I have a first Generation Hifiman Arya, with a left driver that has failed.
How can I get the Arya repaired?
TL;DR
My local audio engineer spoke to the Dutch importer, looking for a replacement driver, but he said there are no replacements parts and that “the Arya are never repaired”. Is this true?
Details
I bought the Arya second hand, but it worked for approximately two hours, then cut out.
I took it to a reputable audio engineer that rebuilt the connector mechanism thinking that was the issue, but they cut out again. After further investigation, he concluded that the foil driver has one —or more— hairline fractures, but he couldn’t locate any breaks.
Financial and emotional impact
These cost we €895 with the repair cost that didn’t work. I am absolutely gutted. I had to save hard for these.
Is there some way to turn this nightmare around?
I have zero repair knowledge to contribute just wanted to say sorry for your loss. It sucks when something like this happens. Maybe contact Hifiman and see if they’ll give you a trade option for a newer Arya?
The engineer spoke with the Hifiman rep and he was prepared to offer me 20% discount on a new pair. That means paying another 1000+. (On the Hifiman new price).
Firstly, I don’t have that sort of money. Secondly investing again in a product that —should it fail— seems unrepairable, would be foolish. (Once bitten, twice shy).
I don’t trust the Hifiman brand anymore.
I contacted the private seller immediately, the same day they arrived but he was unwilling to take them back, (of course).
I will indeed try the small claims court, but my chances are slim.
The only thing I can think of that might work, is to acquire some electronics-focused (not the jewelry or “replating” stuff) silver based conductive ink, and paint it over the areas on the left driver’s tracers that look fractured.
You’ll want to use the liquid form, not the “pens”, and brush it on. You’ll want it to be silver-based to minimize impedance as much as possible. And you’ll need to be extremely careful doing it, so as not to do other damage to the diaphragm.
However, this is a long shot and may not a) work at all and b) may result in performance issues if it does. If it works, it may increase the overall trace impedance to the point you’ll wind up with a noticeable channel imbalance, and the ductility of the dried ink may be different to the existing traces that could cause different break-up modes in the motion of the driver.
I’d like to say I’m surprised that HiFiMan won’t simply do a paid out-of-warranty repair on them, but I’m not. Given how cheap/flimsy most HiFiMan products feel, I’m pretty sure even their in-warranty process is “throw in it in the trash, and send out a new unit”.
Here’s a photo of my dead HE-560 driver as of March 2020 and a new item reference photo for comparison.
I gave up on HiFiMan after this, as there were numerous visible cracks in both drivers. The driver that died had a massive divot where it shorted out (lower left), but smaller divots were also present in the functional driver. The second driver surely would have died before long.
Today I never recommend HFM and don’t talk about their products unless asked or required. Before mine died I thought their QC issues were a thing of the past, but not any more. I now think failure is a function of creating thin, diaphanous metal traces on a flexing mesh. I do not believe that HFM wiring can hold up to thousands of vibrations per second, as inherently required by audio drivers.
HFM can sound great, but I’d not own one out of warranty. Mine died after 13 months, and started to fail before that. It required more and more amp power to produce adequate volume, and developed a strange tonal hollowness. On the bright side, I sold the parts and cables for meaningful money (e.g., $150 for dead parts; I paid $250 new) on Ebay. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.
This is why I am not going Arya Stealth on my next headphone. My HE-560 have been fine so far but I don’t want to chance an expensive purchase of questionable quality.
Content reduced in size so that the evil eye won’t suspect things are going too well.
I’ve had an Arya V2 once die on me with the same issue and out of Hifiman warranty. I wrote Hifiman support and they offered me to send the defect pair in and they’d replace it with a new one for 450$ + shipping.
In my case I found out that my dealer had a longer warranty than Hifiman themselves so I got a free replacement via the dealer but in your case maybe getting a replacement via the support might be a possible solution. You’d just end up with a current production stealth version probably.
Still a bitter pill to swallow but maybe better than a 900€ paper weight you can’t really use for anything?
Update:
After a tiresome back and forth with Hifiman customer service I could ‘upgrade’ my faulty V1 Arya’s to the stealth version for an additional $644 on top of what I already paid out for them.
I had no choice. Hifiman wouldn’t repair them and couldn’t send me a new version of the V1 because they said they had none.
My experience with customer service was extremely poor and I’ll be writing a review of my experience in a separate post.
Thanks to everyone that shared their advice and specifically to @Bkido for the golden tip that saved me from a €895 paper weight.
Just curious… Did you buy with PayPal/ credit card? If so, there is always recourse to a defective item. PayPal = INAD. Credit card = chargeback.
I personally have never done either INAD or chargeback as a buyer. However, as a seller, I have experienced nitpicky buyers/ buyers abusing the INAD mechanism.
Seems you already resolved your issue, however, the above tools may be of use in the future.
so far but I don’t want to chance an expensive purchase of questionable quality.