Late last week I purchased, among other things, a new set of headphones for my MP3 player. When I got home and plugged said headphones in I found that the sound quality was such that could best be described as shitty. This afternoon when I tried to return them I was told that their chain of stores did not accept returns; if the product was defective they would exchange it for another, but that was it. The upshot is that this store’s policy is that they do not take any responsibility for the quality of anything they sell – they display any piece of crap a manufacturer or distributor manages to dump on them and once they have your money the customer can go f**k himself.
And there’s no point in trying to complain to the chain’s head office – their email “Contact Us” section doesn’t allow you to enter a message.
—screwed
This article appears in Apr 30 – May 6, 2009.
What’s the problem here? You got a defective product, and they offered to replace it with a working product. Seems like a decent policy to me?
If the brand itself was shitty, then you should have done some reseach before cheaping out. Caveat Emptor.
Bet it starts with an “F” and ends with “shop”.
Just another shitty store who’s just interested in the customer’s money and not the customer. At least with Wally World you can get your money back.
I’ve gotten refunds from FShop, no questions asked, and the product was completely opened, from one of those stupid plastic bubble packages, so it wasn’t resealable.
I hate that packaging. They should make bank vaults out of it.
I would guess that it is a store formerly known as Radio Shack. They have some of the worst products and customer service I’ve seen.
i bought a set of skull candy ear buds from a place that used to be radio shack and they crapped out after about 4 hours use. No loud use or abuse they simply stopped. They offered an exchange or refund, my choice.
Yeah, I agree with PAS: I’ve had no problem EVER returning anything from FShop. They were horribly SLOW, but…
Thing about earphones/headphones is that sound quality is a very sticky thing. I’m PICKY about my earphone brands and I always stick to the old standbys for mp3 player earphones (sony and panasonic, and apple earphones, even. All are reasonably priced: I’d never spend tons on earphones for my ipod). I find they don’t overpower with the bass and the treble is nice and crisp. As long as you don’t get the earphones that say “bass booster” or whatever. As well, when you switch brands you sometimes have to get used to the new sound, because nothing sounds the same as the other. I just found an awesome pair of in ear earphones by sony at the source for 15 bucks on sale (bass booster ones were 20, so score for me) and they’re FABULOUS. They even have an extra long cord with a wrap thingy to shorten the cord if necessary. They’re *awesome*
OP, mad points for “I found that the sound quality was such that could best be described as shitty” instead of just “they sucked”.
That aside, if a store’s prices were low enough, I’m sure they could print “once we have your money you can go f**k yourself” on the side of the building and still do pretty well.
A policy of accepting returns is not guaranteed, nor should it be. Check before buying.
All mp3 players have shitty sound quality. It’s just a matter of how shitty.
The current generation will sadly have absolutely no understanding of true sound quality.
Having worked at FShop both on the sales floor and in Customer Service, I’ll let you in why they wouldn’t return it. Any retailer’s return policy is dictated by written off materials. WallyMart can do this till the end of days because profit margins are so high in there, that they can absorb the write-offs associated with indiscriminately returning product (let’s not mention that WallyMart also puts opened and used returned product on the shelf without telling you) which means that they’ll return anything. Fshop has an issue where their margin on product rarely exceeds 25% on most products. So, that means, they’re less likely to return your product if it’s going to be written off. Your earbuds are in an interesting situation: earbuds get written off immediately because they go directly in the ear and it becomes a health issue. The manufacturer won’t accept them back. So the retailer eats the cost. So, even on a 20 dollar pair of earbuds means that 15 bucks is written off. Not much to you, but given that it takes about 1000 dollars worth of sales to recover 1 dollar of written off product, it’s extremely important.
Keith— you’ve never purchased one then. I’m old enough to have listened to vinyl and then grew up with CDs, and then finally to this. Mp3 (all digital music in fact) boils down to format (Mp3 vs. AAC vs. Ogg, etc) and bitrate (320 is usually best but takes up the most space, 128 is the most common, but probably worst quality and takes up the least space). In all honesty, it’s a great thing. I can carry ever single Led Zepplin album on my mp3 player. In through the Out Door on the way to work and Led Zep 4 on the way home.
Since when is the scratch-hiss-pop of vinyl considered true sound quality?
I’d much rather hear a scratch hiss or pop than a digital bleep or skip. But I can say I definitely enjoy the sound of brand new vinyl, and theres something about watching your music turn as you hear it, makes it so much more enjoyable.
Maybe put an mp3 player in the microwave? That turns.
I can’t guarantee it won’t skip, though.
I wouldn’t mind using an open source firmware in my IPod so I can play FLAC files. For those not in the know FLAC means Free LOSSLESS Audio Codec. No quality drop due to encoding, its sweat.
Go to the SMU campus at their store you can get the best ear buds for $4.00. I break ear buds all the time and i ahve mine going on 5 months!
Sounds like they were bought at XS Cargo maybe? most things they sell are refurbished.
Dr. Fever (and others who think they are listening to good audio): you need to read this:
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/177…
All that article explains “loudness”. Here’s something for you: most mp3 players now have software that compensate for that deficit/compression. It’s called different things, but it’s basically an algorithm that decompresses the data as it advances (thereby allowing for better sound). Also most players have a functioning EQ as well, thereby allowing to not only customize, but improve sound. Remember how shitty that record sounded till you put it through a receiver? That receiver had an EQ that dealt with the invariably crap base sound from your turntable. Not to mention too, my mp3 player doesn’t warp, holds 500+ songs, and only weighs about 100g as opposed to 5kg. Oh, and finally, the variances that are listed in the article that you cite are barely discernible to the human ear.
None of which is germane to the issue under discussion that mp3 players and earbuds produce lousy sound. Yeah, it’s great: it has 500 non-warping, crappy-sounding songs. If you think the article only deals with loudness you failed to read it fully (including the commentary) or comprehend it. You sound exactly like the kind of individual I am talking about and to which the article refers.
the point of MP3’s was to reduce the size of the song by eliminating the sounds in the track that aren’t audible…
if you can’t hear it, why keep it?’
now once you start to compress the remaining track, that’s a different story…
Don’t blame the MP3, blame the person who ripped it.
And if you buy Nexxxtek earphones, you’re getting what you paid for.
FYI MP3 is actually the third layer in a standard digital video format… has fuck all to do with “eliminating the sounds in the track that aren’t audible”. MP3’s are just a convenient consequence of fairly old technology.
“The compression works by reducing accuracy of certain parts of sound that are deemed beyond the auditory resolution ability of most people.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3
I don’t usually cite wiki but in this case, it’s accurate for fuck off kay.
Keith– have you ever listened to a track side by side from a modern day mp3 player and from a CD player? It’s indistinguishable. The native bit rate on a CD is 256 kbps (usually a proprietary format), and a standard song from iTunes (album or song) is downloaded at 160 kbps (AAC format) taking those values, I find it hard to distinguish the difference using my studio headphones. I did read the article by the way, and that is actually the case. In fact, an mp3 at 320 kbps sounds BETTER than a CD, as it is less compressed.