We’re aware of it. Apparently some guy in China enjoys making knock off headphones of various manufactures. If he was smart he would use all that energy to make his own in his image with his own brand name; maybe one day
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Let me get this straight. Luckily, I knew the guy in person mentioned in the "fake 1266" topic, thanks to my stay back in China during 2020-2022 caused by COVID. The guy who posted it here was trying to be nice and to warn people here to avoid, but he didn't clearly state everything, which hurt the friend who posted the original thread in the Chinese forum.
The original thread is actually talking about how he tried to clean and do some basic maintenance for a customer's OG 1266. When he opened up the headphones, he found that the driver was not the original. He couldn't decide if it was a "fake" by just looking at appearance or the headphones had some issue before and were fixed by some unprofessional guys. So, he posted the process online asking if anyone knew about the existence of that "version". All the photos were taken by him. He tried to visualize if the 1266 was genuine by some small details on the chassis, headband, and driver membrane, but he didn't get a clue. All he had confidence was that the driver was swapped for some reason but the owner was not aware.
The original thread was not posted by the owner of the "fake". The owner was shocked and felt really sad after my friend completed the maintenance and informed him.
The DIY market in China grows fast in past years and there are more and more clones coming out. It can be a good thing for customers to get cheaper parts for self-repair, but it can also hurt the profit and credit of the Brands if those factories and individual sellers (the main portion) have no ethics and limits on what they are doing.
Some gossip and rumors: there might be Audeze LCD clones sooner or later. There have already been tons of Grado clones in the second-hand market in China. There are a few clones of Kennerton Thror but I didn't have a chance to have a touch on it because I left for Australia in Dec 2021. The drivers for Grado clones even have relatively high quality with a good sound, but we can still distinguish them.
Since I also played around with DIY stuff during the past 2 years, I knew some people doing this (cloning reputable brands) and making profits from that. The cloned Grados have similarities in sound but 5 times cheaper, at least, and that's why so many people choose them. I'll post some DIY headphones I made for my own use later if anyone is interested.