I worked for a US company before that manufactured dental care products like toothbrushes and replacement heads for electric toothbrushes in Germany.
They had factories all over the world (china, India etc).
So basically 80% of the stuff that we sold as "made in Germany" was actually imported from China. Mixed together with stuff that we actually made in Germany and put nicely into country specific packaging material that would receive the goods. (Finland, Japan , France, Germany, UK etc.
The stuff that we mostly imported from China was exported back to China as made in Germany as well.
A high percentage of the stuff imported from China turned out to be not up to the required quality and while still useable (just not pretty enough) was recycled and or destroyed.
Because it was not in the interest of the US company that the stuff gets donated to third world countries. Even though this was a option that the factory in Germany did before the US company took over.
I imagine this is not much different with audio gear manufactured in the EU.
They had factories all over the world (china, India etc).
So basically 80% of the stuff that we sold as "made in Germany" was actually imported from China. Mixed together with stuff that we actually made in Germany and put nicely into country specific packaging material that would receive the goods. (Finland, Japan , France, Germany, UK etc.
The stuff that we mostly imported from China was exported back to China as made in Germany as well.
A high percentage of the stuff imported from China turned out to be not up to the required quality and while still useable (just not pretty enough) was recycled and or destroyed.
Because it was not in the interest of the US company that the stuff gets donated to third world countries. Even though this was a option that the factory in Germany did before the US company took over.
I imagine this is not much different with audio gear manufactured in the EU.