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Fakes?

post #1 of 19
2/19/09 at 5:49am
Thread Starter 
Hi there,

I've been lurking your forums for some time and well, i decided i'd buy some headphones and well, i decided to go with some Sennheiser HD555's. They just arrived and well, how can i tell if they're fake or not? I mean, as far as i can tell they sound good, nice crisp clean (as far as i can tell since my laptop does have a tiny bit of hiss). I just moved off a pair of sony HPM-70's for my cell onto these so... Anyways.

I'm from New Zealand and i paid $170NZD (apparently $177.90 in-store) from an online retalier. If you'd like to know, i can find them at $250~ from trusted retailers. The site does have a return policy (7 days) and well.. Is there any particular signs that its a fake? I'm a poor student and kinda want to know if i've been duped :P. I'm not an audiophile and all my sound sources to be honest aren't great. If it means anything, it came with a box with the headphones. As far as I know, earbuds (unsure about full-sized) are duped beyond any logical extent.

So... Any comments? :P 0=)
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post #2 of 19
2/19/09 at 7:00am
It might help if you posted pictures of the item you just bought.
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post #3 of 19
2/19/09 at 7:03am
I would say the price range sounds reasonable (no pun intended). If it sounds good to you, that's all that really matters, really. But if you really want to know, then maybe post a few pics.
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post #4 of 19
2/19/09 at 7:07am
legit
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post #5 of 19
2/19/09 at 7:19am
To be honest, I have never heard of HD 555s being faked.

The fakers target is normally things that sell lots for a reasonable amount of money.

The headphones that seem to be faked the most are the Sennheiser and Shure in-ear models - though no doubt there are loads of others as well.

The biggest clues are in the price - the cheaper the price the higher the risk - and the place you buy them from.

But fakers put all the effort in making the fakes *look* as close to the real thing as possible, including the packaging; so it's not always easy to spot them easily (and I have seen fakers saying how to spot fakes when they are actually selling fakes themselves).

But I am pretty certain that your HD 555 are kosher.
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post #6 of 19
2/19/09 at 7:20am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by rockbottom View Post
I would say the price range sounds reasonable (no pun intended). If it sounds good to you, that's all that really matters, really. But if you really want to know, then maybe post a few pics.
:P. Well, i'm the paranoid sort of person who gets ridiculously anxious/worked up nearing having a mental disorder but.. Here goes nothing! Sorry about the low quality pics, i don't have any proper light sources and its dark here!

Just after converting from USD from other websites (eg. Amazon), the priced seemed a bit low :P

Hmm, i'm an overly suspicious person, i'm getting a few pops/series of pops in some of my music, its all 320kbit mp3 ripped from WMP. I'm still keeping it at reasonable listening volume due to burn-in/whatnot. Would anyone give a reccomendation for a good range test?

But if you'd like:
ImageShack - Image Hosting :: dsc08136gx4.jpg
ImageShack - Image Hosting :: dsc08140rf2.jpg
ImageShack - Image Hosting :: dsc08141dc6.jpg
ImageShack - Image Hosting :: dsc08143gs1.jpg
ImageShack - Image Hosting :: dsc08144sc3.jpg

I will say build quality feels fine. Just wondering as a general consensus, is there much to worry about when buying full-sized headphones in terms of fakes? I do plan on buying a nice pair of closed headphones for the road at some point :P and probably palming these off to some relative and getting a better pair.


Definitely thanks to everyone who've replied though!
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post #7 of 19
2/19/09 at 7:24am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ninkul View Post
Just wondering as a general consensus, is there much to worry about when buying full-sized headphones in terms of fakes?
I have not heard much about full size fakes (though that does not mean that they don't exist).

To be safe, find the best price from a proper dealer. A price very much cheaper than that I would avoid, but a little cheaper should be safe.
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post #8 of 19
2/19/09 at 7:31am
Thread Starter 
Yeah, i hadn't really thought about that til after i pressed the buy button online :P
Definitely thank you for the heads up though, i might walk into a retailer tomorrow and "test run" one of their sets *eyeroll*. NZ just gets super overly inflated prices on everything electronic, i mean our mobiles can sometimes cost 1.5x the price you can get them in the UK/US!

I'm still unsure whether or not its just my music though, i'm going through a range of music, i have a variety of music which some of the frequencies around hi-hats/snares "fuzz" a little (i think) or be a little overexaggerated, or am i just expecting too much from the headphones :P or is this something to be experienced before a good burn in has occurred?
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post #9 of 19
2/19/09 at 9:37am
HD555s are probably too expensive or not popular enough to fake and as such I have never heard about one being faked.
Most often portable headphones such as iems get faked.
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post #10 of 19
2/19/09 at 9:38am
Sure way of protecting yourself and the warranty.

Buy from an authorized dealer, simple, easy, and painless. Get what you paid for, along with the service.
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post #11 of 19
2/19/09 at 9:40am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by mbd2884 View Post
Buy from an authorized dealer, simple, easy, and painless. Get what you paid for, along with the service.
As far as I and google know, there aren't any in NZ
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post #12 of 19
2/19/09 at 9:54am
Can't order online? Maybe from Headphonic in Australia?

http://headphones.com.au/psingle?productID=79

Seems like a great price to me. That and say hi to Marcus, one of the coolest online headphone resellers I've ever emailed.
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post #13 of 19
2/19/09 at 10:00am
Quote:
Originally Posted by John Willett View Post
To be honest, I have never heard of HD 555s being faked.

The fakers target is normally things that sell lots for a reasonable amount of money.

The headphones that seem to be faked the most are the Sennheiser and Shure in-ear models - though no doubt there are loads of others as well.

The biggest clues are in the price - the cheaper the price the higher the risk - and the place you buy them from.

But fakers put all the effort in making the fakes *look* as close to the real thing as possible, including the packaging; so it's not always easy to spot them easily (and I have seen fakers saying how to spot fakes when they are actually selling fakes themselves).

But I am pretty certain that your HD 555 are kosher.
^^^ I am of the same view, never heard of fake HD 555's.
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post #14 of 19
2/19/09 at 10:01am
The price seems reasonable. Headphonic in Australia, which I know are legit, sell them for $159 AUS so $170 NZD seems reasonable.

But I reckon you did get dumped in a way. Should have just saved up a bit more and gotten the AT AD-700s. They do everything the HD555 do but better (apparently).
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post #15 of 19
2/19/09 at 10:06am
The headphones in the photos look OK to me, I don't think they are fakes.

The HD555 and HD595 are well-constructed and should be quite comfortable.

You can probably increase sound quality over your laptop's headphone port. Spending a lot of money is not necessary, just enough to maximize every dollar.

Some laptops have hiss and other noise from the internal sound cards. I think the noise and fuzz you're hearing is due to the laptop and not because of a problem with the headphone. You can try using the headphone on a DAP with the same music files to see if the noise is still there.
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