China HiFi goes Prime Time

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by avanti1960, Mar 21, 2021.

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  1. jonwoody

    jonwoody Tragically Unhip

    Location:
    Washington DC
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  2. jonwoody

    jonwoody Tragically Unhip

    Location:
    Washington DC
    Since we are talking about integrated tube amps specifically part of the problem is that's still not a very well developed market in the US. Sure there are more options now but still nothing compared to the tube separates market, even looking at used gear there's just not a lot there. So what these Chinese companies have done is, very smartly, go after an under served part of the marketplace.
     
  3. avanti1960

    avanti1960 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Chicago metro, USA
    there are many more products being offered at value than just tube amps. speakers including british monitor clones, DACs, disk players and transports, step up transformers, outboard power supplies, audio cables, tubes, power conditioners, portable players, headphone amps, preamps, home theater amps, turntables and accessories.
     
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  4. Richard Austen

    Richard Austen Forum Resident

    Location:
    Hong Kong
    I think the problem here is that people are not seeing a big difference - China copied America. I mean take a look at many American companies and products from rubbish American cars that have terrible QA, poor quality parts and materials. Everyone steals designs so that is not just a Chinese thing. When I worked at Seagate Software in Vancouver they had all kinds of tight security to ensure competitors were not stealing IP. And America is the king of dishonest marketing. You can't throw stones from a glasshouse. And even Europe - when someone says to me "German Engineering" I think "Thanks for the warning" because it will be an overly complex low reliable pile of junk in most cases.

    I think that China gets more of a bad rap due to politics but even here it's not like western countries are angels and are the world's good guys. It takes a sort of deliberate ignoring of history to see heinous cruelty from so-called free nations. I don't think China much cares what the USA says anymore.

    A recent Op-Ed in the NY Times Opinion | China Doesn’t Respect Us Anymore — for Good Reason
     
  5. vinylkid58

    vinylkid58 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Victoria, B.C.
    The internet and shopping "online" is driving a larger and larger percentage of electronic sales. The Chinese are doing what everyone else is doing, selling online. It's not rocket science. The bonus for them is that the old "sales and service" business model has gone completely out the window. I wonder what the percentage of warranty returns there are with a big heavy tube amp are? Probably not very high.

    jeff
     
    Last edited: Mar 28, 2021
  6. Agitater

    Agitater Forum Resident

    Location:
    Toronto
    Well said.

    But . . . there's no rule book that states western brands can't continue to innovate. Just because China's muscle flexing has earned it a lot of attention doesn't automatically mean that western companies will be out of business.

    Canada, the U.S., the UK, France, Germany, etc., etc., etc., having been competing globally for generations and their respective fortunes have ebbed and flowed, competitors have come and gone (or come and stayed), political insanity and war have come and gone and come and gone, and here we all sit. China can do whatever it wants in China, but it can't force me or anyone else to buy its entrepreneurs' products unless they're worthwhile.

    What is everybody afraid of? That the products will all be priced so cheaply that we'll all be mesmerized and zombified to march slack-jawed to our computers to click like automatons on Buy buttons at china-hifi-audio.com? Nonsense! But if that's the sole criterion by which some audiophiles judge value, I wish them the best of luck as they undermine their own good sense and their own domestic interests.

    "Well," one guy says, "the amp is too expensive at the local dealer in Podunk. So I've got no choice but to buy one of those hotly-reviewed amps from China. Only $498! And they send you a gift pack of 12 pair of sport socks too!" And a year later the same guy is complaining that all his local dealers are disappearing. And in a different thread he's complaining about having to spend another $498 on another cheap amp (but asking about a different brand name because, you know, its a different brand name at the same price so it might be better) because his first $498 cheapie doesn't sound so good any more. Why not stop all the buying and keep saving the money and build the budget for 18 months to buy something that he can audition locally and not have to guess about or roll the dice?

    But . . . what if some Chinese HiFi audio products are genuinely good and come with serviceable warranties and a domestic distributor and a dealer network both online domestically and brick & mortar? Of course the products will be well worth considering and - AND - you'll be able to audition them in order to make genuinely useful value and sound quality judgements instead of throwing money at a wild guess. And - again - existing, longer-established audio companies will compete and many will win big. Many Chinese companies will fail and some will win. That's what happens when you're the new guy at the playground.

    Huawei that everybody was afraid of for a few years is now taking a real marketplace kicking from Xiaomi as that company eats Huawei's lunch in the Chinese domestic smartphone market. Since Huawei's U.S. supply of CPU chips was cut off, domestic Chinese buyers don't want phones based on Huawei's own chips. Get it? All sorts of things we do in North America and in Europe have serious traction with a rising middle class in China across all consumer sectors to one degree or another. Apple is absolutely still #1 in China; Samsung is #2. Xiaomi is now #3.

    Nobody ever said business would be easy. You compete. You reckon with big, tough competitors. You make deals. You eat their lunch when you can. Stop worrying about China. Get back to what we do best. I think most companies that have to are doing just that. Audio companies too.
     
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  7. Richard Austen

    Richard Austen Forum Resident

    Location:
    Hong Kong
    One of the problems with many B&M stores now is that they don't offer much of a value proposition. I mean the main point of going to a place like Best Buy is to get service. However, if your doohickey breaks down after their 14-day replacement plan then you are on your own - you have to ship the item back to the manufacturer. It happened to me with an HP PC - the hard drive died. I go back to BB because back in the day you dealt with the dealer and they would deal with the manufacturer - especially under warranty. So the HP has a 1-year warranty but the B&M wants no part of it. So gee I may as well have bought the PC online and saved $100 because the B&M store doesn't offer any service.

    And because we all get used to buying online now - then what's the difference between buying a Conrad Johnson or Goodluckwithit from China? Moreover, I get the sense from forums that most purchases are now a blind buy whether a western brand or Chinese. Those companies with their 30-60 day trials aren't getting many of them back that's why they offer them. As my long-time dealer noted 90% of everyone who bought from him was presold before they ever walked into the store. The amp looks cool, got a rave review in the press, maybe an award, they listen for 5 minutes and hand over the credit card. That's why he admitted that he carried lines he didn't much like. If he didn't sell the line the competitor down the road would sell it. And if 90% of the people come in and don't listen to the other stuff and if you try to explain that X sounds better then they think you're a pushy used car dealer.

    Ultimately I don't think China is much competition to western brands at the moment - they are selling products against themselves for the most part. $498 tube amp from China - against 9 other Chinese $498 tube amps. Western companies don't operate down there because there is no money in it. A B&M dealer needs repeat business - and online they have a nationwide or worldwide net. I live in Hong Kong and order LPs online from Music Direct and Elusivedisc. They sell amps, speakers, source players too - choose your voltage on some of them.

    I ordered Wyred4Sound monoblock amplifiers on Dec 3 California Time and they arrived Dec 7th Hong Kong time. Holy cow. My point got lost here a little bit in the end - most people simply can't compare things in fair conditions and with no audio shows and dealers going the way of the dodo we are limited to the buy and try approach. Everything gets a rave review by someone and there is always some forum where people LOVE some product and another group that HATES it. So you don't get anywhere on the internet.
     
  8. HIRES_FAN

    HIRES_FAN Forum Resident

    Chinese hifi products are the only hifi products priced commensurate with build quality. If cars or airplanes were priced like US or Europe based hifi products, most hifi customers will be walking everywhere.

    On a different note, China appears to be the real superpower these days. Their engineering and manufacturing is second to none, be it aerospace, AI, nuclear fusion, whatever....I am sure all the former thieving plundering colonial overlords in the west are a bit unhappy that real aptitude exists in the east.....And sorry boys, but you can't just invade China (like you do in the middle east or something for your free oil or whatever) and make it subservient because you will get a nuke right between the eyes. Good luck and good night...
     
    Last edited: Mar 29, 2021
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  9. vlds8

    vlds8 Forum Resident

    I love reading these. Another one I recently found on a preamp box: "We make your music more HiFi". Sold ;)
     
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  10. MikeMusic

    MikeMusic Forum Resident

    Location:
    Surrey, England
    My hero Deming.
    Knocked me sideways when I discovered him

    The way I heard it was the US General running the devastated Japan after the bomb demanded they send someone to up the terrible Japanese quality of products that were unusable.
    They went for it wholesale

    Typing this on a Lenovo laptop.
    Made in China at the factory IBM sold to them when they pulled out of Laptops etc.

    Listening on a Japanese TAD system with UK Coherent cables, German Creaktiv racks, UK Black Ravioli supports

    2nd and 3rd systems run Chinese SMSL Q5 Integrated amps very well
    Utterly changed the way I ran my print business, for the better
     
    Last edited: Mar 29, 2021
  11. Angry_Panda

    Angry_Panda Pipe as shown, slippers not pictured

    I think this is huge part of what's kept me from seriously considering these. They've spent zero money to have someone check the translation and decided they can handle the marketing themselves, but they want me to trust the engineering and build of their amps and fork over cash for one. If one's dodgy, why not the other?
     
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  12. avanti1960

    avanti1960 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Chicago metro, USA
    this is a reason for keeping costs so low. no big deal for me.
     
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  13. Agitater

    Agitater Forum Resident

    Location:
    Toronto
    I tend to agree.

    For inexperienced audiophiles - SHF contains innumerable threads started by members who are just learning basics, feeding a preamp's output into one of its own inputs, confusing VTF with VTA, etc., etc., and that's why we gather to help here among other reasons - laughable SC-to-English translations don't just speak to cost-cutting "Oh, users will figure it out all right" decisions, but also to misunderstanding and inadvertent misdirection for some percentage of end users. That needlessly causes problems.

    Back in the '60s, '70s, and '80s, companies in China making industrial sewing machines were supplying huge quantities to the U.S., Canadian and European schmatta business. The user manuals and technical manuals were always hilariously mistranslated. Same was true for sewing machines made in other parts of northern and central Asia. For many decades the idea of precise, step-by-step guidance in a user manual has not been a priority for a lot of producers of products coming from those regions.

    By contrast, many western products that aren't accompanied by properly localized user manuals and user interfaces are rejected out of hand by mainland Chinese consumers. What I too prefer in a product is some fundamental care about the fact that I want to be addressed accurately and understandably in the product's documentation. Every company from Apple to PS Audio that sells into central and northern Asian markets spends a lot of money to produce highly accurate localizations of its product documentation.

    With the aforementioned sewing machines, factory owners frequently discovered bizarrely difficult-to-read documentation stating that the sewing machines had been thoroughly lubricated and tested at the factory before packing, only to find out that whatever amateur translator it was that converted the documentation had translated it precisely backwards. Burned out main shafts ensued until factory owners started checking every single machine through partial disassembly.

    Accurate documentation is important. The configuration menu in a DAC/streamer that is crystal clear to you or me can be absolutely opaque to others. Scratch that. I sometimes need accurate documentation too.

    Check out the documentation for a genuine HiFi/high-end DAC - the Denafrips Terminator. The large and detailed English user manual is not perfect, but it was clearly localized by a professional localization company that either Denafrips or Vishine paid in order to get it done properly. That's another thing that makes it easy for me to recommend the Terminator DAC. It helps end users see the DAC as the definitively mainstream and high quality product that it is.

    If I want to have the best chance of selling you something, I really should speak your language well. If you want to sell me something, you really should speak my language well. It's all well and good when we meet for the very first time to exchange gestures and pantomime in an effort to be understood, but the audio industry (and all other industries) are two full generations past that point. Useless English translations into Simplified Chinese (using Google translate or Baidu or whatever) are precisely as cheap and lazy and inaccurate as useless Simplified Chinese translations into English. After all these decades of Chinese companies selling into western markets? Not acceptable.

    As @Angry_Panda posted, if they're still trying after all these decades to get away with cheaping out on documentation, where else in the product are they trying to get away with cheaping out? I say, demand higher standards no matter what the price point.
     
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  14. Funky54

    Funky54 Coat Hangers do not sound good

    Ok... here’s a gut shot of my Rivals 9 wpc SE amp that I paid under $300 shipped to my door. I’ve had it about two years and it’s probably seen 100 hours of use maybe more. The house hasn’t burnt down, it hasn’t caught fire...


    Would you care for me to post inside shots of my vintage American made amps?... Careful what you wish for because they are a whole lot messer inside than this.

    Sure, these are inexpensive parts.. the same as Fender did all through the 60’s -to today, arguably the best or one of the best guitar amp sounds ever. Would you care for gut shots of my Carver amps to compare? No matter what anyone says to try and hold resale value of ultra expensive stereo equipment.. this is a good sounding amp, it’s neat and tidy.

    This whole argument should be the other way around, how can the overpriced ultra expensive amps made in the US be justified.. why would I spend 2 or 3 times more? What greater value do I receive for my money? Here’s the challenge, I’ll be generous and say your budget is THREE times more to find an American made tube amp that sound better and is better built, you have $900 to spend (better include shipping, mine did).

    [​IMG]
    While the parts might be inexpensive, they work as intended. Someone had pride in their work and knew what they were doing to make this sound this good while being this neat.
     
    Last edited: Mar 29, 2021
  15. Agitater

    Agitater Forum Resident

    Location:
    Toronto
    A simple wiring loom for a simple SE amp, should not be compared to a complicated wiring loom for a more complicated amp.

    I don't examine the inside of amps or integrated amps for wiring neatness prior to purchase. Then again, since you raised the subject, I certainly do open up everything that I test and assess. The vast majority of Canadian, U.S., UK and European amp and integrated amp makers take great pride in their circuit board designs, wiring routing, shielding and isolation designs, and so on, and it shows quite obviously when you remove the casework. Why you chose to imply that western amp designers and makers might be doing sloppy wiring compared to your SE amp is mystifying.

    Suggesting that Fender parts were as relatively inexpensive in its instrument amps in the '60s as some Chinese SE amp makers use today is folly. It forces us to discuss the various types of distortions that Fender amps were/are known and appreciated for. Fully audible distortions. Not what I want in a high fidelity audio system. It's the exact opposite of what I want in a high fidelity audio system.

    I can't win your challenge because it's a red herring. No matter what amp I throw into the ring, it will either be too expensive in your judgement or you'll declare that it doesn't sound good in your judgement or both. What you're basically insisting on is that the choice you made for three hundred bucks is the best one and that nothing, according to your own criteria, beats it. There is no argument against that, at least not in a public discussion forum.
     
    Last edited: Mar 29, 2021
  16. Funky54

    Funky54 Coat Hangers do not sound good

    I don’t think my post left you with what I’m trying to express. I don’t feel China made products are better. I could really care less who or where a product is made. I care about the result. I don’t think this little cheap amp is the best sounding amp available (It might be at this price point, but I haven’t tried hundreds to know). I brought up Fender because they are an American amplifier company that is highly praised for meeting their criteria and design goals for sound quality (whatever those design goals are) and they did it while choosing inexpensive parts to keep costs down and to make a profit. They are respected. Many here in this discussion are claiming because many chifi audio products purposely choose lower cost parts that they 1) don’t care about quality and 2) are sub pare sounding. It’s no different in Fender who chose a path, but I don’t think they compromised sound.. how can you say that when they are revered for their sound? Money in my opinion is not the criteria to base sound on. Again, statistically more budget allows for statistically better parts. It doesn’t mean they always will be. A dump truck and a chevette both can go down the road. If the design goal is just to go down the road, I don’t need to pay for a dump truck. I don’t need a car salesman to justify my spending for the dump truck if I don’t need it. They both go down the road. Not every time a part cost more does it mean the amp will sound better. If a particular part is a lesser value but produces the same sound why in the world would I want to pay more for a bunch of parts that have no impact on a better sound. And I think sometimes that’s the case with high-end amplification. Sometimes you’re paying for the name and the story. Those type companies may choose over engineered and expensive parts just to justify an extremely high MSRP. It doesn’t mean all those most expensive parts were needed to make the same sound.

    I use to work for a very elite high end company. They were are known to be the most expensive in town. There philosophy was to find the absolute most expensive parts they could find (regardless if they were needed or better) because their pricing system was based on the MSRP. They were ridiculously high. I can offer every ounce of the same quality at a third of the cost. I use the best part regardless of price. Often times there is not only a suitable, but a better part at a third of the cost.
     
    Last edited: Mar 29, 2021
  17. tIANcI

    tIANcI Wondering when the hifi madness will end

    Location:
    Malaysia
    “In 2019, China was the biggest emitter of fossil fuel carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. With a share of almost 30 percent of the world’s total CO2 emissions that year, this was roughly twice the amount emitted by the second largest emitter the United States.”

    China - 1.4b population
    US - 330m population

    Do the math first. Sometimes facts are more important than politically ignorant statements. :laugh:
     
  18. vinylkid58

    vinylkid58 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Victoria, B.C.
    They were generally a lot more complicated, and weren't a simple single ended design. They also quite often had phono stages as well, and in a receiver format to boot.

    Well that made me laugh.:laugh:

    jeff
     
  19. Victor Martell

    Victor Martell Forum Resident

    1) The one thing about this is that Chinese manufactures build to spec. The America/European/British companies set the spec - and yes, in essence is the typical "Cheap, Good, Fast" - Pick 2. Placing the blame on the wrong side. When companies ask for quality, they get quality.

    2) That said - I have been tempted - I remember having a link for a Chinese turntable that really looked and from feedback is high-end. Similar performance to turntables costing 10x the money. That said, and forgive me to bringing this company up, it is possible to pull the same feat here in the USA - Schiit has proved it. I could find a high end Chinese DAC for around $2000 that will perform the same as a $10K DAC. Or I could get the Yggy - same feat! Just image how much other companies would charge for a product like the Yggy - easy, those $10K I am talking about - same, a bit controversially, for the Sol - so it is possible to do it in the USA. Kudos to Schiit, btw.

    v
     
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  20. Tullman

    Tullman Senior Member

    Location:
    Boston MA
    Here's my preamp/phono preamp made in the USA. Hand wired!

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]Click For Full-Size Image.
     
  21. Funky54

    Funky54 Coat Hangers do not sound good

    Beautiful. Very neat. My point was “neat” even at the price level of my cheap amp, is a sign of pride, someone caring about the quality. My point was just because my chi-fi is cheap doesn’t mean someone didn’t do their best to make a good product. I sincerely didn’t mean to imply that American is inferior, I meant “just” because it’s American does not mean it will alway be neat and better built. Good quality is good quality. It doesn’t matter where it’s from. Neat is a sign of quality.

    I used Fender as an example. They are a revered product known for good sound but they intentionally used less expensive parts to keep costs low. Non of my pre CBS or after CBS amps are neat inside. Yet here is a amp where they put that effort into it. Meaning they were trying for hi-FI.. quality.
     
    Last edited: Mar 30, 2021
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  22. Tullman

    Tullman Senior Member

    Location:
    Boston MA
    Not only neat but the parts including wire and caps are first rate.
     
  23. Funky54

    Funky54 Coat Hangers do not sound good

    Yours yes. Mine no, it has several low cost parts.
     
  24. jonwoody

    jonwoody Tragically Unhip

    Location:
    Washington DC
    Neat wiring does not a good amp make, wiring should be for the ears not the eyes. Observe my lovely sounding rats nest. :p

    [​IMG]
     
  25. vinylkid58

    vinylkid58 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Victoria, B.C.
    There isn't much to wire up, it's basically all PCB's.:confused:

    jeff
     
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