Aimpire AD10: Fake Topping D10 DAC?

[sweetchaos]

Personally, I would like to see an official response from Topping about this matter.

I would take a "tweet" as an official response. Anything...

 

[Xyrium]

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...mpire-topping-copies-fakes.10805/#post-301785

Refer to link at slickdeals for Topping rep convo

Of course, like the authenticity of this AD10, I cannot verify the legitimacy of the supposed individual from Topping making the response posted.

 

[amirm]

Of course, like the authenticity of this AD10, I cannot verify the legitimacy of the supposed individual from Topping making the response posted.

Mr. Huang is the right person from Topping so I would believe what he says.

 

[JohnYang1997]

Mr. Huang is the right person from Topping so I would believe what he says.

Maybe I'm not the one that should bother with this thing. Go ahead and contact Mr.Huang.
But the there's certain bias from restorerjohn towards Chinese companies makes me very uncomfortable.

 

[Tup3x]

Even the guts look similar:

Top: Aimpire AD10 (courtesy Reddit user andrewrp)
Bottom: Topping D10 (courtesy Amir)

Some chips in the AD10 are unlabeled -- maybe generic parts that make all the difference?

Edit: Looks like RayDunzl made this comparison in another thread several weeks ago:

Guts look similar but not identical. The area on the left side of the DAC chip for example.

 

[JohnYang1997]

One last insight before official response from Mr. Huang.

In China you can literally pay someone less than 20 dollars and get a board reverse engineered with Full BOM and PCB Project file.

Some truth that are confirmed without any doubt so far:
Aimpiere was an authorized reseller for Topping.
Aimpiere is unauthorized now.
Topping has not been supplied items since.
Aimpiere AD10 has zero to do with Topping or any related manufacturers in the manufacturing process(including PCB, component assembly, chassis customizing).
Aimpiere AD10 is Fake and Counterfeit.
USB and XMOS programs are pulled from the original board.

 

[Tks]

Seems good enough for me. Now all that's left is the D30, A30 ordeal.

 

[TP-Wong]

Sorry every one, I'm late. I‘m sure to tell everyone here: AIMPIRE AD10 is a clone product.

We did not provide permission, did not provide technical support, and did not provide production. If we provide OEM to AIMPIRE or we are preparing a secondary brand, at least we will use the same glass lens to because it will not save much money to use cheaper one; and we will not mistakenly display D10 on connection of AD10; Of course we will not allow the products to be so similar; cutting performance is even more outrageous because customers will not agree.

This is indeed a sad thing.

That guy who own AIMPIRE brand is one of our seller before, but few months ago we terminated the cooperation with them and allowed them to sell their stock until it was cleared, because he did a lot of unfair competition. Here can explain why they are still selling some TOPPING products.

They are very familiar with Amazon rules, they also have a lot of brands and accounts, even accounts with very high authority. Therefore, after ending the cooperation, he changed the listing to his own brand, and then started selling clone D10 by his own account and also provide to amazon. Because this product not showing our brand, we are not able to protect this, all we can do is warn our users not mistakenly buying this.

I believe, we probably see AD30, AMX3, or even more later. This is not the first time our product has been cloned by others, I believe it is not the last time.

Another thing I need to say is, @JohnYang1997 is really did intern in our company before. He said is correct, the PCB factory does not easily disclose the customer's engineering files, but copying it does not require engineering files.

 

[Veri]

That guy who own AIMPIRE brand is one of our seller before, but few months ago we terminated the cooperation with them and allowed them to sell their stock until it was cleared, because he did a lot of unfair competition. Here can explain why they are still selling some TOPPING products.

They are very familiar with Amazon rules, they also have a lot of brands and accounts, even accounts with very high authority. Therefore, after ending the cooperation, he changed the listing to his own brand, and then started selling clone D10 by his own account and also provide to amazon. Because this product not showing our brand, we are not able to protect this, all we can do is warn our users not mistakenly buying this.

I believe, we probably see AD30, AMX3, or even more later. This is not the first time our product has been cloned by others, I believe it is not the last time.

Another thing I need to say is, @JohnYang1997 is really did intern in our company before. He said is correct, the PCB factory does not easily disclose the customer's engineering files, but copying it does not require engineering files.

Pretty sad story, but it does all make sense. One can only wonder why it is so hard to protect your property @ Amazon online stores...
Hopefully, it will be resolved :/

 

[TP-Wong]

Pretty sad story, but it does all make sense. One can only wonder why it is so hard to protect your property @ Amazon online stores...
Hopefully, it will be resolved :/

Yes, I just explained it to everyone.
Amazon has brand protection measures, but our brand is not displayed on the AD10, so there is almost no way. The sticker shown in the previous picture has our brand, this should be a temporary measure when they changing the listing. Now that the listing name and picture are all changed, they should no longer post such stickers.

 

[TP-Wong]

Now let me answer how easy it is to clone a product, in some easy case, one sample is enough.

First is the aluminum case, this is the easiest step, it is enough to take it down and send to the manufacturer. Then they can make same size as your sample.

Then take out all electronic component one by one from the PCB, and measured them one by one, then you got the BOM list. Hand this list to any electronic component seller and tell them how many you want, they can provide you all of this BOM list.

The PCB can be handed over to the PCB manufacturer. A scanner can easily copy double-layer board. For 4 layers or more, the outer layer can be worn off and scanned. So, PCB file is not required for copying.

MCU is a little hard, but you still can get bin file easily after sending it to a studio.

What's left? Just finding a SMT & assembly factory.

 

[BogdanR]

I would only buy this DAC if it would be advertised as a quality counterfeit product and it was sold with a Bonded Certificate of Inauthenticity.
Sorry... I could not resist...

 

[TomB19]

I hope my P50/D50s is real. I bought it from Amazon.

I'm a loyal Topping customer. I'm going to need 3 more DACs in the next couple of months and will go out of my way to make sure they are real.

Mr. Wong, if you have advice on insuring purchasing a legitimate product, please share it.

 

[ta240]

Pretty sad story, but it does all make sense. One can only wonder why it is so hard to protect your property @ Amazon online stores...
Hopefully, it will be resolved :/

What is truly annoying is that they show the knock off as a higher search result when someone searches for Topping D10 and in fact it showed as "Amazon's Choice" for a while when searching for a Topping D10 on some countries Amazon sites. I'm curious how many people thought they were getting a Topping D10 when they clicked to buy that item from their results.

 

[thefsb]

One last insight before official response from Mr. Huang.

In China you can literally pay someone less than 20 dollars and get a board reverse engineered with Full BOM and PCB Project file.

Some truth that are confirmed without any doubt so far:
Aimpiere was an authorized reseller for Topping.
Aimpiere is unauthorized now.
Topping has not been supplied items since.
Aimpiere AD10 has zero to do with Topping or any related manufacturers in the manufacturing process(including PCB, component assembly, chassis customizing).
Aimpiere AD10 is Fake and Counterfeit.
USB and XMOS programs are pulled from the original board.

Thank you. This makes sense and helps to clear up some earlier confusion that I complained about.

 

[Nathan Raymond]

I think it's a sign of highly developed economy, Chinese faking their own domestic brands/products....

Yeah, it's actually been going on for a while in China, with some of their biggest domestic brands even. A while back the American researcher and hacker Andrew "bunnie" Huang took a pretty deep dive into the fake SD card market:

https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?page_id=1022

And this post has details on a Tianjin Seagull Watch Company counterfeiting operation that happened a few years ago:

http://www.seagullwatchstore.com/category-s/1838.htm

 

[thefsb]

Sorry every one, I'm late. I‘m sure to tell everyone here: AIMPIRE AD10 is a clone product.

We did not provide permission, did not provide technical support, and did not provide production. If we provide OEM to AIMPIRE or we are preparing a secondary brand, at least we will use the same glass lens to because it will not save much money to use cheaper one; and we will not mistakenly display D10 on connection of AD10; Of course we will not allow the products to be so similar; cutting performance is even more outrageous because customers will not agree.

This is indeed a sad thing.

That guy who own AIMPIRE brand is one of our seller before, but few months ago we terminated the cooperation with them and allowed them to sell their stock until it was cleared, because he did a lot of unfair competition. Here can explain why they are still selling some TOPPING products.

They are very familiar with Amazon rules, they also have a lot of brands and accounts, even accounts with very high authority. Therefore, after ending the cooperation, he changed the listing to his own brand, and then started selling clone D10 by his own account and also provide to amazon. Because this product not showing our brand, we are not able to protect this, all we can do is warn our users not mistakenly buying this.

I believe, we probably see AD30, AMX3, or even more later. This is not the first time our product has been cloned by others, I believe it is not the last time.

Another thing I need to say is, @JohnYang1997 is really did intern in our company before. He said is correct, the PCB factory does not easily disclose the customer's engineering files, but copying it does not require engineering files.

Thanks for taking the time to explain this unfortunate story.

While you're here, please can you make a DAC with HDMI input and output?

 

[thefsb]

Trusting a company who falsely advertises a product from a different brand, is a strong reason to "speculate or investigate". Evidence is a form of fact, and the evidence presented by this review should be enough for most folks to determine, or judge, if this product is murdering the Topping name, and our sound systems.

The second part of the equation is Topping's very own disassociation from Aimpire.

What's not to judge?

Judge away. I just don't think there's much to be gained as to speculating on their intent. I think it's sufficient to assume their motive: they want to sell stuff.

 

[Berwhale]

There's is an article in The Guardian today about abuse of Amazon's 'Choice' label... https://www.theguardian.com/money/2...label-is-being-gamed-to-promote-poor-products

The article includes the following quote from Amazon (my emphasis):

“We don’t tolerate Amazon policy violations such as review abuse, incentivised reviews, counterfeits or unsafe products. When deciding to badge a product as Amazon’s Choice, we proactively incorporate a number of factors that are designed to protect customers from those policy violations. When we identify a product that may not meet our high bar for products we highlight for customers, we remove the badge.”

And here's the Aimpire AD10 listing on Amazon UK with it's Amazon's Choice label...

I reported the item as having incorrect product information.

 

[BogdanR]

Why don’t we add another wrinkle into this controversy? Here is an Amazon Canada listing of a Topping D10, by Topping yet showing the Amipire copy. It also lists the D10 as the newer but unavailable version. The user reviews are also for the D10. What we have here is simply a MUCH bigger mess than I thought.