The Razer Rip-Off Extravaganza
Since looking at the TerraTec Headset Master and the Razer Barracuda Headset I have been investigating just what makes these products not only similar but almost identical in some design aspects.
With no real clue which product came first it was difficult for me to make any accusations against either TerraTec or Razer for blatantly ripping off the others product.
However more recently Razer has created a more elaborate mystery for me in the form of their Piranha headset which looks almost identical to the Sennheiser PC156 USB. At the time I assumed that Sennheiser licensed their technology and design to Razer and that TerraTec had done the same, effectively making Razer a re-branding company for solid, good quality audio products.
However any question to Razers PRs about these products has been brushed aside and the similarities between their products and those of Sennheiser and TerraTec described as minor and purely incidental because perhaps that’s the “best form factor for this product”.
The internals of the Razer Barracuda and the TerraTec Headset Master could be similar or entirely different. I actually found the Headset Master favourable in my roundup review of these products due to its lower price and lack of bulky proprietary audio connections (The Barracuda sports a ripped off DVI connector passing as an audio connector). However the point is that externally these products look too similar to simply ignore.
In short I have discovered no licensing deals or been able to uncover any information that connects Razer to Sennheiser or TerraTec in any sort of official licensed branding agreement.
Thus, until Razer are willing to provide a reasonable explanation for these similarities I put forward from my own observations, assumptions and lack of explanation from Razer that they are flagrantly and obviously ripping off the designs of competitors products and they don’t want to admit it.
This doesn’t bode well for my faith in Razer and their products, one would expect a company trying to maintain a reputation for quality products designed with the gamer in mind to actually… well… do some designing. In reality they’ve done no more than stuff LEDs into a competitors design.
The evidence:
Rather than host one or two images of these products I have decided to link to the overwhelming evidence already presented online:
Save as pdf.
