A friend of mine bought some Infinity Reference speakers on ebay about six months ago. He got 2 pairs of 6022i's for $115 to replace drivers in his 90's BMW 5 series car. He finally got around to begin to install them, and since he knew I had just replaced my speakers in the MINI, and that I had some Dynamat left over - he asked me to swing by and help him.

Upon seeing them, they looked brand new in a box exactly like the ones I recieved from crutchfield, however, upon opening them I knew something was wrong. The speakers looked the same at a glance, but upon inspection they were definitely fake. The tweeters did not rotate or have the gain buttons, and the wires were exposed going to the center drivers. The cone is silver but does not appear to be polypropylene material. There were no installation directions, and the mounting hardware was not at all what I had recieved. A quick call to Infinity confirmed they were fake. Now he has the almost impossible task of trying to get his money back, and start an investigation into the seller, who has since ceased to be a seller on ebay.

I had heard of people selling fake high end speakers like Focals, but never Infinitys.

MORAL : if you buy from ebay - especially from an overseas dealer - make sure you question the authenticity of the brand before purchase, even asking for serial numbers first.

 

Wow - that's good to know. I've ordered a metric butt-ton of car audio gear off of eBay with no problems, but I guess speakers would be the easiest components to fake (other than connectors, fuse blocks, etcetera).

 

I've ordered two sets of focal's off ebay and got the real thing. Sorry your friend got burned.

 

I'm sure there are legit speakers out there on ebay - this was just a precautionary post to make sure people do their homework before buying.

 

The problem seems to be much worse with overseas vendors on e-bay. I purchased a bluetooth stereo headset for my blackberry that were supposed ot be Sony Ericsson from Hong Kong. They were 19.99 instead of the 99.99 that all the american e-bay sellers were welling them for. When i got tehm they looked like the Sony Ericsson and even had the Sony Ericsson name on them bu the quality was definately not the same. I got he 99.99 ones and they work and sound great. But the 19.99 ones have no bas or high end in them at all. I learned my lesson.

my .02 cents

If it sounds to good to be true then it probably is.