Do any of you actually approach people when you see them wearing high-end cans?
I do, but I'm in sales so I have the luxury of it not being an inherently awkward situation. I'm forced to talk to them anyway, so at least if I get to ask them about their headphones I get something out of it too.
It makes my day when someone comes in and mentions having a nice set of phones. In the past few months I have:
- Sold a guy a 1/4 to 1/8" adapter for his vintage AKGs, so we talked about them for a while and how he came to own them.
- Talked to a guy at length about his Grados and how to fix them. He looked seriously depressed that the TRS jack got ripped off of them, so I could tell he was really attached to them. (Although he did tell me had either the 125/225, and it ended up being the SR60, which was a little disappointing. Still better than the alternatives.)
I try to convince people (usually teens, early 20s) all the time to just TRY some different stuff. I don't like making people feel bad about their purchases, because I know I'm very sensitive to that myself, so I just try to politely tell them; "I'm glad you like your Beats. Anything that gets people listening to more music is good in my book. If you're in the market for something new or just want to see what else is out there, I feel like there are much better bang for your buck headphones out there. The Beats are just a little expensive for the sound quality that you get." If necessary I'll compliment the Beats on their style or some of their more useful features, but let the person know that for sheer sound quality, I can show them $75-100 headphones all day long that will dominate Beats.