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Fact#4= fashion is stronger influence than sound to the majority of society.
100 % agree
There is no such a golden sound signature discovered by Monster engineers, nor by Dr. Dre, which the majority of the people out there loves.
If someone is still believing in such a 'best seller sound signature' wich apparently you can only find in Beats by Dre, just try to explain why a lot of people here in Argentina (and I mean, most of the people I see using full sized headphones at the street) wear fake Beats by Dre.
Come on, this is all about having that 'b logo' over your head. Then most people who look at you will recognize the b logo, and you'll be 'someone with those superb headphones' for the majority of the people.
Something similar happens here with Swatch watches for ladies painted in some color similar to gold. A lot of young ladies here want a Swatch in that colour. Those who can't pay for it buy a fake one.
No one wish to have Cartier. And that is because no one of the other ladies here would recognize a Cartier as a superb watch, neither will associate that unknown watch with some kind of social status.
I don't like to generalize, there are always exemptions out there for everything you say.
After all, Beats by Dre are fashion headphones, and most fashion products are over-priced in terms of quality, but I don't think that make them a rip-off because when you buy something like that you are paying for the headphones and paying for their fame (based mainly on the marketing)
Last but not least, we can say, they are a rip off because Monster tells the people those are Hi-Fi headphones and they are not.
The box of my AKG's K44 also says Hi-Fi headphones, and for me are just good headphones, not Hi-Fi.
Hi-Fi is a quite relative term and it is used a lot comercially. I think we have nothing to do to change that.
Greetings!