Vistance
Super Member
I check my local Craigslist every day and it seems more and more frequent the amount of Genesis Media Labs (Van Scam crap - not the good stuff acourse), DiVinci's, and Theater Research systems that are appearing. Most of them are still sealed in the boxes so it's obvious the sellers are just trying to con people. I mean, the fact an MSRP is printed on the box itself is so fishy - I'm amazed people fall for it. There are a lot of signs I would think are give aways to low quality knock offs - my favorite are the made up specs. I like how the Genesis Media Labs website is a useless front that provides no information - you can't locate stores and there is no contact info or anything. I would think any wise person would notice this as suspicious and avoid them. Yet as I browse local thrift stores and pawn shops I see more and more of these white van speakers, and sadly the pawn shops that take this junk in ask a high price for it - presumably because they paid a somewhat high price for it in the first place.
What is it that tricks people into buying these things? Are they really that well convinced by the seller? I'm really curious about the people who buy them off say Craigslist and aren't approached unsolicited - they choose to buy them of their own choice, and they're usually not cheap. Do people not do any research when buying somewhat pricey equipment? You don't have to be an audiophile to at least do some research beforehand which would save them the trouble of getting stuck with junk. I saw for sale on Craigslist once a pair of Canadian speakers - I want to say like PSB but I know it wasn't. They're a defunct company now, but it was something short like that. Anyway, the guy had the box for them and when I looked at the box it had printed right on the box "Audiophile grade high quality speakers!" Perhaps they were good, but you know what I mean - what speaker company has to tell you they are audiophile grade speakers? To pull a company out of air - it would be like Thiel or Martin Logan saying something like that. Doesn't their reputation kinda precede them? You wouldn't need a brochure to tell you a Bentley or Maybach is a lavishly luxurious car, it would just list the ridiculous features because they know you already know they're nice and just need to know how nice (Like room for four bottles of wine in the backseat cooler instead of the single bottle of wine cooler in the competitor's car).
The strangest one I've heard - a friend of mine says he bought one of those cheap white van speaker sets and he actually likes it. Erm...how can anyone like white van speakers? Really bad ears? The worst I've seen was a guy with white van speakers who had a pretty nice setup including a H/K receiver, Denon DVD player, nice TV of some sort - I'm just not sure how one picks nice equipment and then gets tricked into junk speakers. Could you imagine someone with McIntosh equipment using white van speakers? Is that even possible?
I just thought it was interesting and somewhat confusing that this still occurs. Thoughts?
What is it that tricks people into buying these things? Are they really that well convinced by the seller? I'm really curious about the people who buy them off say Craigslist and aren't approached unsolicited - they choose to buy them of their own choice, and they're usually not cheap. Do people not do any research when buying somewhat pricey equipment? You don't have to be an audiophile to at least do some research beforehand which would save them the trouble of getting stuck with junk. I saw for sale on Craigslist once a pair of Canadian speakers - I want to say like PSB but I know it wasn't. They're a defunct company now, but it was something short like that. Anyway, the guy had the box for them and when I looked at the box it had printed right on the box "Audiophile grade high quality speakers!" Perhaps they were good, but you know what I mean - what speaker company has to tell you they are audiophile grade speakers? To pull a company out of air - it would be like Thiel or Martin Logan saying something like that. Doesn't their reputation kinda precede them? You wouldn't need a brochure to tell you a Bentley or Maybach is a lavishly luxurious car, it would just list the ridiculous features because they know you already know they're nice and just need to know how nice (Like room for four bottles of wine in the backseat cooler instead of the single bottle of wine cooler in the competitor's car).
The strangest one I've heard - a friend of mine says he bought one of those cheap white van speaker sets and he actually likes it. Erm...how can anyone like white van speakers? Really bad ears? The worst I've seen was a guy with white van speakers who had a pretty nice setup including a H/K receiver, Denon DVD player, nice TV of some sort - I'm just not sure how one picks nice equipment and then gets tricked into junk speakers. Could you imagine someone with McIntosh equipment using white van speakers? Is that even possible?
I just thought it was interesting and somewhat confusing that this still occurs. Thoughts?
