Thanks for your thoughts, Jonathan. I agree.

Yeah, this duped mic problem is a terrible shame.

The reason it didn't seem to me initially that duping a Beta52 would make good sense is because it looks like something that would be very hard to dupe. Sure, once they're able to bang `em out, the mark-up per unit is high. BUT, what about the INITIAL cost / effort of the duping itself? That's why I was questioning how / where they get the tooling or molds etc to actually make the housings, grills and other mechanical parts for say a Beta52. Those parts look quite complex, plus the badges, painting, etc. And finally the fake mics actually do WORK too! Seems like quite a challenge for a bunch of criminals to pull off when you think about it. Or maybe it's just all way easier than I am imagining.

As for cracking down... well, let's follow the trail.... normally, I'd imagine that genuine Shure mics leave the Shure factory and get shipped to authorized distributors / dealers. In theory, I see no reason why an authorized distro / dealer would ever have or sell any fake mics if they are dealing with Shure directly. But I've heard stories of authorized dealers passing out fake Shure mics (and then happily accepting them back, but still...?). Why? That would be something to fix right there.

Shure should post a list of all authorized dealers for all to see (I'd imagine they already do)... and then in theory those authorized dealers should have only genuine mics for sale... there should never be any fakes in this chain unless an authorized dealer is being "naughty" and trying to get a bargain by dealing with some outside, "unofficial" wholesaler source... and if so Shure could / should pull their dealership instantly for doing that. (But yeah, I'm sure there's all sorts of inner politics involved that makes this all not as easy as it might seem, I dig it)

And yes, small-time, fly-by-night retail sellers on Ebay, might still be passing off fakes... can't stop `em. But indeed, these days consumers should be well aware that when buying from an unreputable source online, you're taking a chance. If people wanna roll the dice, that's their choice. Maybe more effort should be made by Shure to advertise / educate the public on this issue.

One thing that Shure mics (at least 57s, 58s, Beta52s etc) do not have... serial numbers! Without going into a whole thesis report here about it, somehow I'd imagine that adding serial numbers to products would greatly help to trace and identify things. I would imagine that this would be a step in the right direction in terms of slowing down the progress of the dupers. But... I guess the issue here is that for Shure to start dealing with serial #s it's going to cost them a lot, and that becomes a problem too, etc.

Just talkin'.... yeah, I guess it IS just a serious problem that is very hard to stamp out. It's a real shame.

What stinks though too... even if Shure or the policing powers that be CAN cut way back on the duping, there's still gonna be tons of dupes floating around on the USED market for years to come. And there will also be people (as someone mentioned around here recently) taking fake guts from fake mics and putting them into genuine bodies, to sell, in attempts to cut their losses, etc. Soon, or perhaps already, buying a good used Shure mic online is going to be almost impossible. It won't be worth the hassle of rolling the dice and/or trying to determine whether or not any given used mic, or its guts, is fake or not. Finally, if you want a good Shure, you'll be forced to go to an authorized dealer and pay "top dollar" for brand new. Perhaps this ultimately isn't so bad for Shure and it's sales chain.

Damn the dupers in any case.