OK - I hope you enjoy the FX66. I just have two comments on your dependance on Amazon.com.
I think there’s no reason to limit yourself to purchasing from Amazon.com in online purchases - since they’ll seldom have the lowest price or availability of specialty products.
Also - keep in mind that when you’re looking at headphone reviews at Amazon - often, a large percentage of reviews will be from people who have nothing to compare to. They like the product, but have never had a similar one. At head-fi, a lot of the reviewers have compared dozens - if not hundreds of headphones. So you’ll have a higher probability of not only liking what you buy - but making sure it’s at the top of it’s class.
The reason I buy almost all my stuff from amazon is because it is the only online company that I know of that has free shipping to Hawaii, where I live. Amazon will restrict free shipping to Hawaii on excessively large or heavy items but those items are not on my online shopping list anyway. Cheaper to just buy large heavy items locally since they were shipped in bulk via boat.
Newegg will only ship via UPS to Hawaii which adds a minimum of about $15 to $17 shipping no matter how small or light the items are. I’ve sent two emails to newegg over the years requesting that they try to arrange free shipping to Hawaii like amazon does but they won’t do it. I’ve requested that they at least mail small, light merchandise via the US Postal Service which is much cheaper than UPS or Fedex but they refuse to do that too. Overstock will also not ship via the US Postal Service to Hawaii which eliminates them from my online purchases also. Companies that refuse to ship via the US Postal Service are losing a large number of sales to Alaska and Hawaii. I can’t fathom why they are willing to lose substantial money just because they don’t want to ship via the USPS.
Had I purchased the earphones from newegg or overstock, I would have had to add about $15 shipping to the item cost shown online.
I agree with what you said about reviews at amazon coming more from novices compared to head-fi. I have had very good luck buying from amazon via their user reviews though, probably because I’m more of a jack of all trades type rather than a specialist type.
Thanks a lot for your input. Much appreciated!
Sky
