The Chinese fallacy

[Wombat]

Indeed, no country is good and pure all the way through. The US has the Sackler family, among other scumballs. We even have a politician or two of ill repute. Plenty to complain about.

But in manufacturing and business, China has worked hard and consistently to do the wrong thing. Can they make an A+ product? Yes. Do they usually? Nope. Did my TV and laptop die from garbage capacitors or out-of-spec solder? Yes! Did they steal tech, ship toxic products, and lie in massive numbers? Absolutely. Did they totally screw up the order of children's clothing that my uncle's business ordered? Yeah, that too.

As bad as we are in the US, China is 1000 times worse. Sure, our president locked immigrant children away from their families, which is an atrocity. However, in the US, the majority of people are angry over such awful crimes. Meanwhile, in China, a million Muslims have been put into concentration camps, and the populace says, "Hey, as long as I'm getting paid, who gives a damn?"

As for India, just look at the number of FDA drug recalls. They're nowhere near as bad as China, but they're not exactly a western nation. Meanwhile, Modi's hateful rhetoric about Muslims and martial law in Kashmir makes Trump look like a dove.

Lots of exaggeration, there.

US importers sell this stuff. Americans happily buy it. Same with other developed nations.

The Chinese are prepared to sell to a lowest-common-denominator-price market demand. Blame your fellow consumers. If consumers are happy with cheap crap, the low labour cost countries will happily oblige and your importers will sell them.

Better products are available from these countries and the buyers need to be more discriminating to identify them(ASR helps). BUYER BEWARE - take responsibility, after all, no one is forcing you to buy them and there are alternatives from Western manufacturers.

 

[restorer-john]

Of course it should bother you, you go on and on about low quality Chinese stuff but have nothing to say when to comes to low quality US made equipment. I,m not Chinese BTW, I,m of Indian origin who migrated to Oz.

I,m guessing its less to do with the equipment and more to do with with wheres it made from and who made it and I assure you, I have 1970s Stax and Sansui so I know how good Japanese manufacturing can be. I grew up in a house where even the alarm clocks were Sony. We had Sansui, Akai, Aiwa and even today my Minidisc collection borders on more than 100 recorders/players and most of it from Sony, Sharp, Aiwa, Kenwood, JVC, Pioneer, Denon and others.

A vintage Onkyo A-5100 is sitting next to me as I type this and an AMB M3 and AMB Beta 22 which were both designed by a Chinese designer are on my left acting as my main headphone amps.

Problem is 1970/80s Japanese top of the line was just as expensive as any top of the line audio kit today. The top of the line Sony amps of the 70s would be worth more than AUD $7000 today.

And your point is exactly? You've simply re-iterated what I have been saying- thanks.

 

[restorer-john]

the Khadas Tone Board being an exemple of a seriously well engineered product ..

It's just a cheap SMD Chinese circuit board single input USB D/A converter, with a few components that happens to perform quite well. But a complete product it is certainly not. PCBs jammed in acrylic/plastic cases were the province of hobbyists in the 1970s.

Most of the developed world moved on with HiFi products of substance 35+ years ago- I know I sure did. And if US manufactured HiFi gear was as competitive as Japanese gear in the 80s, I would have bought a ton of it. Trouble was, shipping to Australia, plus the insane margins demanded by importers and 40% points margin for retail meant it was just too expensive here.

 

[beefkabob]

Lots of exaggeration, there.

US importers sell this stuff. Americans happily buy it. Same with other developed nations.

The Chinese are prepared to sell to a lowest-common-denominator-price market demand. Blame your fellow consumers. If consumers are happy with cheap crap, the low labour cost countries will happily oblige and your importers will sell them.

Better products are available from these countries and the buyers need to be more discriminating to identify them(ASR helps). BUYER BEWARE - take responsibility, after all, no one is forcing you to buy them and there are alternatives from Western manufacturers.

Which part did I exaggerate? The part about the Muslims imprisoned or the part about my uncle's company?

Yes, people gobble up cheap garbage, and that's a shame. It's a consumer culture made possible by cheap, including slave, labor. Just because A race to the bottom that the Chinese began and, so far, have won.

 

[Wombat]

It's just a cheap SMD Chinese circuit board single input USB D/A converter, with a few components that happens to perform quite well. But a complete product it is certainly not. PCBs jammed in acrylic/plastic cases were the province of hobbyists in the 1970s.

Most of the developed world moved on with HiFi products of substance 35+ years ago- I know I sure did. And if US manufactured HiFi gear was as competitive as Japanese gear in the 80s, I would have bought a ton of it. Trouble was, shipping to Australia, plus the insane margins demanded by importers and 40% points margin for retail meant it was just too expensive here.

Plus the protectionist, against non British Commonwealth countries, import duties and associated selective product exclusions at that time. We did have self-sufficiency in manufacturing or importing from British Commonwealth countries most of what we really needed though, with full employment - at a price. Rose coloured glasses reveal durable products and much less waste.

 

[amirm]

Time out....