P. T. Barnum’s famous line regarding “There’s a sucker born every minute” resonates even today, especially whenever I see a company selling (sometimes a little too well) a product to the masses I may find not worthy of anyone’s time or money.

Don’t get me wrong: In the great supermarket that is this world, there are plenty of genuinely excellent products worth seeking out and buying.  Yet there are times I can’t help but shake my head in wonder when some item becomes “hot” and I just know said product is not worthy of acclaim or attention.

Understand, I’m not some kind of supergenius who uses his x-ray vision to determine what’s good or what sucks.  Quite the contrary, my opinion often comes down to experiencing said product(s) (yes, after stupidly spending money on them) and coming to the conclusion that they do indeed suck.

Which brings me to this article, concerning the Beats headphones:

How Beats Tricks You Into Thinking It Is A Premium Product

This one, as they say, is really personal.

A couple of years ago Target was having their annual Black Friday sale following Thanksgiving and my daughters were both really, really, reaaaaaally obsessed with getting their hands on the “heavily discounted” Beats headphones.  In the end, the wife and I wound up paying something like $100 for each pair of headphones and that wound up being part of their Christmas presents for that year.

I was dubious of such expensive headphones but the girls insisted they were great and that the sale was awesome: “They’re normally priced at over $200!!!” they proclaimed.

Curious to see how these very expensive headphones sounded, after the girls got them I decided to give them a try.  Now, I have a pretty big head (insert appropriate jokes here) and immediately found the headphones were too small.  Not only didn’t they wrap themselves well around my head, the earpiece was also small and, after using them only for a few seconds, I actually felt pain from having pinched ears.

Having said all that, the headphone size didn’t matter all that much: My daughters’ heads (thank the Gods) aren’t as big as mine and they claimed the headphones fit them fine.

So I turned my attention to what was the ultimate proof as to whether these headphones were worth their very high (even discounted!) price: How did they sound?

To that end, I was shocked to find how ordinary they sounded.

For the past three years I used a $20 pair of Sony headphones and, to my shock and horror, the five times more expensive Beats headphones were not only more uncomfortable to wear but they sounded just about the same as my very inexpensive Sony headphones…maybe even a little worse!

My daughters, bless ’em, soon realized they, like many other teens across America and the world, were suckered in by the hype that was the Beats machine.  Not three months after getting the headphones, my eldest daughter’s pair broke (the wire connecting the device to your music player frayed).  She no longer cared to get a new wire (Priced, I believe over $20) and instead was happy to spend that $20 on a newer pair of Sony headphones like the one I was using.  She’s been happy with them ever since.

My younger daughter still uses her Beats headphones now and again, but if hers should fail, I doubt she’ll want to spend as much as she did for another pair and will likely opt for those less expensive Sony models as well.

Which brings us back to the article linked above.  It shows that part of the showmanship in selling Beats headphones is to give them some weight/heft.  It makes the client holding them think something along the lines that the added weight proves there’s more quality equipment inside the headphones.

Turns out that’s a sham.

As the article points out, the extra weight is caused by nothing more than a few unnecessary metal pieces inserted into the headphones’ inner parts.

Simple as that.

For shame, people.