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What is your stance on Chinese brand Hi-fi equipment

What is your stance

  • I had no, and have no interest in buying Chinese Hifi equipment

    Votes: 14 8.1%
  • I am watching, waiting for a good sale

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • I am watching, waiting for a better device in the future

    Votes: 8 4.7%
  • I have bought at least one, and will buy more in the future

    Votes: 117 68.0%
  • I have bought at least one, and will never buy again

    Votes: 14 8.1%
  • I am already fully Chinese Hifi equipped

    Votes: 19 11.0%

  • Total voters
    172

G|force

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There are many brands that I never heard of before joining ASR that shattered the ceiling of SINAD rankings. Is that important to enjoying music? Again I leave that for you, the ASR reader to decide.
Lots of threads on that!
The tick box I would have ticked is:
Does the product perform a task better than what I am using at a price I am willing to pay, and has it been used enough by enough people to rule out early mortality problems.
It has probably been pointed out already but gear from Lynx, Genelec, Apogee, Apple, RND, Tascam, SSL, Elysia, Lindell is full of Chinese parts and components, if not entirely manufactured there.
No beef to the OP, but it is kind of click bait.
I remember my friend walking into my fathers lab in the 90's, he glanced a heat sink with TO-220 packaged Mosfets from international rectifier and he scoffed because each package said Mexico on it.
 

G|force

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I have an Apogee Rosetta 200 AD/DA
I also have a Lynx Hilo AD/DA
I have replaced the MeanWell SMPS in the Apogee twice since I have owned it by opening the lid and swapping it out for a new one.
Found the last one on eBay for $65 USD.
Early mortality, late mortality, this type of gear can more often than not be fixed by replacing the PS whether it is external or internal.
Don't freakout if your gear stops working and post some crap in the web. Find out what is wrong, more often than not it is a simple fix. :)
 

restorer-john

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I remember my friend walking into my fathers lab in the 90's, he glanced a heat sink with TO-220 packaged Mosfets from international rectifier and he scoffed because each package said Mexico on it.

I must admit I scoffed at Mexico made Motorola TO3s in the 90s as they had a real problem with failing. They cleaned up their act pretty quickly, but damage was done.

When Shure moved manufacturing to Mexico and QC went out the window, their reputation suffered significantly.

Putting Americans out of jobs to save a few dollars manufacturing over the border was a big mistake.
 

Sgt. Ear Ache

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There are many brands that I never heard of before joining ASR that shattered the ceiling of SINAD rankings. Is that important to enjoying music?

Not having a go at you, and I do agree with your major point...but the SINAD thing is a hot button issue for me. I'm so tired of "the other side" trying to paint ASR as a bunch of bean counters obsessed with SINAD to the exclusion of everything else. Judging by how over-played that narrative is, you'd almost think Amir's reviews looked like this:

"Topping E30 Dac - SINAD 119 - Bye."

Is SINAD important to "enjoying music?" Well, I don't know...is burn-in important to enjoying music? Are expensive wires important to enjoying music? Are tubes important to enjoying music? If any of those things might be, then I don't know why SINAD couldn't also be - I mean at least it's a real, measurable quality that actually exists.
 

G|force

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uh...one product that costs 5 times as much as another product is 5 times as costly. there's no division involved at all...
uh...one product that costs 5 times as much as another product is 5 times as costly. there's no division involved at all...
Not having a go at you, and I do agree with your major point...but the SINAD thing is a hot button issue for me. I'm so tired of "the other side" trying to paint ASR as a bunch of bean counters obsessed with SINAD to the exclusion of everything else. Judging by how over-played that narrative is, you'd almost think Amir's reviews looked like this:

"Topping E30 Dac - SINAD 119 - Bye."

Is SINAD important to "enjoying music?" Well, I don't know...is burn-in important to enjoying music? Are expensive wires important to enjoying music? Are tubes important to enjoying music? If any of those things might be, then I don't know why SINAD couldn't also be - I mean at least it's a real, measurable quality that actually exists.
*As much* denotes a decrease in value.
It is a double negative in this sense.
I know, it is used that way all of the time.
Can a real mathematician confirm or deny this notion of mine?

I'm a stickler for grammar and diction punctuation and syntax. Sometimes.
I try to make sure I get it right myself.
Amir! He leaves flaws and *mistakes* *typos* in everything he posts.
No fault.
I assume he does it on purpose so he can target the potential IP ripoff for copy and paste off of this platform for others use.

I'm not going trashing our ESL members and visitors, I would hope to bring up members, never bring anyone down.
I like you guys and gals.
 

Sgt. Ear Ache

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When I look up "X times as much" in google for grammatical correctness, it looks to mean exactly what I think it means. Something that costs 5 times as much as a thing that cost's $100 therefore costs $500.

Paragraphs are also a part of writing well btw. ;) But since we aren't doing doctoral theses or anything like that here I wouldn't normally comment on that sort of thing. lol.
 

RayDunzl

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Last edited:

Jimster480

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It's undeniable that Hifi equipment from Topping, SMSL, Sabaj, Aiyama etc. are very popular here in ASR. The interests seem huge, but I wonder what's the consensus, are they actually popular or just we are led to believe?
I personally have had Topping stuff for 5+ years (My DX7 is 5 years old in 7 days and my D30 & A30 were 5 years old in January).
No issues with any of the hardware that I have... I can tell you from ebay and amazon metrics; that Topping sells quite a bit. SMSL struggles selling the higher priced stuff it seems (atleast via ebay & amazon) and Sabaj... I think is just less popular (even if they have had a couple of popular models).

I have a number of other chinese products and really it depends on if the brand is good or not. There is no way to generalize it. I test products in one of my businesses and there is new chinese stuff that comes across my desk (or to my house) literally every week. Some stuff is really great and lasts and other stuff just sucks. So it goes back to what I mentioned before; if a good brand is built then it should be generally good. It doesn't mean that problems cannot arise from any of their products (as is the case with any brand).
Just food for thought.
exactly. The idea that there's some massive quality gulf between Chinese stuff and stuff produced elsewhere on the planet is laughable. The reality is that the non-Chinese products are often no better built, and still cost 5 times as much.
Yes like the Intel GPU's.... Intel is mulling over killing ARC entirely after the cards barely work and have massive driver issues and a requirement for Resizable-Bar just to have performance similar to generations old AMD & Nvidia GPU's. They spent something like 20BN (supposedly) developing these.....
 

dorakeg

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I have no problems with Chinese gear. My first gear is the shangling DAC-50 which I am still using today.
 

anmpr1

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How many 1) home computers and 2) cell phones have you acquired and later moved beyond? 3) I like my Topping... 4) I'm happy with my auto with its EA888 engine that was made in Mexico.
Good points.

1) The thing with PCs is that although (generally) individual components are plug and play, and user replaceable, the new stuff is so advanced that it doesn't make a lot of sense to replace a part, if the total package is five or six years old. Ex: my main PC is is an Intel I7 gen 8700 CPU with GTX 1070 GPU. Those components are at least six years old. If the card goes south, and with the new 40 Series coming out in a couple of months, what would be the point of just replacing a five or six year old card, which would probably be bottlenecked by the rest of the system, and cost about the same as a new one? [GPU prices are finally entering low earth orbit.] But if nothing goes wrong, I certainly wouldn't replace it just to have something new.

2) My S6 phone was six or seven years old. I recently 'upgraded' because my carrier was 'giving' away S22 models for $300.00 with a trade-in. I couldn't believe they'd take an S6 in on trade. Who would want that? And the S22 price was a lot less than I paid for the S6.

3) Honestly I see no reason to abandon a Topping (or any of the top tier DACs) for something new, as long as what you have works, and you don't need a different feature set. I don't know, but I presume that 16/44 etc. PCM will be a 'standard' for a long time to come? If that changes, or with home movies (where Dolby is always coming out with a 'latest and greatest'), then maybe for some consumers it will be worthwhile to upgrade.

4) the 888 TSFI (throughout its versions) is a world class design. Sure, every mass produced ICE has some failures, but for small, powerful, and overall practicality, it's a winner. Also, for the heavy lifting (welding, painting), Mexican robots are as good as robots operating anywhere in the world, probably.
 

fpitas

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I must admit I scoffed at Mexico made Motorola TO3s in the 90s as they had a real problem with failing. They cleaned up their act pretty quickly, but damage was done.

When Shure moved manufacturing to Mexico and QC went out the window, their reputation suffered significantly.

Putting Americans out of jobs to save a few dollars manufacturing over the border was a big mistake.
Maybe not for the management of the company, who probably are sailing around on their yachts celebrating the fact they saved 10 cents. Very few of them care about what happens to America. The ones who do get ejected from the company.
 

Sgt. Ear Ache

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I figure in 20 years time we'll all be wearing high-tec eye glasses that have a hud display as well as an array of visual real-time filtering constantly on display and a couple extensions with little balls on the end that insert deep into our ear canals and feed filtered audio from both the live 3D microphones on the glasses as well as the always-online digital stream directly to our ear drums.

Either that or we'll be fighting each other for food and water...
 

fpitas

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I figure in 20 years time we'll all be wearing high-tec eye glasses that have a hud display as well as an array of visual real-time filtering constantly on display and a couple extensions with little balls on the end that insert deep into our ear canals and feed filtered audio from both the live 3D microphones on the glasses as well as the always-online digital stream directly to our ear drums.

Either that or we'll be fighting each other for food and water...
As long as I get constant advertising, I'm in!
 

Salida

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I put a limit in place of manufacture for all my audio gear. It has to be made on this planet. No exceptions. No gas amplifiers form Jupiter in my system!

Couple of thing that may merit discussion.

Are you willing to continue to support the classic audio distribution chain:
Manufacturer —> Distributor —> Retailer where every step is a 30% to 50% markup?

Part of the low price equation is eliminating intermediaries. Schiit is a good example of a company doing this well. As are many offshore brands.

Are you willing to buy exact copies or near clones of established products from copycats at ten cents on the dollar? Ex. C 22 clone.

This one is more problematic for me. I would never buy a clone copy as it trades on another company’s hard work and reputation. It’s a form of theft in my opinion.

I guess you could argue if the piece is old or the company no longer in business it’s ok. It is still trading on another’s good reputation.

I would like to see more creativity from low cost audio companies. What I see out of most of these manufacturers is what I call ‘data sheet designs’. Circuits that are copied from chip manufacturer’s data sheets and stitched together in straightforward ways.

Let’s see more creativity!
 

Sgt. Ear Ache

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As long as I get constant advertising, I'm in!

Oh sure there'll be advertising! You can book it!

But now that I've started down the rabbit hole of this wearable technology thing, it's going to be a real game-changer. I mean why even have a home theatre system or big hifi setup at all? You want to watch a movie on a big screen? Just dial it up on the VR glasses. What do you need? A 60" screen 8 feet in front of you? You got it. The glasses just place it there for you VR style in your living room. Or, on the bus if that's where you are! Oh, you have guests over and you all want to watch a movie together? Cool...the glasses link up together and all broadcast that same screen to each of you at the same time...along with full 3D digitally processed sound (with individually-controllable volume of course). You just want to listen to some classical music on an amazing sound system? Just dial up the components you want to enjoy and the musical selection and the glasses display both the visual and the digitally modelled audio for you. All of a sudden you have that dreamy Macintosh system sitting there in your living room in front of you. Or, on the bus if that's where you are! lol...
 

egellings

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At my age, it no longer makes sense to pay extra for extended warrantees on products anymore. I won't live to benefit from them.
 

JeffS7444

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I figure in 20 years time we'll all be wearing high-tec eye glasses that have a hud display as well as an array of visual real-time filtering constantly on display and a couple extensions with little balls on the end that insert deep into our ear canals and feed filtered audio from both the live 3D microphones on the glasses as well as the always-online digital stream directly to our ear drums.
And yet, when it came to their own children Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg chose to keep technology at arm's length:
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/tech-billionaire-parents-limit/
Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

FWIW, I bought a Playstation VR pre-pandemic, but during lockdown, I spent more of my time in the real world, working on projects which had accumulated over the years because I had been too distracted. Watched a movie or two via the goggles, and yes the virtual (very big) screen is kind of neat, though 3D movies didn't look particularly 3D, maybe because they weren't optimized for goggles. But mostly I watch movies on my 32" set.
 

ta240

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And yet, when it came to their own children Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg chose to keep technology at arm's length:
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/tech-billionaire-parents-limit/
Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

FWIW, I bought a Playstation VR pre-pandemic, but during lockdown, I spent more of my time in the real world, working on projects which had accumulated over the years because I had been too distracted. Watched a movie or two via the goggles, and yes the virtual (very big) screen is kind of neat, though 3D movies didn't look particularly 3D, maybe because they weren't optimized for goggles. But mostly I watch movies on my 32" set.
Dealing the drug is one thing, getting your own kids hooked is another. 32% of teens said they wouldn't want to live without social media and online videos.
 
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