The last update that I received from my factory contact in China was 2 weeks ago, and the status of the SYT-5 batch that was prepared for me some time ago was that upon personal inspection, he discovered pitting in the finish which required the batch to be sent back to plating. . which historically has been a problematic process if things do not go smoothly.
Problems with my current batch of SYYT-5 supply materialized or became known to me around the time my most recent shipment of re-supply parts were completed at the various factories and being consolidated in China for a combined ocean freight shipment. At the time, my assumption was that the microphones had been completed (for a few months) and would be consolidated with the other items. Claiming Covid related transport issues internal to China, my factory contact (for SYT-5 gen3 bodies) informed me that he would ship the microphones to me via alternate methods at his expense . . . which is unusual for such a large batch of parts. Standard Fedex DHL or other carriers would be exorbitantly expensive but there was no real reason for concern at the time. The initial information that I received was switches were missing as supply and production at the time to Taiwan were impacted. Because I previously ordered a very large batch of switches separately, I told my factory contact that this is not a problem, and I can receive the bodies without switches as fast as possible. My preference was still to consolidate all of the various microphone bodies inside of China and then to ship to me via cargo freight. Up to this point, my relationship with the factory contact was quite strong and responsive. We had each gone out of our way to help each other out, make changes to designs, address quality concerns, make prototypes, etc. Late July, communications became suddenly silent or slow. My factory representative's father was hospitalized with a severe heart condition and he has been accompanying him there as well as taking care of family logistics. From that point forward, communications have been extremely slow.
The pattern here is typical of how a Chinese factory "ghosts" someone in the middle of a product development cycle. . . except we are not doing that right now. No additional changes were made in this production run of SYT-5 microphone bodies with the exception of my request to clean up the mesh cutting and internal soldering of the headbasket mesh assembly. My interactions with this contact have been extremely good to this point, and we have been able to get things done and make adjustments and changes to microphones that other factories refused to do so I am still optimistic that in the end, things will turn around as I am still getting updates sporadically.
If indeed, there was a plating issue discovered upon personal inspection of the microphone batch, re-plating historically has been one of the more difficult things to handle. This delayed my recent CU-49 batch by a couple of months. It has also delayed previous SYT-5 shipments significantly. It has effected previous MK47 and HT-11A production runs as well, so every factory that I have purchased from at one point or another has been hit with this. Again, assuming this is an actual plating problem, I am upset that it adds even further delays to an already excruciatingly long production cycle for the current batch of SYT-5 Gen 3 bodies, but having actually received batches of parts with serious plating problems, I would be thankful that someone on the factory floor in China discovered the problems there and is insisting that they be fixed prior to sending out the batch. Either way, it is not ideal.
I have been pressing for updates daily regarding the SYT-5 bodies. Payments in full for the production batch have already been completed. I am hoping for the best, but there are serious logistical hurdles.
Prior to this, I have been ordering maximum quantities from factories in order to try and establish a better working relationship with them, but I am moving towards making smaller and more frequent orders to avoid stocking so many parts. The recent batch of HT-11A bodies that I just sold out of had so many units, it took more than 1.5 years to sell.
I am coordinating another production run to re-supply primarily the HT-11A bodies that recently sold out but also MK47 bodies and shock mounts for all of the body styles. I am hoping that the now very late SYT-5 Gen 3 bodies will be ready to consolidate for ocean freight in this next incoming shipment.
Please note also, in the latest import shipment of microphone bodies, we were hit with a steep 25% import duty from China/US trade tensions, but that is completely unrelated to the problems encountered in trying to get actual delivery of the SYT-5 Gen 3 bodies.
I wish that I had better news but this is the current update which is I am having a hard time getting updates at this time.