I was *not* ripped off by Shenzhen Audio AliExpress. Hooray.
tl;dr: Extremely sketchy but ultimately positive story about buying Topping DAC/amp stack on AliExpress from Shenzhen Audio.
I've been getting back into headphones and wanted a new balanced high-output amp for electrostatics before Trump's tariffs increased import prices from China. I decided on an E70/L70 stack and put in my order with Shenzhen Audio on the first day of the 11.11 sale. $474.30 plus $45.06 tax = $519.36 total plus free XLR cables. Seemed like a good deal.
8 days later AliExpress sent me a shipment notification with no carrier and bogus tracking number. Seemed like someone just entered a random number to make it look like the package was shipped. Customer support more or less confirmed nothing had been shipped or would be shipped for several weeks. I thought they were going to claim the order had been shipped and keep my money. I asked for a refund. They wouldn't cancel the sale. I couldn't cancel the sale because it had been "shipped". I decided to wait until December 28 and report the untrackable shipment as undelivered.
On December 24 I started getting texts about a DHL package. I thought it was a scam but the sender said SHENZHEN LONGRU and the new tracking number - completely unrelated to the old number - was valid. Two days later DHL sent a photo of my package delivered to the mailroom. Enclosed was the L70 amp I requested and an *upgraded* E70 Velvet DAC. (+$70 value)
Shenzhen Audio on AliExpress is extremely disorganized, bad at communication, and stressful to deal with but ultimately honest. I am pleasantly surprised and might order from them again.
