Short answer: yes. Long answer: yes, but let us explain.
Valco is a 14-person company that wants your money. We admit it openly. The difference between us and the big corporations is that we say it straight — we don’t hide it behind "mission statements" and "stakeholder value" mumbo jumbo. Every purchase funds our Death Star. It’s currently about 0.000004% complete. Thanks to everyone who has bought.
Why you should take us seriously
We are a small company competing against Sony, Bose, and other giants. We don’t have a billion-dollar marketing budget. We don’t have a sponsorship deal with some celebrity. We have Jasse, whose ears are insured, and who tunes every headphone model by hand. That’s our marketing strategy.
Since we can’t compete with money, we have to compete with the product. VMK25.2 costs a fraction of what the big brands’ flagships do, but the sound quality is at least on the same level. This isn’t marketing talk — it’s math. When you don’t pay millions to brand ambassadors, you can put the money where it matters: into drivers, materials, and making sure Jasse gets to sit in the quiet of his studio fine-tuning frequency responses instead of shooting TikTok videos.
We repair, we don’t throw away
This is where we truly stand out. The big brands’ headphones are designed to last just long enough for the warranty to expire. Then you buy new ones. Convenient — for them.
Valco has its own service center in Kajaani. The pads twist off and can be replaced. The drivers can be replaced. If something breaks, we fix it. The 24-month warranty covers material and manufacturing defects. Even after the warranty, you can send the device in for service — it just costs a little.
This isn’t charity. A satisfied customer buys their next headphones from us and tells their friends. A dissatisfied customer writes on Reddit. We’re too small to survive a bad reputation, so we have to be honest. Evil only works when it’s transparent.
What about the Ferraris and the Death Star
Henri, our great leader, drives an Alfa Romeo that breaks down regularly. A Ferrari is in the budget for now, but not in the garage. Raimo, on the other hand, swears by the Mercedes-Benz W124 and considers everything else trash. Construction of the Death Star is progressing slowly because material costs have gone up.
These are the kinds of things your headphones purchases are funding. If that feels bad, consider the alternative: you could give your money to Apple, who will use it to make sure the charging port on the next iPhone is different from the last one again.
Final verdict
Valco is an evil company in the sense that we want your money. But in return we give you headphones that can be repaired, that sound good, and that were designed by a real person rather than a committee. Sold to over 58 countries. 14 employees. Zero brand-ambassador millions in the budget.
If that’s evil, so be it. At least it’s honest evil.
