fist There could have been a bit of "Can we get away with this based on our customer base and the tonality?", but also I do give them props for providing not only a free upgrade cable to the early adopters but also a brand new Void without asking for the old version back. This customer service, along with holding back the full release at the last minute, is a bigger sign of good things than one product is. I suppose it's also a good thing that the Venus ended up being the first Moondrop headphones as a result and it's one of the better products on the market.
As for the SHIO, there are savings in the packaging and accessories. The PCB doesn't have the extra amplifier stage that the Moonriver 2 seems to have, hence its rated for slightly less power. But practically it sounds and measured basically the same as the one that costs nearly thrice as much.
They seem to have pattern where they misfire and then go back and fix it and come out with a better, if more pricey, product. Blessing to Blessing 2, Moonriver to Moonriver 2, A8 to S8. Then they sort of branch out from there once they have a hit, hence the billion versions of Aria and then entire Kato, KXXX/KXXS mess.
They still aren't that big of a brand at the end of the day even if they are one of the bigger chifi players and one of the few that can just outright command a premium.
I doubt they'd release crap based off "our people are going to buy it anyways so LOL" but they aren't afraid to sort of leap and then see what happens. Their site hosts a lending club as well and they aren't scared to get bashed over duds. It's nice, if also creepy at all the cartoon kids people keep drawing and putting up there. They are really attentive to feedback.
For the SHIO I haven't used it but having used a fair amount of dongles at the end you're paying for build quality and brand trust once you go over a certain amount. It's not snake oil, but companies like questyle and ifi and also the Moonriver 2 are simply over building the hell out of them and come from known brands so it's not a risk per say. Audio is still very much a "trust me" business given the price ask on a lot of this. People will throw four or even five figures at a brand they trust but they will not do that with some no name. At a point you need a product in a category that demonstrates you can nail it, cost and practicality be damned. The Moonriver 2 is great, the Dawn is just good. I'd recommend both having messed with them.
I'd also wager they are going to fix the pads on this. It took them a bit to nail their foam and silicon IEM tips but they got it and they are some of the better on the market. They also released filters to help with the cleaning. While they don't include all this with their older products it's becoming standard for them. It's sort of funny to buy a sub 200 iem and realize the maker threw in a 50 buck cable, 20 bucks of tips, and 10 bucks of filters. Which is sort of refershing cause that's all stuff you normally run out and buy right after.
I do find it funny that the dongle is what you liked better but it's a damn good one and the 70 USD ask is utterly reasonable for what you are getting. But that gets to another point. Moondrop is also selling a bit of an ecosystem now. You can buy a DAC/AMP, cable, and headphones/iem/earbuds combo from them all at once and while not all their stuff crosses into Blessing2/MoonRiver2 of "best in class at this price point" you can be sure it's not going to be outright bad.
The clickety-clackety cheap build of the VOID didn't bother me, but the fit of the headphones was unacceptable. With the headband across the top of my head, there's a huge gap between the bottom of the earpads and my jawbone. If I swivel the headphones until there's an even fit all round, the headband ends up at the back of my head, just a centimetre away from slipping off. Other headphones in my collection don't do this.
What on earth was the Moondrop design team thinking? Surely they must have tested the fit of the prototypes, and obtained feedback from visitors to Chinese audio shows.
I look forward to reading your review of the Truthear SHIO. I suspect that most chifi products are assembled and repackaged from a limited number of OEM components, but if one brand can undercut another by such a huge margin, then either they've asked the OEM to downgrade the components, or they're taking a loss to carve out a chunk of the market.
There are a limited number of companies making components and you can get a cheap ESS and people will just see ESS and assume it's a good one. There's also build quality. The higher end stuff is going to come in a metal housing rather than a plastic casing that's a bit large for what should be there. There's all sorts of other factors as well. Wether they matter for all the other hardware in the chain or it's worth it to you depends on a slew of factors. It's not always the case that a 70 buck dongle cut corners compared to a 190 buck or 350 buck dongle the higher priced ones might just have gone overboard and shot the moon "because it's fucking awesome, fuck you, it's awesome, see what we can do". Those products are common. The ifi diablo is such a case in point where it's not really doing much at 1000 that their 200 buck options let alone their 500 buck options can't do. It comes with less features as well. It's just an over engineered nightmare of a DAC and AMP (hence "diablo") where they threw all the most expensive stuff people drool over into it and then let it output an absurd amount of power and threw it out of the door. Is it worth the cash? Yeah sure. You're getting what you paid for. It's also an insane product that's gleefully reckless and idiotic and brags about it.
Many products often take the "what if we nuked an ant farm" approach to things.
