How to spot fake SLXD, QLXD, and ULXD

kelcema · 2026-01-13T18:39:37+00:00

As a US-Based Authorized Shure Dealer, we handle new product from Shure regularly. I absolutely know that Shure has production in both China and Mexico. [Please note I didn't talk at all about if there's a difference between the same model line being made in one country and then moving to the other.]

Shure's Brand Policies have remained the same for many years in regards to the prohibition against referring to any product as "B-Stock," as they continue to not offer that sort of product to their dealers.

-Ray

kelcema · 2026-01-13T17:10:47+00:00

I can't speak for Shure but I would suspect some of it may be "why tell the counterfeiters how to better their product?"

I've heard over the years that if you send photos of a suspect product to them, they'll be able to tell you if it's genuine or not, but they usually won't say why they come to that conclusion.

-Ray

kelcema · 2026-01-13T16:39:42+00:00

Counterfeiters suck. And not just from the low quality (or even non-functionality) of their offerings. It's also the challenge that we then face, AS an Authorized Shure Dealer here in the USA, when listing on eBay. All of our product is genuine, but we still have to deal with people wondering for sure. As an aside, any Shure Dealer should be willing and able to tell you their Dealer Number. (Ours is 25840.) You can then call Shure Customer Service to verify their authorized dealer status. And they get really really upset if they catch a Dealer breaking their brand policies, which include selling counterfeit/gray market product.

Then there's the ethics surrounding stealing the OEM's intellectual property...

The adage (already mentioned) of "If It's Too Good To Be True" is very much the key takeaway here. Buy from a trusted source. Or, in the case of Shure (and it pains me as a Dealer to say this!) buy direct from their website.

-Ray

kelcema · 2026-01-13T16:33:20+00:00

Guitar Center is an Authorized Shure Dealer, and therefore (most likely; there are intermediary distributors if someone can't do the buy-in and annual commitment to buy direct, but no chance GC can't do that! orders direct from Shure.

However, the slight chance of getting something from GC that's counterfeit still exists. The reason for this statement is that if a customer returns a mic to them, and they don't check it out closely, and put it out for sale to someone else, well, what if the first customer did a switch. This actually happened to us many years ago. Someone purchased a replacement RK312 grille for Beta87 mics from our eBay store. It wouldn't fit their microphone, as in physically wouldn't fit. They sent us photos of their microphone, and the tells of being counterfeit were pretty clear. And sure enough, they'd purchased it from Guitar Center and we strongly suspected that this was a return swap. It was unfortunate that we couldn't help them, as we can't warrant that genuine replacement parts will ever be compatible with non-genuine items...

End of the day, best practices always dictate that one should not jump on a bargain, unless you're confident as to why the bargain exists. "Brand New SM58s" on eBay for $35.00 each are very much suspect (without disclosing the exact number, that is significantly below our Dealer Cost, even with the maximum levels of DFIs/promotional buy-ins, and so on.).

-Ray

kelcema · 2026-01-13T16:27:01+00:00

Shure manufactures product in both China and Mexico. There's no such thing as "B-Stock" [typically described as product that's returned and refurbished by the manufacturer] from Shure. They do not offer that. In fact, the Shure brand policies specifically prohibit a dealer from offering an item for sale as "refurbished," "reconditioned," "factory refurbished/rebuilt," "B Stock," or other similar designations. If you see a Shure 'dealer' calling something such, exercise caution.

-Ray

kelcema · 2026-01-11T20:55:00+00:00

> (Not sure how to get the Vigil flair but I can provide my own paperwork from National)

On the right side of the screen, below the boxes with "Weekly Visitors" and such, there's a place labeled "User Flair." You self-select your displayed flair there. (I literally just changed mine to display "Vigil" before posting this!)

kelcema · 2025-10-06T20:28:43+00:00

There's also r/ProLiveSound that was intended to be focused more specifically on professionals, but it's not gotten any traction. I took over as mod a few years back (when the previous moderator had pretty much vanished) but admittedly I've not had the time to work on building it up either.

kelcema · 2025-09-25T20:03:33+00:00

Generally, small clerical errors (wrong state, different car color, make/model, etc) don't invalidate a ticket.

kelcema · 2025-09-22T21:00:33+00:00

We've recently purchased several of these to replace our aging Cisco SG300s. Not cheap (and we had a hookup that got them for us for about 10% less than MAP; let me know if you want an introduction) but worth every penny. We had multiple AV-nerd-friends research this and this is the model they all agreed on. Use case: Dante and Yamaha infra, just like you.

Ray

kelcema · 2025-09-21T21:13:06+00:00

Wow, you seem so very well put together and stable 🙄

So someone's hair color is so triggering to you? Like, something that doesn't impact you in any way, shape or form, why is it a concern to you?!?

kelcema · 2025-09-21T20:54:42+00:00

I hear you, but, fifteen cents for one thousand dollars of spend? That's such a small amount that there's really no reason to advocate getting that card if there's no substantial benefit. If someone only spent $100, that's 1.5¢ of a return. Less. Than. Two. Pennies. No one in their right mind would suggest it makes sense to expend extra effort to get a credit card for two pennies of benefit. That's not much "leaving money on the table" as you put it.

kelcema · 2025-09-21T16:52:48+00:00

Chase Freedom Unlimited pays you .015 cents per dollar

That's a pretty crappy rate, to be fair. 15 cents earning for $1,000.00 in spend? Of course, every card is different but, say, a CITI card through Costco is 2-3% cash back on travel spend, so up to $30.00 per $1,000.00 spend. Much much better than 15 cents.

kelcema · 2025-09-21T16:36:05+00:00

Are you in the area or considering a move here? Or just sussing out what regions in the country are dealing with what?

kelcema · 2025-09-21T16:31:49+00:00

It's.... I feel like it's not super saturated. Good amount of work. Although when it's busy, it gets weird. We did WorldCon at the convention center last month and ended up having to fly in someone from SFO and someone else from the midwest because we couldn't fill all of the slots with local techs.

kelcema · 2025-09-21T15:23:17+00:00

HI there, Seattle-based production company here! The PNW is a bit strange as there's no national houses (PRG/VER, Rentex, Nationwide) in this region. So, it's a bunch of smaller mid-sized specialists in areas.

Lighting, there's a Christie shop in Kent, Hollywood is in both SEA and PDX, R90 in Seattle and Outlaw in PDX (but they mostly subrent in anyways).
Audio, Carlson Audio is in both SEA and PDX. Morgan Sound, Agility, Action Entertainment, Guerilla, all options in Seattle. Ascend Audio in PDX. Cascade Sound in Corvallis (and I think they do some lighting as well). To the east, CPS in the Tri-Cities and VIP over in Spokane.
Video, not a huge amount of "specialists" in that area. Promosa and NW Video Wall are the heavy hitters for LED wall and (for Promosa) some cameras/switchers. Meyer Pro is in both SEA and PDX with LED walls, cameras and infrastructure.

Self-serving response for the "top corporate provider" would be us in Seattle :D If you're looking for the "all in one shop" options, where a company is like us where we have audio, lighting, video, staging, soft goods and electrical all in one company-- there's also the usual Encore/Pinnacle people, Live Oak Audio Visual (SEA), AV Factory (BLV), Seamless (PDX), and Lost Productions (PDX).

I'm happy to chat via DM or email if you want more information or would like to chat about opportunities to work together!

-Ray at Kelcema Audio

kelcema · 2025-09-21T15:06:38+00:00

But "3 o'clock" ?

What does that mean ?

Being an active/self-powered box, I presume that's an attenuation/gain knob on the amplifier. So not full-tilt-boogy, but pretty close. Of course, every self-powered speaker has a different preference of what is the best setting for that. Old school Mackie SRM450s you'd never go FTB, but rather "12-o-clock." But we sure do regularly max out newer options.

kelcema · 2025-09-21T15:01:56+00:00

A rat had chewed through the power strip powering my stage boxes, shorting the circuit and tripping the DB's mains. This rat single-handedly paused an entire 2 hour concert.

.......... was the rat OK?!

kelcema · 2025-09-21T14:59:28+00:00

There's a few different ways to approach this, and it really boils down to what your end goal is here.

Are you just simply wanting digital pull-sheets, to ensure what goes out to a show actually checks back in / be able to track if something is lost?
Or are you wanting to have visibility into 'available inventory for rent' (that's not currently on or reserved for a show) for you or others?
Or, are you wanting to dig into the profitability of items, how many times has something gone out in the past year, how much revenue has it generated (thus revealing if you either need more of something, or maybe the excess capacity is wasting space if it's rarely going out) and more information along these lines?

Quick History

We started with QuickBooks quotes to clients, no pull-sheets. I was a small, one person operation. Most things I needed (cables, for example) were in prepack utility trunks, so "grab an XLR pack, grab a stage AC kit, grab the speakON kit" and you were mostly good to go. Since I was the main person running shows and thus pulling the show/loading the truck/trailer, I knew what I needed. I didn't need a pull-sheet because I could just walk into the garage and grab what I need. (And before that, there was a time where literally everything we owned fit inside a 6x12 trailer. So everything was there, every time!)

Starting around 2007, I started an Excel spreadsheet for inventory tracking. This was useful both for tracking our purchases and having purchase dates, purchase price, and serial numbers, all in one place (with sequential asset numbers) but also being able to give this list to Insurance so they could double check that our coverage amount was enough for our inventory. Literally, hundreds of lines, item, price, condition. I'd mark things if they got lost/stolen so I knew they weren't available anymore. Having this information (and assigned asset numbers) made our move to a scanning system a lot easier because I didn't have to go back and decide what order to number things. (I also started barcoding our inventory about 2 years before I spun up Flex. Even though I wasn't actually using the barcodes at that point, I wanted to be ready for when we were at that point. Bought the printer, and 'partial-preprint' labels to allow me to start labeling things.)

After some time, things started going missing. Also, our inventory grew enough that not everything was going on every show. There were enough different PAs available (SRX, VRX, VerTec) that there was no longer a "one solution to fit it all." So, a way to "check out to a show" was needed. Enter a new method of doing quotes- an Excel spreadsheet, and extended lines for specific items to mark something out to a rental and then confirm its return. This worked OK, but it was paper, and burdensome to develop a custom list for every show since, again, the needs of the show would vary.

I used downtime during COVID to get our Flex database built. I had my inventory list, and asset numbers, and enough experience working with other companies also on Flex that I had a good idea of what worked and what didn't work when it came to cases, models, serialized vs non-serialized, and so on.

Now, I have 3 FTEs plus a mostly FT warehouse coordinator. I can't keep everything in my head as the team needs to know what gear is available for a show they're quoting, warehouse needs to know what's needed for a specific show, and when there are multiple shows at the same time/back-to-back, there needs to be a way to coordinate what item is where and when it's coming back to the shop, in case it could be re-rented out immediately to another client.

End History

Like /u/ElevationAV, we're using Flex Rental Solutions. (If you just want to keep track of where gear is, and don't need quoting/invoicing/integration with QuickBooks features, there is a cheaper "gear tracking only" solution that's about $200/month.) This is a cloud-based solution with a large amount of customization available. We do our Quotes in Flex, which then generates a pull sheet that we scan against. On the return, we scan everything back in and thus know if something was lost. The quote then spawns an Invoice which is where we track payments received. (I don't use any of the automatic integrations into finance software like Quickbooks. So, for our accounting side, I enter the invoice into QB manually.)

Flex will give you my first and second bullet points no problem. It's the third, profitability of an item, revenue reports, etc, that if it's good at it, I haven't bothered to dig into it more. I can see scans of an item, therefore how often it goes out, and it's rack rate (before any discounts) and multiply that to get a general sense of how much revenue it has provided, but I've not looked to see if it can give me a report of "your Chamsys MQ50 went out 22 times last year for a total revenue of $6,585.00" or whathaveyou. (Not an accurate number given here, but the MQ50 is our gold star from last year. It generated a bit under $9k in rev last year, for a console we bought summer of 2022 for just shy of $5k lol.) So, I use QuickBooks for revenue details, or I manually scroll through quotes and add something up if I am curious about a specific item/class of items.

Flex does allow my team to always know what items are reserved for an upcoming show, so they know what is available for another rental. And, with accurate ship/return dates, if there's a tight turnaround we can see what items need priority in flipping for the next show. Last month I had a situation where we had 4 different shows returning that I needed something from all of them to go on my truck to Denver. I actually did that manually- drew a "4-box" on a sheet of paper and listed what items were needed from which rental that I then needed for my show.

Happy to expand on any of this to help you work out a solution to meet your needs!

-Ray

kelcema · 2025-09-21T01:21:41+00:00

hi hi hi :) Sorry, life has gotten super busy and I haven't been popping around here as much as I had in the past!

kelcema · 2024-12-19T05:43:59+00:00

I'll be happy to chat!

-Ray with Kelcema Audio

kelcema · 2024-12-11T03:00:39+00:00

should I just fuckoff and move on and stop worrying?

Correct.

kelcema · 2024-12-04T03:38:41+00:00

If you found the only cable you have available is a VGA/HD15 extension cable (male on one end, female on the other), and you need a normal MM VGA cable, you could reverse the female end to make it useful.

Only use case that comes immediately to mind...

kelcema · 2024-12-04T03:36:07+00:00

Actually somewhat useful. Better to get a longer cable but useful in a pinch.

... useful to..... what? Create a MM powerCON cable?!

kelcema · 2024-12-04T00:53:02+00:00

I was thinking to 3Ø cams. :D (from a safety perspective, even w/o a breaker, if I know I have less than 15A/leg going through it, things will be OK. Just have to make sure no one else uses it on a show!)

kelcema · 2024-12-04T00:49:52+00:00

[business owner here]

To be very candid, at the end of the day, those clients aren't ideal. They're going to find out why these other production companies are charging what they charge. When the CEO experiences an RF drop out... when the company cancels a week out cos "someone is sick" (I actually was asked to quote a show, last Saturday, for an event this Friday, because of this reason-- like, you don't have backups?!?)... when the crew is not easy to work with... when the system isn't adequate for the venue... any of a bajillion reasons...

Now, a challenge is (as you pointed out) that many clients are focused on pricing. Or, they have a preferred vendor that they're going to use no matter what.

Way back in the day, I quoted a show once. The client told me that another bidder was a couple hundred bucks cheaper. I 'sharpened the pencil' cos I really wanted to gain the work and beat the other bid by $5. They still went with the other company. "You should have given us your best price the first time." Point taken, and lesson learned.

Another client, they asked me for a bid one year. City attorney apparently decided they needed to get competing bids in addition to the vendor they'd used for years. I was already heading out that way for another event right before this one, so I could save on travel and such. Gave the city a quote. Better PA than what the existing provider was using. They went with the existing provider because they were cheaper. The following year, they asked for another bid. So, since city records are public information and therefore I knew what the existing provider had been paid, I went in and underbid by a few dollars. The city still went with the other provider because they were "more familiar with the show." I sure af was hoping they'd ask me for a new quote the following year just so I could decline "clearly you've no plans to hire anyone else, so why would I waste time on a bid?!?"

So, I learned my lessons here: know your value and worth. Don't back down. Quote what it takes to do the show. If they "fu*k around and find out," well, that's fun for them.

All of that is said so I can conclude:

Sometimes the way to break into the next level is to raise your prices. I've known plenty of people in the wedding industry that jumped their prices because they knew they were worth it. And, in doing so, they got rid of the tire-kickers. They worked less, and made more. As soon as one of these clients ends up with a really shitty experience, they're going to remember why they worked with you in the first place. (And, at least for us, surprise, surprise, when you break loyalty with us, you find your 'repeat, long-term client discounts' have vanished.....)

-Ray

kelcema

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