Identifying a fake SM87A

[Julian]

I bought 4 sennheiser wireless lavs off a well known auction site about 6 months ago from a chap who I do feel honestly believed them to be true sennys.(he didn't usually sell things like that)

 

I got my money back but they were pretty bad copies and had stickers on the body pack that said they were a handheld model.

 

Tried these out in a theatre and were pants, very low quality although may have been OK for small room presentations although who needs a mic for a small room?

 

Buyer beware.

[dirkenstein]

I bought 4 sennheiser wireless lavs off a well known auction site about 6 months ago from a chap who I do feel honestly believed them to be true sennys.(he didn't usually sell things like that)

Hmm. Has anybody seen high-quality sennheiser G2 lav mic fakes? I know there are some handheld fakes that are visually indistinguishable but perform rather poorly, but I'd not heard of anything similar with the G2 beltpack models until now. The only cases I have heard of (from the BR itself) involved what appeared to be a copied G1 beltpack design being sold as a G2.

 

The reason I ask is that a friend I occasionally borrow equipment from also bought a G2 'new' off a 'well known auction site' a few months back. When I borrowed it before xmas for panto, it appeared in all visible respects to be genuine and performed adequately compared to our other G2s. At the time I wasn't aware of its origins so didn't attempt any close comparison tests or more than cursory inspection.

 

I only found out afterwards that the price he claimed he paid for it was rather unreasonably low- well below the prices advertised by mainstream retailers, and thinking to potentially buy one myself subsequently discovered the wonderful (oh joy) world of electronic product forgery, which I'd never previously imagined extended as far and widely as it does. However, I am lead to believe the one he bought wasn't shipped from China, and the price was not so low (it would have been somewhat high for a good used unit) as to completely preclude the possibility that it was a grey-market import, liquidated stock or, rather more worryingly of course, a 'moonlight special'- the last of these being unlikely as the seller was apparently a legitimate UK registered business and everything came in the right packaging with full manuals.

 

So it's possible he didn't buy a fake, although whatever he did buy is unlikely to be under any sort of warranty or with any sort of dealer support. There don't seem to be any guides on how to spot them, except the obvious 'too good to be true' and 'not from an authorized dealer' criterion, or the similarly obvious fake indicators like poorly copied manuals, direct sourcing from then far east when product is manufactured in the EU or US, incorrect packaging and labeling, and visible/audible quality and weight differences.

 

So, are there really people selling new (ish) grey-market Sennheiser kit or is it all faked or otherwise dodgy, beyond the obvious dodginess of it being grey market? Sennheiser, in contrast to Shure, don't seem to offer much consumer assistance in identifying common fakes- although they'll obviously identify fakes (and retain them) as part of any out-of-warranty servicing they're asked to perform.