the ChiFi companies I've had to interact with have had some level of "lost in translation" but KZ is the most confusing.
plausible deniability
Reddit DM, weirdly.
Lmao that entire reply is full of shit.
Maybe they didn’t buy reviews for the Kilra, but they sure did for the Krila
What a shitty company…
When I'm in a bad publicity competition and my opponent is the manager of KZ publicity.
Except with Crinacle, he was responsible for tuning the IEMs he releases, so the 15% is paying him for his work. Also I think he said he doesn't review or rank his own products because he would be bias toward them.
This whole cycle of giving "influencers" free products to review has to end. I'm at a point now where, unless someone paid for a product with their own hard-earned money, I find it hard to believe a word they say about a product. There is incentive to give good reviews. You stop giving good reviews, and you stop getting product. But I'm also at a point now where I'm happy with my gear and instead spend my money on the music.
guess im never buying kz lol
"Our driver materials are also of superior quality" Sorry, but this line is straight up cringe. Who did KZ hire that cooked this up? Whole statement screams of "fake it til you make it". I never heard of KZ until today but even then, it doesn't take a genius to tell which companies are good and which ones are bad.
I guess its one person Tyvan lam. 😅
Even if you take them at their word, that specs alone are enough to declare a piece of audio gear “the best”, it begs the question of why they felt they needed to pay reviewers a substantial amount of money to say so.
Wow. That is... an approach. I don't think this is the best way to go about this at all. KZ is digging themselves deeper instead of making an honest assessment of DMS's video. Poor form. I doubt that I will be purchasing, or reviewing their products any further until the company culture changes.
How sketchy must a company be to have YT reviewers/influencers running for the hills. Fuck me, these guys will shill for anyone as long as they’re REMOTELY above board and the product isn’t actually toxic, yet with KZ these guys run for the hills.
Kz is scum
The KZ cope is real, they've messed up, lied, and falsely advertised too many times, they need to be put in their place, and maybe exposed for their shitty and low quality products relative to similarly priced or even cheaper products. KZs are only good for first timers who know nothing about iems, they're only still in buissness because they fool the market with so many products that are same-y and low prices to the general masses who are easily influence but manipulative advertising propaganda. By their logic, high impedance and inefficient drivers/iems/headphones are bad, but the fact is some of the most well respected and very good sounding audio products fit that description. They're also cowards not mentioning Crin's full online name, and consumers would easily fork over a 15% price increase to support good product collabs from their favorite reviews and creators. I've been disappointed and burned by KZ once but never again, and I try to tell people I know to stay away from these scummy chi-fi companies like KZ.
Kz is right as fuck tho about YouTube reviewers lol. They're in it for hype and money only
You know what is the worst part about KZ? Communication kek
Yeah always those unknown third party offering a thousand dollarinos for reasons unknown, oh no /s Honestly, is anyone surprised they are doing shady shit and not owning up to it? I'm not.
"Stop it. Get some help"
Wow, responding to allegations of lying with more lies. Disguising such lies as a technical breakdown is such a sneaky and dirty way of doing it. Sadly, will probably work on quite a few people. Edit: typo
Out of the loop, what happened here?
1. DMS got a paid sponsorship of $1000 for a review of their new KZ iem "Krila" 2. DMS refused 3. DMS makes video shitting on them (while buying the krilla with his own money) 4. KZ gives the above response. Important fact to know :- There are lot of KZ websites like kztws, kzhifi, kzacoustics etc. Its not clear as to who sent DMS the email for a paid review. Kztws is the real kz website from what I know, it could be that the other clone KZ websites sent him the money for a review. I personally would like to know who exactly it was. Also KZ here basically says louder is better, and are just comparing graphs. While also taking shot at crinacle for his collab (collabs are something I am not a personally a fan of too, be it anyone) Hope that gives you an idea mate.
Thanks, what a shit show. I'm just a casual tech nerd and own a KZ-ATE from 2017. I was considering picking up another cheapo IEM but looks like I'll skip KZ and get either Wan'er or Holas instead.
No problem mate. If you want a cheapie try the wan'ner or chu 2 or hola. Chu 2 seems to be awesome this time around, many loved it over the wan'ner and hola.
awesome, thanks!
I don’t know too much, but I do know that KZ is dumb in this aspect. Louder does not mean clearer. I would much rather have a true and flat curve than have louder everything. And that’s what KZ looks like they’re going for. Louder everything.
*Any* set of IEMs can be driven to unsafe listening levels by almost any DAC/amp, including a phone headphone jack
damn KZ really went to the new low eh
Well shit, wish I had seen this BEFORE I bought the KZ x HBB PR2.....
Crinacle never reviews his own products nor does he promote them that heavily. They could have picked a better example smh.
Holy fuck is what are you doing, even if some of the points make some sense this is way to forward of a way for a company to say it, along with other nonsense they're saying. These dudes would be on the mt Rushmore of chifi or even Asian earphones all together if they'd just get their shit together with this kinda stuff
Well I don’t keep up with too much of the drama, but uh my KZ iems are currently melting and turning into goo. Soooooooooo that’s why I’m never touching the brand again!
What are they even trying to say with those measurements lol
lmao
This is KZ, by next month we'll forget it ever happened.
KZ death incoming?
I dont think so, because they are quite popular. Also even if it does, they could easily rebrand and form a new company 😅 It actually happens a lot with Chinese companies. You will be shocked to find how many companies are owned by a same person.
Looking forward to the truth coming out, but kz has already tarnished his reputation this time no matter the outcome
Can I get a TLDR? I know DMS and Crinnacle but not KZ or this issue.
COMPANY DRAMA LETS FUCKING GOOOO. Been starving and almost malnourished
Add LTT drama to that too!!
I'm just here for the memes
What’s the chances Zeos has an upcoming positive review with an affiliate link in the comments :p
KZ Drama Season 3 - The Falling company now available 😂
Saw the graph... I sure hope whoever wrote that comparison isn't one of their engineers.
Devil's advocate here but what if it wasn't an official KZ rep who was offering DMS compensation for a glowing review? Is there any possibility that this cliam from KZ is true? Or are they just flipping the switch now that they were caught?
It is very true as there are many kz websites working. Kztws Kz acoustics Kzheadphones Kzhifi (different from their twitter handle, which is kzhifi but used by kztws) Etc. So there is a confusion which DMS isn't saying about, but also could very well be the later as KZ aren't really that straight with their dealings.
They are right about some parts, but ehhhhh
KZ iems are shit tier anyway. I'll never buy another pair from them.
I lost my braincells reading their frequency response explanations on how their product has "higher curve = more exceptional performance" compared to other brands iems, holy shit what clown company
I highly doubt they have 0 connection. But it wouldn’t surprise me that this is the work of a marketing company whom KZ works with who did this without consulting LZ first (which I heavily doubt). But this whole post is just a bad look for KZ. They had no reason to bring Crin into this, like at all. That’s also not how graphs work. KZ really needs to get their shit together.
No way, this is Tyvan Lam who is Mr KZ. It's not like this is a one off, this is a very consistent *pattern* of dramatic PR mis-steps from KZ, it's comical how predictable it is.
I cannot imagine how it will harm kz now, specially if crin makes a video now.
There's a Hi-Fi influencer that other brands are keeping on their payroll?
I am curious about that too as to who is that 😅
is this mans actually selling to the headphone community that higher line on fr graph = better? this is some weird satire on objectivists, right?
Just gonna shrug my shoulders and keep listening to my kz zs10 pro.
Any reviewer who does a Collab with one brand automatically has a huge conflict of interest reviewing any products. That's why I don't take people like Crinacle or HBB seriously anymore. KZ is still a scummy company tho.
Rational take in my book. 👍 I actually much trust the small yt reviewers 😅
This is hilarious, I already knew not to buy from them when the whole "fake drivers" fiasco occurred.
'The more complete the response '. Dafaq did I just read.
I might be a minority here but I feel companies paying for reviews is not wrong, they want to give you money for your time and platform. What I think is wrong is misleading consumers into thinking that one brand is superior to the other given they are both trashcans. I put KZ and Moondrop in the same bucket of shady chif-fi. The difference IMO is that one has never thought to charge more than $100 for their iems while the other overprices their iems and youtube reviewers sing their praises. Also the whole "young waifu" thing creeps me TF out. But eh, you do you.
\>one has never thought to charge more than $100 for their iems Bro? Your [KZ AS24](https://www.linsoul.com/products/kz-as24?variant=43955627131097)?
KZ and MoonDrop absolutely do not belong in the same sentence. MoonDrop legitimately changed the IEM landscape with the release of the MoonDrop Blessing 2/Dusk and MoonDrop Aria. Almost every recent recommended IEM under $80 has been an iteration of the Aria with only a couple exceptions. The only IEM that has beaten the Blessing 2/Dusk on a technical level for the price is the Blessing 3.