Archives for September 19, 2022

Refurbished Massdrop x FOCAL Elex for $499 [CAUTION]

This is a deal but with a caution alert as well!

Massdrop is offering refurbished B-stock Massdrop x FOCAL ELEX wired open-back over-ears for $499 with free US shipping. You get a 30-day return window but NO warranty. This is an in-stock drop, so it will ship quickly.

CAUTION however, three of the four published customer reviews over there are complaining of “Ear Cup Death”. Two of the three within 2 days, one on day #28.

So if the price tempts you, research it further in the massdrop forums and other audiophile places. If you hate having to return a product because of problems (and return it in a timely manner because of the 30-day return window), or having to argue with customer service in case they stonewall, you may want to AVOID it!

Refurbished Drop + NuForce MOVE truly-wireless for $20

And another refurbished B-stock option, this time it is the Drop + NuForce Move truly-wireless offered for $20 plus shipping. Or free US shipping for $125+ as we mentioned in our earlier update post

This has a 30-day return window, but no warranty. They have a giant paragraph explaining their refurbished products…

Massdrop updates: 10% Rewards on select Audiophile products [also: raises free US shipping threshold to $125+]

We have a couple of updates from the world of Massdrop!

First up, for a limited time, select Audiophile products earn 10% back in Massdrop Rewards/Points instead of their usual amount. You will see this on this individual product page of a participating products, it shows how many rewards you earn with it.

If you are not familiar with their rewards program, your purchases earn anywhere from 1% to 5% [Keyboard Club members] in rewards depending on the product type. Massdrop’s own “Studio” products earn 3%, while most others earn 1%. Exceptions and limited time promotions (like the one mentioned in the paragraph above apply).

You also earn 100 points for every product review you submit. You get 100 when you submit your own picture(s) on a product page. The 100 points is per product page, not per individual picture. Otherwise their product listings would become a stock photo website 😉

What you get for the rewards? Every 500 points get you $5 to spend at Massdrop as a discount.

The second item in this update is that free standard US shipping is now $125+, up from $100+. Another sign of the times and the rising costs and things like that.

PS: since I mentioned it above, what is the Drop Keyboard Club (DKC)? It’s a paid annual membership discount program for keyboard lunatics fanatics. You pay $49 per year for the first two years (use coupon code JOINTHECLUB), and then it rises to $69 per year. This gets you monthly discounts (between $30 to $100) to spend on “mech keys gear”. They have a few other benefits as well.

So it looks like Keyboards have defeated Headphones at Massdrop, otherwise they’d have a “Drop Headphones Club” instead of a keyboards club 😉

Monday: Tribit truly-wireless sale

For Monday September 19 in 2022, the headliner deal of the day at Amazon USA is a Tribit truly wireless sale featuring a total of 14 products. Not all of them are truly wireless earphones though.

Of particular interest is the Tribit Fly Buds 3 (100H) going for around $31 in the black color scheme.

I have this particular model and I’m planning an unboxing post and review in the future. Of potential playback time interest, in addition to the long charge held in the charging case (thus the 100H in the name), you can optionally wear one earbud at a time instead of two (either the left or the right, whichever one you take out of the case), essentially doubling playback time! I use these for YouTube viewing daily and charge the USB-C charging case just once a month! That’s insane!

The charging case also works as a powerbank (!!!) for other devices via USB Type A! Don’t get too excited though, today’s phones need a whole lot more than this for a full charge. But in case of emergency,and/or if you want to charge small DAPs (eg Sandisk Clips) this is a great.

A bit confusing, but in the same listing they have a newer 2022 model, in the white color scheme going for $33. This is marked as a “150H” product, promising even crazier battery life. This goes by the “normal” name of “Flybuds 3S”. This also goes to bluetooth 5.2, up from bluetooth 5.0 of the OG Flybuds 3. I don’t have the 3S model, so I can’t comment on how it works.

All the models are on the same listing, and all together, at Amazon they average 4.3 out of 5 based on 22652 customer ratings. Unfortunately Amazon does not provide review score averages per individual color/option. You can filter the reviews by color/option but you have to calculate the averages on your own. With thousands of reviews, that’s impossible 🙂