The only "unauthorized" dealers I have tried buying Focal are WoofersEtc and I must say they are excellent. I ordered 2 pair of speakers and my amp and they were cheaper than crutchfield.com, the products arrived on time and in perfect condition.

 

They are not authorized dealers, they are not located in the US, and we cannot verify the authenticity of the products. There are no dealers that are approved for eBay or Amazon.

 

Interesting that they blur the serial # in the pic.

$1800 set for $999....sounds legit to me.

 

I bought a pair of Focal PC 165's from techsoundsystem-shop on ebay and they arrived in a week or 8 days. I registered them on Focal's website and got an email from Focal stating that I had a 2-year warranty. Now, that might have been an automated response (no doubt) that will not be honored at some point, but I did get the email stating that my serial number registered speakers are warranted.
This leads me to believe that, in the least, the speakers are actual Focals and not fakes.
For the record, I did not have to pay any customs/import fees. Just make sure they're listed as for personal use, when coming from a foreign source, and that they won't be used in a business or resold. Hope this helps.

 

Awfully convenient you just joined Today to back up this ebay dealer suddenly. Seems fishy.

Just saying.

 

I am interested too. I am looking at a pair of focal 165 krxs for my project. Crutchfield 1200 and techsound 689.

 

its not worth the risk! just save up and buy the real thing!

 

the real thing for sure. EBay and Amazon are flooded with grey-market UNreal product, or non-warrantied C-stock that was reconed. **** that ****

 

This is FAKE. Save up for the real Focal from an authorized dealer.

 

I say buy it. When you blow the drivers in a month or get used b stock then you can say you got to learn the hard and expensive way.

There's so many fail pictures on the net that we can post in the thread asking for post help.

 

rule of thumb.. if its outside the us, its fake

 

What a joke you guys. You wonder why the Car Audio business isn't that great, it is proved here. Just like JL, Focal and other car audio companies charge ridiculous markups on products that cost considerably less to produce. No set of speakers IMO is worth $1000 for a car. That is just crazy.

I say buy it. Most of the people saying don't just like wasting money. Even if they broke, the repair cost would still be WAY LESS than an "authorized" set.

 

The reason the car audio business isn't that great is because everyone thinks like you ,that good sound should be cheap. I think everyone will agree you don't buy a 100$ tv from walmart and expect it to have a stellar picture.

 

Yep: must be fake... just like their fake ODR Sintolettore Pioneer RS D7R 2 CD ODR | eBay fake Amplifier Steg Classe A Masterstroke A Class 2 Channel 100 Made in Italy | eBay and fake Brax they are also selling Amplifier Brax Audiotec Fischer German X2000 Silver Competition 1 2 Channel New | eBay

You're buying from Europe however so don't expect Focal America to warrant your warranty.



"rule of thumb.. if its outside the us, its fake"

I hope that was sarcasm!

 

For ebay I'm talking about. I buy stuff all the time from outside the US.. but never ebay

Sent from my DROID4 using Tapatalk 2

 

Focal is cheaper in Europe than is USA, just as RF and JBL is cheaper is the US than in Europe. Nothing weird about that. Imported goods are always more expensive than domestic, every which way it goes from one side of the world or other. But it seems strange that the webshop only ships items far away, they do not offer sales/shipping to Europe for instance..

FYI, the full retail price on a no7 Utopia set is $4100 in Norway, compared to $5500 in the US. But with shipping and import taxes it would pretty much even out.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if they are real and I personally would buy them. The original question was if anyone has heard of the seller, I haven't. But I have bought plenty of car audio on eBay and haven't had a single problem yet. I have noticed that a lot of items are close to half the price of msrp on eBay and that is consistent with the Focals you're considering. GL!

 

Who wants to pay top dollar for knock-offs?......NO THANKS....I keep my few coins in my wallet.
After reading horror stories of someone getting ripped off by the knock-off gear thats being peddled out there I say NO THANKS.....I'll shop elsewhere

(Just my 2 red cents)

 

There's mark ups on everything in life. That $20 dollar shirt u wear prob has a 500% markup. That $200 grocery bill u paid probably had a average 30% markup. Those 800 set of tires prob had a 50% markup.

Reality of it is, the economy and every business won't work unless there's a markup involved for a profit.

That 1500 component set may have a cost of $700. Roughly a 100% markup. It may seem hight to you, but that's proper business. Do u think they sell 20 of those a month? And if its a legit brand, there will be better quality, value, and justification for that price tag.

You also have to look at high end mobile electronics in a whole. They aren't made in mass volumes. Low volume sales rely on decent markups to run a business. Everybody else who advertise low low prices rely on volume sales to to make profits. Now look at the manufactures of these higher end products. Do they look like they design and manufacture they're products strictly for volume sales? I believe there a little more passionate on their flagship models than that.

You as the consumer may not like it, but look outside of the box. Look at your paycheck. Your employer pays u XXX amount of dollars for your services. Do think your business charges their consumers the same rate? I highly doubt it. They mark up their services/goods based on the cost they pay you plus everything else in order for them to make a profit.

If $1500 components set seems too much, then it's not the right product for that particular consumer. But most likely that brand will have other product in a different price point to cater to that mass.

One thing I'm sure of tho, in mobile electronics, the higher price tags typically equate to a higher quality product 90% of the time

 

There is no denying that everything is marked up, and low volume sales do indeed fetch a higher profit margin.. but where is the justification for the insane markup percentages in mobile audio? There is a difference between a decent markup and an ridiculous markup especially when you are comparing a 20$ shirt to a $1000 set of speakers. I know it's mainly governed by the manufacturers or WD's that sell the product to you while you have to adhere to a MAP, so really they are the ones who set the profit margin for the dealer.

 

Dude I just took a peek at your past threads and now I see why your thought process is the way it is.

Re coning a cheap jl w0? I hope that's not the less than 100$ sub im thinking about.

My point is, the whole prices are jacked up argument is retarded. There is no logical points to it what so ever that is going to change the way economics works.

 

 

if that is the real set, the tweeter grill is removable, also you should see no signs of glue, the serial numbers should be identical on all speakers. you should not see anything out of order, for example the sticker behind the woofers magnet should be perfectly centered. the serial number should be engraved. the chrome finish should be verrry smooth. focal pays great attention to detail. I bought that same set for 600 bucks from ebay and it was a knock off. I returned it and got my money back. so for a little over $1000 theres a possibility that they are the real deal. but that's a risk you will have to take.

 

Not sure if the power series is different but each speaker in the utopia line has its own serial number then the set has a different serial number and a paper that list the serial numbers for the whole set.

To bring this back to topic, I have purchased a lot of gear out of Europe and fortunately have had all good experiences. I think you are pretty safe purchasing that set of speakers, naturally you will not have warranty but that should not be a problem if you know what you are doing when you hook them up.

And as far as markup goes, there was a great thread from REXROAD talking about this topic.
The dealer does not realize 300 percent mark up, however by the time the product gets to you it on average has been marked up 300-500 percent. Raw supplier marks up, manufacturer marks up, distributor marks up then the dealer marks up.
This is the same way with vehicles, TVS, Furniture, about any product really.
It has always been this way though, I dont think this is to blame for the decrease in car audio enthusiast, I would venture a pretty good guess that the hurting economy and more intuitive/difficult new cars to install in are the culprit to this.

 

I will just say this.

You are a middle man when you sell equipment, nothing more. In my opinion it is no different that companies that resell things they don't make. I understand you provide service and the ability for someone to come in and look around. That is not worth a 100% markup in my opinion.

When you offer services that others cannot/will not perform themselves, you have the right to sell it at whatever cost you so choose to sell it at.

If you are coming here to complain about someone buying from a company that sells the same product you sell for half the cost, I think it is time to wake up and realize you are not competitive.

Furthermore, you are on the wrong site if you aren't expecting to find people who have woken up and smelled the roses. There are plenty of reviews of drivers that prove you can get the performance of drivers that cost 10x as much by using raw drivers and piecing things together yourself. That is not cheap in my opinion, that is smart.

 

https://www.facebook.com/focal.corporate/posts/240740662674136 - worth the read of comments from Focal in the post.

looks like they are genuine but don't adhere to trading requirements...

 

This thread was a year old.

 

here's a question:

do you respect out of country dealers' rights, and that manufacturer when you buy authorized from distribution networks set up here, as a normal course of being a good human being, a global citizen, or do you look out for your money and prefer not to send it to a foreign country's company, or at least not as much as they ask you to?

if buying gray market here for goods produced outside of the US, hurts the dealer networks here for that foreign product, then you're hurting Americans when you buy from techsoundsystems.com., Those local brick and mortars, paying for $5K buy-ins and having to stock the stuff that doesn't sell so they can get more of the stuff that does sell, are losing out on potential customers when you buy from TSS.com, and your money leaves the country too.

to me, that might be the bigger crime, instead of hurting the feelings of high-end salesmen who argue over mark-ups and try and defend the right to put in an in-ground pool and send their kids to private schools, using the sweat equity of teenagers saving their pennies from a minimum wage gig, so they can taste the good life.

But why is this important, what about buying unauthorized, is so unsatisfactory that the truth about b-stock and factory refurbs, doesn't collapse the argument? Manufacturers themselves allow dispensations at the end of every cycle, be it cars, motorcycles, speakers, amps, ATV's, whatever. If there is remaining last year's stock in their warehouse, where's the outcry when they dump it on trans-shipper's trucks, and take their 30 cents on the dollar? Doesn't that hurt their dealer networks, doesn't that cost in the long run? You can't say it isn't done, and what about the stereo shop that goes out of business, does the shop get re-imbursed for price paid, or is the shop on their own about how to dispense their inventory?

I think it is a shame that so much waste exists in the market but if you are like me, you'll buy stuff you like when it's on sale, and leave it on the shelf when it isn't. If everyone was like this, we wouldn't have such a materialism/consumerism bent to our economics, and a lot of our earnings wouldn't go to "upgrades" and the low return rates on perception.

 

:dead_horse: