1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,000 It's a classic hustle, as old as time itself. 2 00:00:03,000 --> 00:00:10,000 The scammer stakes out a parking lot, often at an electronics retailer, and then waits for their victim. 3 00:00:10,000 --> 00:00:13,000 In this case, an LTT viewer from Florida. 4 00:00:13,000 --> 00:00:19,000 Next comes the story. The details vary, but the structure is usually pretty similar. 5 00:00:19,000 --> 00:00:23,000 Hey, we kind of over-respect for this super rich client guy, and we bought too many speakers, 6 00:00:23,000 --> 00:00:27,000 and now our boss is saying to just get rid of him because it'd be too expensive to keep him around, 7 00:00:27,000 --> 00:00:30,000 thinking I could give him to you for a pretty good price. 8 00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:38,000 They're legit. The victim is suspicious, but, I mean, they look alright, and who doesn't want a great deal? 9 00:00:38,000 --> 00:00:43,000 There's just one small problem. They sound like ass! 10 00:00:43,000 --> 00:00:46,000 But our victim did all of his basic due diligence. 11 00:00:46,000 --> 00:00:53,000 So how did this happen? To find out, we offered to help a brother out by buying the speakers off of him at the price that we paid 12 00:00:53,000 --> 00:00:56,000 so we can blow the freaking lid off of this thing. 13 00:00:56,000 --> 00:01:03,000 Because, as it turns out, this classic scam has learned a lot of new tricks that could bamboozle even a fairly savvy shopper. 14 00:01:03,000 --> 00:01:07,000 We're going to show you exactly how it works, show you how to avoid it, 15 00:01:07,000 --> 00:01:14,000 and we're going to dive into the surprisingly organized network of shady retailers and manufacturers who enable these fraudsters. 16 00:01:14,000 --> 00:01:20,000 That is, assuming that I haven't been scammed myself by Dr. Erad here. 17 00:01:20,000 --> 00:01:24,000 I don't know for sure that there are even speakers in here. I mean, it could be packed with anything. 18 00:01:24,000 --> 00:01:29,000 It could be packed with something nobody wants, like this segway, to our sponsor. 19 00:01:38,000 --> 00:01:43,000 From five, six feet away, not going to lie, this is pretty darn convincing looking. 20 00:01:43,000 --> 00:01:48,000 I mean, even the branding, if you told me that Elysian Audio was a thing, I'd be like, 21 00:01:48,000 --> 00:01:52,000 okay, with that said, it's not that hard to make up a fancy sounding brand. 22 00:01:52,000 --> 00:01:56,000 For example, Calise, Ceboire, Estee. 23 00:01:56,000 --> 00:02:00,000 Those sound like luxury brands, but as it turns out, they're just French-Canadian curse words. 24 00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:08,000 The real trick that these guys pull though is repurposing real names from reputable brands that are in a similar product category. 25 00:02:08,000 --> 00:02:16,000 Elysian is a particularly tricky one because it is the name of a well-regarded line of speakers from real manufacturer Warfdale. 26 00:02:16,000 --> 00:02:19,000 It just isn't these. 27 00:02:19,000 --> 00:02:25,000 What this allows our scam speakers to do is sit alongside reputable speakers in Google searches 28 00:02:25,000 --> 00:02:31,000 without our scammers having to create a super convincing knockoff of an exact product. 29 00:02:31,000 --> 00:02:39,000 We'll talk more about the online strategy later though. For now, let's take a closer look at what we bought and see if we can catch any hints on the packaging itself. 30 00:02:39,000 --> 00:02:48,000 Well, here's one that stands out to me. You can't have Adam a single speaker system that can do 9.1, 7.2, and 5.1 sound. 31 00:02:48,000 --> 00:02:54,000 Yeah, 7.2 is kind of a crazy one. You can downmix, but also it's six pieces. 32 00:02:54,000 --> 00:02:58,000 So that's 1, 2, 3, that's five. That's 5.1. 33 00:02:58,000 --> 00:03:01,000 But that has ten pieces on the box. 34 00:03:01,000 --> 00:03:06,000 I think these are single speakers and they turn, but I still don't think that makes it 7.1. 35 00:03:06,000 --> 00:03:10,000 But that also definitely doesn't make it 5.1. 36 00:03:10,000 --> 00:03:16,000 Yeah, I don't really know. I'm thinking that maybe how they market soundbars these days or letting them get away with it. 37 00:03:16,000 --> 00:03:20,000 Because you buy a soundbar and it says like 11.1.1 or whatever. 38 00:03:20,000 --> 00:03:25,000 Personally, I prefer audio return channel to giant wooden boat full of animals. 39 00:03:25,000 --> 00:03:29,000 And you know what else seems legit? It's industrial grade certified for outdoor use. 40 00:03:29,000 --> 00:03:35,000 Yeah, you can even wireless connect. And there's more stuff like that. Active voice amp, singles out dialogue. 41 00:03:35,000 --> 00:03:39,000 That sounds legit. Hi-res audio signal, wait, via internet. 42 00:03:39,000 --> 00:03:42,000 Okay, sorry, that wasn't what. 43 00:03:42,000 --> 00:03:47,000 Whether the details are on purpose or not, I feel like the giant blocks of text are a huge part of the strategy. 44 00:03:47,000 --> 00:03:50,000 Because who's going to read all of that? Yeah, right? 45 00:03:50,000 --> 00:03:53,000 And even, this is such a shallow thing. 46 00:03:53,000 --> 00:03:59,000 Even something as simple as having foil on the packaging makes it look more premium. 47 00:03:59,000 --> 00:04:02,000 It is interesting what details they do get, correct? 48 00:04:02,000 --> 00:04:05,000 Like I was not going to expect that they'd have their own custom straps. 49 00:04:05,000 --> 00:04:08,000 Yeah, right? That makes it seem more legit. 50 00:04:08,000 --> 00:04:11,000 And tape, the tape even says Elysian on it. 51 00:04:11,000 --> 00:04:14,000 It's reassuring. These make it think, it makes it look heavy. 52 00:04:14,000 --> 00:04:18,000 Oh yeah, is it heavy? Ah, I mean it's got a bit of weight to it. 53 00:04:18,000 --> 00:04:23,000 I guess. For six or nine or eleven drivers though. 54 00:04:23,000 --> 00:04:27,000 And like look at how they've scaled the subwoofer in this picture on the front. 55 00:04:27,000 --> 00:04:32,000 To me, it doesn't look like there would be enough space for five other speakers and the subwoofer in here. 56 00:04:32,000 --> 00:04:35,000 Right. That subwoofer is not very big, is it? 57 00:04:35,000 --> 00:04:39,000 No, I don't think any of this is very big at all. They even have disclaimers on the box. 58 00:04:39,000 --> 00:04:43,000 Like, why would a scammer who's trying to convince you that it's the best thing ever 59 00:04:43,000 --> 00:04:47,000 have to have a disclaimer about, you know, the images and model number being subject to change? 60 00:04:47,000 --> 00:04:50,000 Oh, this is a really important part of the scam though. 61 00:04:50,000 --> 00:04:53,000 MSRP, $3,000. 62 00:04:53,000 --> 00:04:59,000 While printed pricing on the box is common for some products, for speakers, it's highly unusual. 63 00:04:59,000 --> 00:05:04,000 Even more so for high-end audio where the speakers are typically sold through approved dealer networks 64 00:05:04,000 --> 00:05:08,000 with a, if you have to ask, you can't afford it, approach to pricing. 65 00:05:08,000 --> 00:05:14,000 Sorry, did you see this? Wall-mountable stethoscope symbol. 66 00:05:14,000 --> 00:05:17,000 Okay, we could probably do this all day. 67 00:05:17,000 --> 00:05:22,000 So then, what do these guys say when you go, well, I've never heard of a lease in audio 68 00:05:22,000 --> 00:05:26,000 or you point out some of the weirdness on the box? Well, they have an answer for all of that. 69 00:05:26,000 --> 00:05:31,000 They might say something like, oh yeah, they're a boutique brand from overseas, huge in Italy. 70 00:05:31,000 --> 00:05:36,000 And, you know, these are sold by high-end audio installers, so the packaging isn't really meant for retail, 71 00:05:36,000 --> 00:05:44,000 so they don't pay too much attention to it. And when you ask, well, how can you be selling it so cheap if it's so boutique and so high-end? 72 00:05:44,000 --> 00:05:47,000 You'll usually get some kind of variant of... 73 00:05:47,000 --> 00:05:51,000 Well, you gotta understand, they mark these things up like crazy because all the rich people are buying them. 74 00:05:51,000 --> 00:05:54,000 We buy them wholesale. These aren't even close to $3,000. 75 00:05:54,000 --> 00:05:58,000 They're more like, maybe a grand? So you're not even losing that much selling it to me then? 76 00:05:58,000 --> 00:06:01,000 No. I'm practically talking myself into it. 77 00:06:01,000 --> 00:06:07,000 And that really is the most devious kind of lie, the kind that is built on a kernel of truth. 78 00:06:07,000 --> 00:06:13,000 High-end audio does have obscene markups, and it does rely on a network of approved dealers and installers 79 00:06:13,000 --> 00:06:17,000 who do deal in brands that the typical consumer has never heard of. 80 00:06:17,000 --> 00:06:22,000 And the scammers will go to sometimes great lengths to match the image of a legitimate installer. 81 00:06:22,000 --> 00:06:26,000 They'll rent a nice-looking van, they'll wear polo shirts with matching company logos, 82 00:06:26,000 --> 00:06:30,000 and they'll even obtain real business licenses and phone numbers. 83 00:06:30,000 --> 00:06:34,000 Which they'll be happy to show you since they aren't gonna exist in a week. 84 00:06:34,000 --> 00:06:37,000 So, okay, you're still a little suspicious. 85 00:06:37,000 --> 00:06:41,000 So you decide to scan the QR code on the box and check out the manufacturer, 86 00:06:41,000 --> 00:06:45,000 because some guy in a parking lot could lie to you, but the manufacturer couldn't. 87 00:06:45,000 --> 00:06:51,000 They've never done that. And that is where this classic ruse glows up for the 21st century. 88 00:06:51,000 --> 00:06:54,000 That looks pretty legit, honestly. 89 00:06:54,000 --> 00:06:58,000 Here's the one that they're offering me, the Smart Series Model 2. 90 00:06:58,000 --> 00:07:01,000 The satellite speakers have a 12-inch subwoofer. 91 00:07:01,000 --> 00:07:04,000 Yeah, that's wrong. They also have a QLED. 92 00:07:04,000 --> 00:07:08,000 Yeah. For those of you who don't know, it's display technology. 93 00:07:08,000 --> 00:07:11,000 Not anything to do with your sound. 94 00:07:11,000 --> 00:07:15,000 But here's some reviews. The best product I've bought since buying my first CD player as a teen. 95 00:07:15,000 --> 00:07:20,000 I mean, that sounds reasonably credible. The problem I have with this product is my husband not wanting to leave the house. 96 00:07:20,000 --> 00:07:25,000 That's a very good hook. Quotes that sound too good are a classic tell for fake reviews. 97 00:07:25,000 --> 00:07:29,000 That's why on LTT Store, we leave people's unedited reviews up on the site. 98 00:07:29,000 --> 00:07:33,000 Like for the RGB T-shirt that I'm wearing that's rated 4.62 out of 5. 99 00:07:33,000 --> 00:07:37,000 I don't like the RGB shirts because of the rough itchy feel against my skin. 100 00:07:37,000 --> 00:07:40,000 See? Not everyone loves them. Oh, this is smart. 101 00:07:40,000 --> 00:07:44,000 Where to buy slash store locator, shut up. 102 00:07:44,000 --> 00:07:50,000 It's just a link to Best Buy. And the Elysian Model 2s that we covered today are just one example of this. 103 00:07:50,000 --> 00:07:56,000 These same units can be found under other names like MRX, Valencia VX300 Home Theater, 104 00:07:56,000 --> 00:08:02,000 or Synchrony B600, all of which were stolen from legitimate home theater companies. 105 00:08:02,000 --> 00:08:07,000 MRX is aligned from Anthem, Synchrony is aligned by PSB, 106 00:08:07,000 --> 00:08:11,000 and Valencia is the brand of seeding that I use in my theater room at home. 107 00:08:11,000 --> 00:08:17,000 And making this whole web of lies more confusing is the entire network of fake review websites 108 00:08:17,000 --> 00:08:21,000 that you will often find linked from these manufacturers. 109 00:08:21,000 --> 00:08:24,000 And while Elysian doesn't specifically link to those, 110 00:08:24,000 --> 00:08:30,000 when you Google search Elysian Audio Home Theater Review, the featured snippet is from one of those scam review sites. 111 00:08:30,000 --> 00:08:33,000 WeReviewElectronics.com, 10 out of 10. 112 00:08:33,000 --> 00:08:36,000 And to make things worse, the Gemini summary underneath 113 00:08:36,000 --> 00:08:41,000 gives information that is correct if you are looking for Warfdale Elysian speakers, 114 00:08:41,000 --> 00:08:44,000 but just serves to add to the legitimacy of the snippet. 115 00:08:44,000 --> 00:08:47,000 Unfortunately, thanks to the power of AI, 116 00:08:47,000 --> 00:08:51,000 I'm a CEO in a porcelain spa. Yes, yes, yes, that's me. 117 00:08:51,000 --> 00:08:57,000 Building sites and writing convincing enough reviews has become both cheap and super easy. 118 00:08:57,000 --> 00:09:03,000 In just a couple of weeks that we've been working on this video, we've seen several of these networks of sites pop up and disappear 119 00:09:03,000 --> 00:09:06,000 or switch over to new product categories. 120 00:09:06,000 --> 00:09:10,000 And you're not going to have the kind of time that we have to go through all of this. 121 00:09:10,000 --> 00:09:14,000 Before you get a chance to ask too many questions, they're going to start putting formal pressure on you. 122 00:09:14,000 --> 00:09:18,000 Hey, look, security, they're going to kick us out here, you know, and I got to get back to work. 123 00:09:18,000 --> 00:09:22,000 My next client, he's a dog podiatrist, and if he can't clip the nails without the background music, 124 00:09:22,000 --> 00:09:25,000 and you don't want the dogs to suffer, do you? No. 125 00:09:25,000 --> 00:09:28,000 So, do you want them or not? 126 00:09:28,000 --> 00:09:33,000 So, you go to the nearest ATM, which they conveniently have perfect directions for, 127 00:09:33,000 --> 00:09:37,000 and you buy them. I mean, hey, even if they're not actually top of the line, 128 00:09:37,000 --> 00:09:40,000 they're brand new. They can't be that bad, right? 129 00:09:40,000 --> 00:09:44,000 Right? They even got like a piece, oh, I thought that was printing on the styrofoam. 130 00:09:44,000 --> 00:09:47,000 Even the documentation, it comes in a little bag. 131 00:09:47,000 --> 00:09:52,000 Are you not supposed to figure out it's a scam until you actually plug them in? 132 00:09:52,000 --> 00:09:55,000 Like, even the packaging itself is pretty convincing. 133 00:09:55,000 --> 00:09:59,000 Yeah, I mean, the longer they have before you realize that you screwed them over, 134 00:09:59,000 --> 00:10:02,000 the further away they can get, right? Oh, boy. 135 00:10:02,000 --> 00:10:07,000 They're so small. Also, didn't they say wireless satellite speakers? 136 00:10:07,000 --> 00:10:12,000 Yes. Oh, no, that was wireless satellite speaker subwoofer, right? 137 00:10:12,000 --> 00:10:15,000 Can I open this or do you want to leave it mint for resale? 138 00:10:15,000 --> 00:10:20,000 Shut up. I'm impressed they have removable drills, though. 139 00:10:20,000 --> 00:10:23,000 I'm surprised they didn't keep them on. Look at all the glue. 140 00:10:23,000 --> 00:10:26,000 That's how they seal in the goodness. 141 00:10:26,000 --> 00:10:31,000 This is the single cheapest-feeling HDMI cable that I have ever encountered. 142 00:10:31,000 --> 00:10:34,000 Does that even seem like it has enough girth for all the conductors? 143 00:10:34,000 --> 00:10:37,000 HDMI 0.5. 144 00:10:37,000 --> 00:10:40,000 Okay, let's get the center channel. 145 00:10:40,000 --> 00:10:43,000 What happened in here? Look, it's all scratched up. 146 00:10:43,000 --> 00:10:46,000 Oh, wow. You can just see straight into it. 147 00:10:46,000 --> 00:10:52,000 Look, you can see wires in the back. Also, this is the worst wall-mounting mechanism I think I've ever seen. 148 00:10:52,000 --> 00:10:56,000 You have to fix the location of the speaker from the back, 149 00:10:56,000 --> 00:10:59,000 then screw it into the wall. 150 00:10:59,000 --> 00:11:04,000 No more adjustment for you. I wonder if everyone is in on it. 151 00:11:04,000 --> 00:11:08,000 Like, do you think the manufacturer of these knows that they're a scam? 152 00:11:08,000 --> 00:11:14,000 They must be. There's no reason to make this junk unless you're trying to rip people off, right? 153 00:11:14,000 --> 00:11:18,000 Well, I mean, if they sold it at the actual price of it, then it's not really a rip-off. 154 00:11:18,000 --> 00:11:22,000 I mean, the subwoofer is actually a pretty decent size. 155 00:11:22,000 --> 00:11:28,000 Is that actually all of the speakers? All of the speakers fit into the top third. 156 00:11:28,000 --> 00:11:33,000 That answers the mystery of whether it's 5.1 or 7.2 or 9.1. 157 00:11:33,000 --> 00:11:36,000 At this point, I'm thinking it's stereo. 158 00:11:36,000 --> 00:11:39,000 It really does raise the question, though. 159 00:11:39,000 --> 00:11:43,000 If they know it's a scam, why bother making them work at all? 160 00:11:43,000 --> 00:11:47,000 Do you think they're just not going to work? They clearly have drivers in them. 161 00:11:47,000 --> 00:11:53,000 They clearly have wiring in them. I mean, I guess maybe it's like, you can keep scamming down the chain. 162 00:11:53,000 --> 00:11:58,000 Also, some people just don't know better. Some people might have their crap TV, and that's all the audio that they knew, 163 00:11:58,000 --> 00:12:01,000 and then they decided to splurge or get a Christmas gift. 164 00:12:01,000 --> 00:12:05,000 And this works, right? It starts playing and maybe it is just louder. 165 00:12:05,000 --> 00:12:07,000 Are we 100% sure it's not a computer? 166 00:12:10,000 --> 00:12:16,000 Dude, you got Adele. There's peels on the stickers, but the stickers themselves are just paper stickers. 167 00:12:16,000 --> 00:12:19,000 What a weird attention to detail. 168 00:12:19,000 --> 00:12:22,000 I guess the sticker approach to branding makes it pretty easy for them 169 00:12:22,000 --> 00:12:27,000 to have all those different names for it. Oh, wow. 170 00:12:27,000 --> 00:12:32,000 Oh, buddy, this is going to suck. 171 00:12:32,000 --> 00:12:35,000 That's not 12 inches. 172 00:12:35,000 --> 00:12:38,000 I told my wife that's 12 inches. Yeah, she didn't believe you either. 173 00:12:38,000 --> 00:12:41,000 I mean, this is 12 inches. Yeah, I was going to say this is like something, 174 00:12:41,000 --> 00:12:45,000 but what a scam to put the speaker cover and make it way bigger than the driver. 175 00:12:45,000 --> 00:12:49,000 Let's plug it in. Wait, where's the amp? 176 00:12:49,000 --> 00:12:52,000 It isn't a home theater in a box. 177 00:12:52,000 --> 00:12:56,000 There's no amp. We did get an AV receiver. Well, how can it be Bluetooth anything? 178 00:12:56,000 --> 00:13:01,000 Is there any cables? There's no cables? Dude, it's way more bulls*** than even we thought. 179 00:13:01,000 --> 00:13:09,000 I should have opened this. How can you have 2600 watts when you don't have an amp at all? 180 00:13:09,000 --> 00:13:14,000 There's no 5.8G. I even knew I was getting scammed, and I still feel ripped off. 181 00:13:14,000 --> 00:13:19,000 Well, I guess we did an AV receiver and a bunch of speaker wire. 182 00:13:19,000 --> 00:13:20,000 BRB. 183 00:13:23,000 --> 00:13:27,000 What are the odds that you think that this one won't even turn on? 184 00:13:27,000 --> 00:13:30,000 That it's only going to power the top? I think it'll power both of them. 185 00:13:30,000 --> 00:13:37,000 Want a bit? No. We might be the first people who have bought these and actually bothered to set them all the way up. 186 00:13:37,000 --> 00:13:42,000 You know? Is this big fat speaker wire even going to fit in the back of these? 187 00:13:43,000 --> 00:13:48,000 No, we got too high of a gauge. I feel like when you don't buy cheap enough stuff. 188 00:13:48,000 --> 00:13:51,000 Okay, theoretically we have ARC, so... 189 00:13:53,000 --> 00:13:59,000 Okay, that's progress. If I didn't make any noise, we'll get to that later. 190 00:13:59,000 --> 00:14:04,000 Andrew, what are you doing? You know, you're struggling with the whole had a clamp in place thing, so... 191 00:14:04,000 --> 00:14:09,000 This is how we're mounting the speaker. Adam, you were right. 192 00:14:09,000 --> 00:14:13,000 The top is a speaker and the bottom is not. 193 00:14:13,000 --> 00:14:17,000 That's pathetic. I popped out the speaker. 194 00:14:17,000 --> 00:14:23,000 Quote-unquote speaker. It's just a metal plate and you can see the back of the driver in there. 195 00:14:23,000 --> 00:14:29,000 Again, why bother? Just glue in the speaker grill. Yeah, just put a cosmetic grill on it and don't even bother with the paper cone. 196 00:14:29,000 --> 00:14:34,000 I've encountered this kind of thing before where it's like, remember those fake GPUs? 197 00:14:34,000 --> 00:14:40,000 Yeah. Where they put a bunch of work into designing a cooler and a shroud and doing injection molding 198 00:14:40,000 --> 00:14:43,000 and why bother? Why not just ship a piece of paper? 199 00:14:43,000 --> 00:14:46,000 I mean, if somebody knows, please let us know in the comments. 200 00:14:46,000 --> 00:14:52,000 Or maybe we're just helping them do their scam better. They have mounting points for if you want to do a metal plate. 201 00:14:52,000 --> 00:14:56,000 I'll help you do two. These ones are just stickers though. 202 00:14:56,000 --> 00:14:59,000 They are. Credit where credit's due. They cheaped out there and that was pretty smart. 203 00:14:59,000 --> 00:15:02,000 Why would you angle the whole speaker? We can just do this. 204 00:15:02,000 --> 00:15:05,000 Because they're surrounds. They go on this side of... Okay. 205 00:15:05,000 --> 00:15:08,000 Here we go. Oh, is this right side up? 206 00:15:08,000 --> 00:15:12,000 Oh, it's upside down. Okay. I mean, who can tell anyway, right? 207 00:15:12,000 --> 00:15:20,000 They're so small. I know. They look like little lab tech desktop computer speakers from the 90s. 208 00:15:26,000 --> 00:15:29,000 See now, I unboxed these an hour ago. 209 00:15:29,000 --> 00:15:36,000 So I knew better than to have high expectations. But somehow all the work that I had put into getting it working made me feel like, yeah, 210 00:15:36,000 --> 00:15:39,000 it should be... We like earned a payoff. Yeah. 211 00:15:39,000 --> 00:15:41,000 This part sounds okay. This is... 212 00:15:52,000 --> 00:15:55,000 Oh my God. Okay. Hold on. 213 00:15:55,000 --> 00:15:58,000 Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. 214 00:15:58,000 --> 00:16:01,000 Okay. They're better. 215 00:16:01,000 --> 00:16:03,000 They're deeper. Yeah. 216 00:16:04,000 --> 00:16:08,000 By like a country mile. Admittedly, it was a pretty nice TV. 217 00:16:08,000 --> 00:16:11,000 Okay. It's a high-sense canvas. Yeah. 218 00:16:11,000 --> 00:16:14,000 High-end TV. Pretty decent TV. But still. 219 00:16:14,000 --> 00:16:19,000 There are like $99 sound bars on the market from legitimate brands that sound better. 220 00:16:19,000 --> 00:16:22,000 That include an amplifier and actually have Bluetooth. 221 00:16:22,000 --> 00:16:25,000 Yeah. It's insulting. It's bad. 222 00:16:25,000 --> 00:16:28,000 I really want to hear this subwoofer. We've got to get this operational. 223 00:16:28,000 --> 00:16:32,000 The subwoofer is a pre-out. It expects an amplified subwoofer, obviously. 224 00:16:32,000 --> 00:16:37,000 Yeah. Where the hell are we going to find an amp for that right now? 225 00:16:37,000 --> 00:16:40,000 We have an SVS. Well, no, no. I want to use this subwoofer. 226 00:16:40,000 --> 00:16:43,000 An amp that we can... No, an amp that we can shove in the middle. Oh my God. 227 00:16:43,000 --> 00:16:46,000 Oh, this is so stupid. Reese, you might have to go look for... 228 00:16:46,000 --> 00:16:49,000 Maybe you're going to be on a hunt. You know what? 229 00:16:49,000 --> 00:16:52,000 I think it'd be faster to just plug one of these in. 230 00:16:52,000 --> 00:16:56,000 Let's find out if the subwoofer actually even works before we put a bunch more work into 231 00:16:56,000 --> 00:17:00,000 trying to amplify it. 232 00:17:00,000 --> 00:17:04,000 Okay. It works. 233 00:17:04,000 --> 00:17:07,000 It does sound bad. Yeah. 234 00:17:07,000 --> 00:17:10,000 But it's so much better than I expected. 235 00:17:10,000 --> 00:17:14,000 It's just a volume game, right? Like this is like what, a five-inch driver maybe? 236 00:17:14,000 --> 00:17:17,000 Four. Maybe five. That's a big four. 237 00:17:17,000 --> 00:17:22,000 That's what I tell my life I have. 238 00:17:22,000 --> 00:17:25,000 We got all the speakers working and now I brought a couple of friends here. 239 00:17:25,000 --> 00:17:28,000 To enjoy them. But first we're going to set ourselves a bass line. 240 00:17:28,000 --> 00:17:31,000 We're going to listen to the Hisense Canvas TV. 241 00:17:31,000 --> 00:17:34,000 Is this known for having a good TV speaker? No. 242 00:17:34,000 --> 00:17:37,000 Fantastic. I just, you know, but like you think you're buying the home theater. 243 00:17:37,000 --> 00:17:40,000 You got to hear what you're upgrading. You're right. You're right. 244 00:17:40,000 --> 00:17:43,000 You know what? For TV speakers, that's not bad. It's not bad. 245 00:17:43,000 --> 00:17:46,000 No bass. Yeah, but it's a TV speaker. 246 00:17:46,000 --> 00:17:49,000 It's a little bit bright, but not bad. It would be fine for dialogue. 247 00:17:49,000 --> 00:17:52,000 Like for people that are just watching TV shows and need to hear what people say. 248 00:17:52,000 --> 00:17:55,000 It's fine. Okay. It's fine. 249 00:17:55,000 --> 00:17:58,000 Now we're going to pull up the Elysian model too. 250 00:17:58,000 --> 00:18:01,000 Okay. The funny thing is that so we couldn't get the subwoofer running because it's supposed 251 00:18:01,000 --> 00:18:06,000 to be a passive, it's a passive subwoofer, which doesn't really exist nowadays. 252 00:18:06,000 --> 00:18:14,000 Everything, all yours. So we had to, what we did is that we got, we pulled out of another subwoofer, the amp. 253 00:18:14,000 --> 00:18:17,000 That was the only way we could get it powered because we didn't find an AV receiver that 254 00:18:17,000 --> 00:18:24,000 had a passive. Okay. That is so unbalanced. 255 00:18:24,000 --> 00:18:29,000 Believe it or not, these speakers, these speakers here aren't very big. 256 00:18:29,000 --> 00:18:33,000 You don't say. And so there's kind of a big dip in the mids. 257 00:18:33,000 --> 00:18:36,000 Yeah. It's weird that they look so much like the Bose Acoustamatic speakers. 258 00:18:36,000 --> 00:18:39,000 I bought a pair. I used pair in like 2008. 259 00:18:39,000 --> 00:18:42,000 That makes sense because a lot of what they're trying to do is associate themselves with 260 00:18:42,000 --> 00:18:46,000 as many ideas of like goodness as possible. 261 00:18:46,000 --> 00:18:49,000 How much did you pay for this? I paid $500. 262 00:18:49,000 --> 00:18:52,000 Even that price is ridiculously busted. 263 00:18:52,000 --> 00:18:56,000 Hang on, did we pay him that much to get them? We paid the guy back. 264 00:18:56,000 --> 00:19:03,000 So we got scammed is what you're saying. We took the scam, we said double it and pass it to the next one. 265 00:19:03,000 --> 00:19:09,000 We're going to sell for a thousand bucks. 500 bucks, you can get like a pretty okay home theater in a box for Best Buy. 266 00:19:09,000 --> 00:19:13,000 You can get like a decent soundbar. It's not like a really decent soundbar. 267 00:19:13,000 --> 00:19:17,000 It's not the best value in the whole world, but it's infinitely better than this. 268 00:19:17,000 --> 00:19:22,000 Don't buy speakers for my guy in a parking lot. On Alibaba, when you search 5.1 Home Theater, 269 00:19:22,000 --> 00:19:26,000 a system much like the one that we purchased will show up in the first two rows of results. 270 00:19:26,000 --> 00:19:30,000 $128 is set. And here's the really crazy thing. 271 00:19:30,000 --> 00:19:33,000 If you order enough of them, the deal only gets better. 272 00:19:33,000 --> 00:19:37,000 For the shockingly low price of $56,500, 273 00:19:37,000 --> 00:19:43,000 you can get 500 home theater setups complete with a custom fake logo and box design. 274 00:19:43,000 --> 00:19:50,000 And that might be a lot for a single scammer, but if you're a shady supplier, you order in bulk and then sell them off a pallet at a time 275 00:19:50,000 --> 00:19:54,000 to your scummy friends for maybe a couple hundred bucks a pop to cover your storage and shipping costs. 276 00:19:54,000 --> 00:19:59,000 And then everyone else, well, they just have to sell them for more than $200, 277 00:19:59,000 --> 00:20:04,000 which when you're talking about a luxury 5.1 Home Theater system, 278 00:20:04,000 --> 00:20:09,000 that's probably not that hard to do. And by probably, I mean definitely. 279 00:20:09,000 --> 00:20:12,000 I mean it obviously works because when you dig into it, 280 00:20:12,000 --> 00:20:19,000 you find these scams everywhere, both in person and on online marketplaces like Facebook and eBay. 281 00:20:19,000 --> 00:20:25,000 And it's not just speakers. It's across a variety of product categories, notably projectors and soundbars. 282 00:20:25,000 --> 00:20:29,000 Bottom line is if you've been scammed, I know it can be really embarrassing. 283 00:20:29,000 --> 00:20:33,000 He knows it can be embarrassing, but please report it. 284 00:20:33,000 --> 00:20:37,000 70% of victims never report the scams that they're victims of. 285 00:20:37,000 --> 00:20:40,000 And if you don't report it, well, that just lets them win. 286 00:20:40,000 --> 00:20:45,000 Lastly, even when you do report the scams, only 4% of victims are estimated to recover their losses. 287 00:20:45,000 --> 00:20:49,000 But by talking about it, we can at least help prevent future losses. 288 00:20:49,000 --> 00:20:54,000 So send this video to your family members. Have open, honest conversations about security. 289 00:20:54,000 --> 00:21:01,000 It's important. It's so important that I didn't even come up with a segue to our sponsor. 290 00:21:01,000 --> 00:21:08,000 You guys enjoyed this video. Why don't you check out the one where we looked at audiophile snake oil with Dan and our friend Dank Pods. 291 00:21:08,000 --> 00:21:13,000 I got ripped off that time too. That was really funny because I got to choose all the pieces too.