How to identify fake Sennheiser wireless mics : eBay Guides

How to identify fake Sennheiser wireless mics

There are a lot of fake microphones about, Shure SM57/58  and Beta58’s are well documented. I thought wireless mics would be less likely to be counterfeited but I have had personal experience of buying (and returning) a fake EW100 series handheld vocal system.

I thought I was being careful, I didn’t buy a new system at a silly price (as low as £175 when the street price for a genuine one is £350) I bought an allegedly used one, and an early version not the current “G2” version for what seemed a fair s/h price. What arrived was, apparently, a pristine (not “used, well loved”) EW100. This made me a bit suspicious, though I wanted it to be genuine. On further testing and research I found the following.

1 The sound quality was inferior, there was considerable background hiss whenever I sang or spoke into the mic.

2 The squelch setting was ineffective (adjusting it made no difference, it appeared to be fixed on high even though the LCD showed it changing).

3 The manual was printed on poor quality paper with a matt card cover and thin slightly yellow pages.

4 The outer box was larger than the polystyrene inner.

I was unable to compare directly with a known genuine EW100 at the time but an e-mail to Sennheiser suggested I remove the basket and inspect the capsule, on a genuine EW100 the capsule is easily removable by unscrewing a small screw by the battery compartment and simply pulling the capsule out. On the fake the capsule is hard wired to the transmitter module at the bottom of the mic body, mine was just pushed into its housing but apparently some are glued in (the picture shows a fake EW100 transmitter with the capsule removed, the genuine one would not have the wires connecting the capsule to the mic body). So far all of the fakes Sennheiser are aware of have the hard wired capsule.

I have since looked closely at a genuine EW100 G2 system and this was a very convincing fake, had I not been quite so cynical I may have believed that it was real. You can only be sure it’s a fake if you inspect the capsule (and how long before the counterfeiters get this detail as well?)

PLEASE NOTE, most of the above doesn’t help identify head-mics,  lavelier (tie clip) mics or guitar systems and there are probably as many fake ones of these as vocal mics so if it looks too good to be true, it probably is (a fake that is)