Monster headphones - same model but...

Some years ago, I wanted to splash out on a good pair of headphones.
I needed a pair that suited my head and after some time, I found these Nokia Purity ones made by monster.
They were a shocking £350 but I thought that the quality was amazing and so I was thinking that they are comfy and should be about right for me.

Now £350 wasa a lot of money, however, the quality was really good and I am glad I bought them.

Lets zoom over now, to a year or so later, when one of the headphones started to play up, Monster would not fix them for me, and just suggested me buying a new set?

They can Fu...rget that.

So, they have been dumped in the cupboard for the time being.

Anyway, a few weeks ago I was just looking through ebay and what did I find? The very same set of headphones for under £40... even under £30

My god, I was shocked, and so, I have bought a set.

The quality is absolutely abysmal.

I dug out my other ones and yes, they are the same model and everything, the weight is the same and yet the sound quality is nothing like each other.

The original ones are crisp and no matter how or what music I play, the deep basses and high trebbles are all shining through in crystal clear clarity and the cheaper ones are giving a cheap plasticy soundthat does not handle the range at all well... Basses are nowhere near as deep, and trebles are more mid range than ever!

Is it \t all possible, that Monster have simply made a load of cheap efforts to get rid of quickly, or maybe the one I bought, was a fake perhaps?

having 2 identical sets, I have compared them, includsing the paperwork and the boxes etc, and they are absolutely identical and so if its a fake, its a very good one indeed.

So you wanted a good pair of headphones and then went out and spent £350 on a pair of Monsters?

Sorry, words just fail me

... oh and yes, they could well be fakes, the bay is full of Beats and Monster knockoffs

Maybe your hearing improved?

FurryLemon said:

Maybe your hearing improved?

Click to expand...

LOL

As rids57 has said, there are plenty of fakes about of certain brands. The ones you bought cheap do sound fake, but don't sound like they the usual cheap copy. With many fakes of various products, there will be tell tale differences, because whoever made the fake had to copy the design of the genuine product, and with that you get differences in the manufacturing process.

If the cheap pair are identical in physical appearance and packaging; what is possible is whoever made these had access to the same manufacturing process as the genuine product. Not a closed shop in other words, which allowed them to produce a fake that is identical in exterior look, except in key areas. In the case here, maybe with cheap drivers.

If we take fake Sennheiser PX100's which were common on eBay a few years ago (they still might be), they were not identical in appearance. They looked very similar, but there were tell tale differences. My guess would be, that the design was copied, because whoever made them could not get access to the same manufacturing process Sennheiser used.

Monster branded products are known for having a huge mark up price, and wherever they have their products made, more than likely do not take the same care that a company like Sennheiser does. The huge difference in price between a genuine and fake product that is physically identical, to me suggests they are cheap to make. The genuine product might have better quality drivers, but not so much as to justify the over inflated price tag.

rids57 said:

So you wanted a good pair of headphones and then went out and spent £350 on a pair of Monsters?

Sorry, words just fail me

... oh and yes, they could well be fakes, the bay is full of Beats and Monster knockoffs

Click to expand...

At the time, I knew no better. I genuinely thought that Monster were a good make.

But, in fairness, they do, or rather did, sound fantastic, and when I was listening to them, as well as a number of other headphones, they were definitely the best pair that were there at the shop.

My hearing got better? LOL I am not going to argue that one... If these ARE genuine, then I am very very upset with them.

But then again, I have had other makes that have let me down when I assumed that they should have been better.

My first 5.1 Setup is Altec Lansing 251 and I loved it... It sounded great, gave a nice thump to it and was fairly good quality. I still got the things on one of the setups in the LAN room. Very happy with them.
I was later given some Altec 955 speakers, and I have been using them and still do on my main system for a very long time now and I have gone through a whole load of other speaker setups but none have been better.

Based on that, I bought a pair of Altec headphones and they were £130 and they were a load of absolute rubbish. I bought them cash and I lost my receipt and so I could not get my money back from the shop, and so I tried Altec themselve and they told me that they accept that model was not a good once, but I could try buying another model instead, but even though they asked me to buy another model, would they refund me? I was devastated. I gave them to my son and he ended up breaking them, yet he did treat them quite well. They were not only poor sounding, they were poor build too!

These days, my main headphones are my tinchy strider big things and they are not the best, but the quality is perfectly adequate, and better than some. I have had these for a few years now and I am happy with them, although I am always looking to get better.

Same with the Main speakers... Always looking to get better.
I just gone from a Creative Recon3D to an Asus Sound Card and I am gutted that I did that. I find Asus to be poor compared to Creative.

--

As a side-note, what would you consier to be a great set, and at what price range?

Just a thought but every time I go abroad and see shops full of Dr Beats headphones I have to wonder if the fakes are as good or even better than the originals?

Sennheiser 650 + bottlehead crack for under a grand is a good shout.

A weird issue I have with sennheiser inner-ear jobs, is that one of the ears always gets cancelled out in my ears.

I think that what is happening, is that there is some vaccuum and that makes the speaker not play anything?

The weird thing, is that I have bought 3 completely different sets of Stennheiser inner ear phones and they all do it.

This has never happened on any of my other sets.

The inner ear stuff, I never pay more than about 50 for, with the exception of the last set of stennies which were momentums at £69 but its bloody irritating.

I have got a pair of their headphones but they are only £30 or so quid. Great for the price, but they are not very comfy and keep on slipping off my nut so I dont wear them.

I will not be looking much more than a ton in all honesty. I have been wanting to give the BOSE headphones a try out, but am I going to be impressed or not with them?

I own 2 bose speaker setups, one I bought for my PC but I was so irritated wit it, that I have stuffed it onto my TV and its great for the TV and movies etc, but its awful for music. I also bought another setup more recently, maybe a year or so ago, and these were massively better, but I have just dumped them into the attic awaiting me to use them on something. Bit of a waste I know, but there you go, thats me all over... I might give their headphones a shot though.

A company that makes good speakers doesn't necessarily make good headphones, they are both very specialised systems.

Sennheiser make a ridiculous range of headphones and earphones, a lot of it quite cheap but they also make some of the best headphones and earphones you can buy, right up to the absurdly priced HE1 Orpheus 2 at around the £50,000 mark.

If you are limiting your budget to around £100 then that would exclude the good Sennheisers anyway.

Bose make very good noise cancelling headphones. I'll rephrase that, Bose make headphones with very good noise cancellation, sound quality is of secondary importance it seems.

My main headphones are Sennheiser HD650s, which are well over your budget but I also have a pair of Sony MDR-100AAP which I also very much enjoy and I only paid about £95 for them, used from the Rain forest but they were as new with the original packaging. They are closed back, very easy to drive (don't need an amp), have a short 1.2m cable and sound ridiculously good for the price. They have good, fast bass with healthy amount of thump to bass drums but it's not overblown like with Beats and probably your Monsters. Actually, if you do like a lot of bass then the Sony MDR-1A might be worth looking at for the same price thereabouts.

I have to agree.

50K? Ill take two - I just need to sell the house! LOL

Yes, I say £100 as a basic marker, but I am of course flexible on that, just not too much.

RE:Bose.
I am worried that I agree with you on that. I know that the first time I was introduced to noise cancellation, was on a pair of Sont inner ear jobs. I forget the model, but I was very impressed with them for the price, of about £80 however, the noise cancellation was a load of rubbish, so I never used it. Without that, they sounded great.
I have never really been overly fond of that feature to be honest.

Sten HD650.
Yes, perhaps that would be over budget for now, however, I have read great reviews about them.

And no, as far as bass is concerned, I do like to have a thump of course I do, but not at the expense of quality... I hate it when I hear some idiot spew off about his setup and you hear it, itsloud as hell, but its so awfully distored that you wonder what the heck are they thinking? Its very sad.

I need it to be clear, and crisp... Im 45 years old and have spent my life going to rock concerts and motorbike rallies and my hearing is not what it used to be, and so clarity is vital to me nowadays.

Its like that second Bose Setup that I bought and then stuffed into the attic...

It has a hellishly deep bass, and the sattelites are tiny and very very crisp but far too high and so, the system would hugely benefit from a mid-range speaker added to it.
I did go and buy a pair of speakers for it and that did help a great deal, but I forget which ones they are now...

AKG 550 should be around 100-120ish these days.

The AKG K550 mkII seem to have gone back up in price as they are now £170 on the rain forest but if you don't mind buying one of their returns (used) then they can be had for £100.