Let's cook the rice. I own RE0 and will probably buy another one of their high-end IEMs in the future. Considering that RE-252 was on my radar for a long time, I considered buying RE-262 and was tempted a bit to pre-order HM-602 batch 2 - just for RE-262. But, as I said before, I don't generally believe in special "audiophile players". While searching for impressions of RE-262, I came across the head-fi thread mentioned above.
As far as I understand, erji.net and ourdev.cn are two forums. erji.net is where we get first reports about HiFiman products.
The poster from ourdev.cn, Mok is an admin there. Nankai is from Head-Direct. Since there seems to be too much going on, we do not know which side is right. But, I'll just translate as I find this interesting.....
Mok claims....
Mok bought a HM-801 with his own money (5200 Yuan). He was impressed with the SQ. He seems to be a knowledgeable / DIY person. So, he opens up the player and examines it. He finds that the "electroplating trapping" :huh: was not up-to the mark. Curious, he examined the amp's board. Such good SQ, such poor components? So, the dual DACs are not from the same lot - meaning they are not matched?
At this point, Nankai calls at 2 AM to remove the circuit board pictures. He promises that he'll fix things and send another 801 for disassembling and photos. The photos are taken off the forum.
In the "improved" HM-801, he finds that two of the transistors on the headphone board are obviously fakes. Concerned, he called up Nankai. On his promise, he proceeds to publish the photos with "defective transistors, which will be fixed" and marks them for "private use within the forum only. Distribution is prohibited" labels. Nankai also prohibits shooting the opamp after the DAC. Upon repeated questioning, Nankai admits that he uses a cheap LM833 low-pass filter after the 1704 and if found, his competitors will use the same cheap opamp in their products, there by losing the cost advantage.
At this point, things turn a little nasty. As per Mok, Nankai calls him at 2 AM whenever he publishes a disassembled photo and threatens him. He has threatened to find some one to kill him in QQ Chat session (Screen shot in that thread). He goes on to post some chat sessions where Nankai says he can replace fake transistors with genuine refurbished ones for the photo shoot.
Let's see what HiFiMan claims
- Mr. Mok ordered a HM-801. But due to relocation of factories, a test version was sent to him by mistake. It can be verified by the label on the PCB, which reads "W930-TV5.0", TV stands for Test version.
- Mok resorted to extortion and coercion even after we offered to replace his demo version with a final product. He wanted him to be appointed as distributor of HiFiMan products to profit from them. He also wanted Mr. Nankai to be associated with his own forum to gain from Nankai's reputation. To save ourselves, we verbally agreed to these demands.
- Mo did not disassemble our second unit. His claims of fake transistor are indeed from our test sample unit. We have evidence to prove it, which will be produced as and when legally required. He has published these photos to bring disrepute to the Hifiman brand. Authorities can inspect the quality of the said transistor in our production versions.
- Mo has imported Sony D50 players :huh: and has offered to sell an upgraded version. He is trying to clone the technology in our player for his commercial interests.
- Mok would stalk and repeatedly called Nankai in the middle of the night while in the US. Nankai asked him to be left alone and not spoil his rest. Due to his emotional state, Nankai used a colloquial Xuzhou dialect expression that meant "Don't mess with me, I'll kill you", which Mok misinterpreted and considered as an assassination attempt. He also bought Baidu search engine terms for "Nankai Rice", so that the claims of threat on his site would be displayed second in the results.
Here are Mo's refutes to that....
- I was not part of the testing group. Like everybody else, I paid 5200 Yuans and waited a month to get the player. Only upon opening the player, I could see the TV5.0 label. Imagine the case of ordinary users who would never do such things.
- It was Nankai who offered me another unit for re-shooting the pictures. We are an electronics forum and internals are what we are interested in.
- The discussion to appoint as agents was verbal and non-committal. Nankai said that we have to pay the amount in cash up front and the profits won't be high. If I was to be appointed as agent of the product, wouldn't it be simple for me to just say that there's no problem with the player? Nankai seems to be happy to accept becoming moderator of our forum from the chat session published below... But he was totally inactive and did not even get involved in discussions regarding HiFiMan. Eventually, we decided to remove him as a moderator.
- In our forum, majority of the users have been able to detect the transistors as fake. I still have the unit in hand as evidence. Authorities can verify that it has not been tampered with to plant false evidence. If Nankai was so genuine, why didn't he allow me to shoot the Opamp section, which is one of the important portions of the player?
- We did not import D50 players in bulk quantity. We bought just two players from Jingdong Mall. I am ready to show the invoice. PCM1704 is in circulation for a decade and most PCB layouts can look similar. I will publish details of the upgrade I plan and also compare it with 801 to prove that I am not copying from HM-801.
- I am not the stalker, I am just angry. Proof of the death threat is in the screenshot of the chat session shown.....Our site is popular enough to appear on top of Baidu results.
More things are there. But, I am tired and I guess this much "rice" politics is enough for the day. Seems to be a clash of personalities here.
But, interesting things about fake transistor, cheap opamp etc., Like always, we may not know the truth at all

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