u/thaeyo reminded me that I probably should update y'all about this Schiit. So here we go!

Schiit did require an order #, thankfully my Amazon one worked just fine. All in all it started off good, the CSR I talked with made sure to notate that my headphones were damaged and that, if at all possible, I would like to exchange my Heresy for a Heretic since I was afraid of this happening again. They tested and found my Heresy to be malfunctioning (wonder what gave them that impression) and gave me.... Another Heresy, as you can see pictured above. Really annoying but I secretly expected no less. After receiving it back and seeing I was given a Heresy, I contacted Schiit's customer service again to ask if there was any way I can exchange this and was told, quote 'I'm sorry but we do not have a trade in/buy back program'. Aka, if you bought a Heresy and it blew up due to our poor design - that's on you. Not gonna lie, I'm still a little pissed about that.

My headphones leave me a little bewildered. Despite noting it in my RMA comment and even having their CSR note it too, I am uncertain if they actually did anything for my headphones. The only acknowledgement of my headphones is a little note that states what was received in the box and what was sent back. There is nothing else said about them. Before I sent them off, I noted that there was a channel imbalance and radio interference in the right ear cup. I will admit that the channel imbalance may have been my hearing, it took far longer than I would have thought to recover from what happened. I do have partial hearing loss in my right ear, however either through healing or compensation it has gotten much much better than it was. So the channel imbalance may have been my hearing. However what I do know for certain is that there is still radio interference in the right ear cup. I attempted to fix this by adding ferrite cores onto the cord but that did nothing, so it's the internal wiring itself that is no longer shielded. As such, I've sent it off to AKG for repair. I'm hoping they can do something but at this point I'm no longer holding my breath. I'm probably going to have buy another pair of K553's.

So in summary, Schiit is Shit. I'm severely disappointed in their handling of the matter and will probably never buy any of their products again. They refused to do anything but the bare minimum and apparently don't care about their customers. Furthermore, I now have an amp that I am not going to use. I would sell it to re-coup some of my money but I don't want the same thing happening to someone else.

Also, anyone have any idea's on a good amp to buy in the sub-$200 price range? Not a fan of the Atom's design but at this point it may not be as nice looking as the Heresy but at least my hearing is safe!!

Thanks to all the people who were concerned for my hearing btw!! Doing much better now, high frequency noise is still hit or miss in my right ear but thank God everything is no longer dramatically shifted to the left anymore!

Stay safe everyone!