Why are people still buying this shit from companies that flood the market at every opportunity with landfill stuff and do their Quality control and testing in the field ie. by paying customers ... ?
You know what you let yourselves in for and still do it
I guess all it takes is one of Amir's golfing panthers and the rose tinted spectacles are on.
Perhaps you haven't noticed, but there are fewer and fewer quality products, even from well-known companies. Repair options are also dwindling, with only a few exceptions.
Manufacturers who guarantee repairs even after 5 or 10 years can be counted on one hand.
The fact is that most large and/or well-known manufacturers have missed the boat because they relied on outdated designs with sometimes poor performance figures. And the prices charged by many of these manufacturers were exorbitant.
Instead of reinvesting profits in development, they continued to rest on their laurels.
Most of these devices don't have better performance figures or features than they did 30-40 years ago, and they certainly don't have the same quality as those older devices.
I can say this with certainty because I use several of these older devices and have compared them to current models that cost many times more. It's simply ridiculous what large and so-called high-end manufacturers are offering.
My last experience with expensive equipment in the four-figure and even higher four-figure price range from a German high-end manufacturer was simply awful.
Three of these amplifiers broke down within five to six years. My speakers were damaged twice. Although the fault lay in the amplifiers' defective protection circuitry, they refused to take responsibility. I had two amplifiers repaired at the time, but both failed again in less than two years. Luckily, this time I had additional protection circuits for the speakers.
Similar experiences exist among my acquaintances and friends with various reputable and high-end manufacturers.
What these three high-end manufacturers cost me back then, I could easily have bought 50 Topping B100 amplifiers. Even with a lifespan of only two years (i.e., the warranty period if purchased in Germany), they would last 50 years, three times longer than the other three amplifiers. And with significantly better performance.
The now widely used TPA3251/55-based amplifiers, such as the Topping PA5 II, Mini 300, 3E Audio A5/A7, Fosi, Aiyima, etc., not only sound better than most amplifiers costing 10, 20, or even 30 times as much, but they also boast good durability and reliability.
The large, well-known manufacturers have simply messed up. Poor test results, definitely no better sound, increasingly worse service and warranty coverage, more and more defects in the devices, increasingly poor development, etc.—I'm not spending my money on that anymore.
I'll still buy the few exceptions that remain, but I'll weigh the price-performance ratio much more critically.
So, if I have to choose between two evils, I'll choose the one that ultimately costs me less but also delivers more.
