gdgt

fauxdiophile, that's a new one for me.

I think Monster's market is mainly the 'fashionable crowd that gets easily impressed by expensive shiny things and big numbers'. Mediocre product with expensive-looking design and big-name endorsements. Hey, it sells.

It's probably a term I coined. I'm a serious audio geek and have even more serious amounts invested in audio gear - but at the same time I know that most of it is complete BS.

I buy the 'big' stuff more as functional works of art / furniture if I'm honest, because for me psychologically I like the ritual of putting on a piece of music on a system that has a certain sense of theatre to the playback process.

Those I ended up calling fauxdiophiles are audio geeks who let peer groups and various intangibles (such as how it looks, etc) overtly influence their opinions, yet hold fast to their largely baseless opinions due to ego, self-purchase-justification, etc.

There's more to Monster than just 'shiny things'. Monster is generally a competent marketer who has carved out a niche for themselves as a 'mass-market premium' name. Their products are designed, supported and priced to support that image. Of course you can buy better. Of course you can get the same for less. But that's not really the point for most of the buyers. While the products may fail the vary narrow test of some peer-geek groups, they're also not necessarily unfit for the task/general market that they are sold to - and in many cases, the combination of the marketing and support may make it more suitable for 'I just want it to work' basic consumers. The same goes for Bose in the audio market, and in other markets... well, to a more sophisticated, more focused level, a fruit-flavoured phone & tablet company who might turn out a few computers too.

It's the inconsistency of strongly held opinions of people with certain peer associations that amuses me - and it's why comments like ryan's original above made me raise a smirk.


...But yeah, it's just a different type of bling for different people. It's garden-hose-diameter interconnects and wood for fauxdiophiles - and Swarovski for some others. You could well argue that the latter is more honestly dumb.


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I should say that I live in England and was a beneficiary of an extremely British education in some respects, which means that I am prone to a good deal of cynicism. Just in case you were wondering.

I really doubt it. Monster is notoriously paranoid and litigious -- in their own world, everyone is always out to rip them off. (This is especially ironic considering their whole business is built on convincing people to spend obscene amounts of money on products with only marginally better performance than some of their competitors.)

Funny how apropos their name turned out to be.

*Looks in ryan's 'have' list*

So, er, no-one else is like that then?

Well, not entirely. My cousin's Dre's broke (which seems to happen a lot) and he called in to tell them. he'd had them for a year, so they told him to mail them in and he would get a new set for free. Funny thing is, my cousin is ready to give them a new home on ebay, apparently.

I know right? they are way to overpriced for products of that quality. Monster makes cables and circuitry for god's sake! they aren't even that professional when it comes to headphones (compared to like sennheiser)

What if you turned around and resold it on the oh-no-blacklisted eBay or similar? =P