There were some reports going around earlier this week that claimed that many of the Beats headphones out there at the moment are basically cheap pieces of crap that are sold at a premium price because of a few shady tricks. It was claimed that there were metal weight put inside the headphones to make them feel more premium, and while that was true for the headphones that were tested, but some people have suggested that those headphones were actually fake.
A prototype engineer made waves on Medium last week after dissecting a pair of Beats by Dre Solo headphones. He suggested that the luxury item is a lot cheaper than you’d expect because it packs superfluous metal parts with the sole function of adding weight to the product. He may have been absolutely correct when it comes to the pair of headphones he disassembled… but it turns out he may have ripped apart a knockoff. Avery Louie did not say which Beats model he dismantled, mentioning only the price, but Core77 believes it was a discontinued pair of Beats Solo HD headphones. The blog says it has received several tips from readers who claimed the device shown in the teardown was a fake. One Redditor posted comparison images on Imgur that show the differences between a real and a fake Beats product. It turns out that knockoffs have gotten so good that an average buyer would have a hard time telling the difference between the genuine product and a fake.