Factory tours :birth places of audiophile gear

[kaushik]

HiFi Factory tours

some one making an arcam unit

 

[anandkrishnantc]

thank god...its not chinese....

 

[gobble]

thank god...its not chinese....

What?!! Most of the EU brands are rebadged chinese goods with a slight change in transformers and caps.

If it weren't Chinese you would be able to afford nothing!!

Cheers

 

[cmsajith]

thank god...its not chinese....

This cannot be confirmed because a lot of people lost their jobs during recession in European countries.

 

[kaushik]

the notion that all chinese stuff are bad is incorrect... this is because indian local markets import cheapest available chinese stuff....

in some cases it is china products are bad .. like guitars
weather electric or acoustic... almost all guitars we see in india are china mass produced.. that is why same company US make guitars cost three time compared to the ones from china.

 

[spirovious]

Well reputed company in China(mostly now)are maintaining Quality.
They have proper setup for reproduction.Local company may be not too good.

 

[anandkrishnantc]

Hello all,
I commented on the photo posted. All workers seems to be european (not chinese) this obviously say that the factory is not in China....

And as far as I know and seen and learned, no Chinese product (even Indian) can match the build quality of European or Japanese...
And cost, if I had an option to get European made or japanese made product, even though the cost is high I will definitely go for it.(At least I postpone my purchase till I get enough to buy those...)

So far I havent seen any Chine product which has excellent build qualty...
Sorry, this thread is not meant for this....

 

[sachin_k5]

Even if you buy a european product its highly possible that the components are made in china but assembled in europe hyeah: Look around..nokia cellphones,ipods,lcd tvs are all made in china but i think the quality is very good.

Kaushik,
I liked the site tours especially the lowly production unit of Niam

 

[tharun]

Hello all,
I commented on the photo posted. All workers seems to be european (not chinese) this obviously say that the factory is not in China....

And as far as I know and seen and learned, no Chinese product (even Indian) can match the build quality of European or Japanese...
And cost, if I had an option to get European made or japanese made product, even though the cost is high I will definitely go for it.(At least I postpone my purchase till I get enough to buy those...)

So far I havent seen any Chine product which has excellent build qualty...
Sorry, this thread is not meant for this....

I agree with you anand , i used to have a mission Speakers , made in England and the built and sound quality was better then my current M33 . The electric cables ( like Finolex etc _ which are made in India are far better then the Chinese Cables. I made a DIY Power cable using Finolex and there was no difference between the Chinese made Cable and mine. If i would have used a better IEC then the quality should be far better then these chinese cables.

 

[marsilians]

Hello all,
I commented on the photo posted. All workers seems to be european (not chinese) this obviously say that the factory is not in China....

And as far as I know and seen and learned, no Chinese product (even Indian) can match the build quality of European or Japanese...
And cost, if I had an option to get European made or japanese made product, even though the cost is high I will definitely go for it.(At least I postpone my purchase till I get enough to buy those...)

So far I havent seen any Chine product which has excellent build qualty...
Sorry, this thread is not meant for this....

I dont mean to diss you but your are making an ignorant statement without any factual basis. See if you can listen to Shanling, Vincent, Cayin or Aurum Cantus. BTW, Mark Levinson owns Red Rose and tweaks the Aurum Cantus line and sells at a premium price. Same deal with the Music Hall brand. Some are straight up like Emotiva and Outlaw that state where their products are manufactured at - you guess it right its China. Oh about speakers, AV123 and many more are made in China.

 

[spirovious]

Hello all,
And as far as I know and seen and learned, no Chinese product (even Indian) can match the build quality of European or Japanese...
.

Why so?If Sony products are made in china,chances are that parts are original & assembled in China.Same like MB where is mentioned capacitors made in Japan.
As long as parts are Original & only assembled in China,I think there will not be any Quality difference.

 

[kaushik]

And as far as I know and seen and learned, no Chinese product (even Indian) can match the build quality of European or Japanese...

(first of all i dont work for china company ..so my comments are from my observations )
anandkrishnantc,
that is a belief ..
All that cheap china goods in india are responsible for for that belief.
if you explore more there are pretty good audiophile amps,cdp,DAC etc mainly from china..
for example Shanling,MHZS , may be the much talked about zero and gigawork DAC etc..
some audiophile companies rely on full assembly in china like french company Carat gets i57 cd player made in china.

Even (may be!)the beresford DAC...
I agree dedicated audiophile houses in Europe are reliable
because even they get the china made components,the quality check part will be strict and they do proper research before production while selecting china parts in their labs...

Why so?If Sony products are made in china,chances are that parts are original & assembled in China.Same like MB where is mentioned capacitors made in Japan.
As long as parts are Original & only assembled in China,I think there will not be any Quality difference.

do you think consumer grade gear sony will make with full parts taken from japan ? ...
there are pretty good china parts used almost everywhere cost and reliability is very good even then.
companies manage the reliablity by certain procedures /tests ..

 

[anandkrishnantc]

Thanks for many opinions. I believe, the machines (electronics or any other) is not only components. The way its built, and the people who does it (the knowledge of the skilled worker and everything matters.).
I agree a lot of great brands and products are being made in China. But open those and compare the old European build. check the soldering points, the PCB finish...check the case finish, the quality of material ,,,
Nowadays we dont have choice...
Just open old Casio calculators made in Japan and new ones (chinese) and see the pcbs. Both computes correctly with numbers entered....

And I guess most of the European manufactures especially electronics have intelligently moved the factories to China, not only because of the cost factor. But also the toxic nature of the Industry. They do not want spoil their environment any more . And Chinese /Indian intelligent Idiots want to show off in the World that they are growing.....

 

[square_wave]

All Chinese made hifi are not bad.
Some of the locally produced Chinese Hi fidelity gear (2-channel - Chinese brands) are far superior to the ones they assemble for mainstream European/Japanese brands. There are quite a few of such brands out there. They do not have brand visibility nor are they vying for the same market share as the denons or Yamahas of the world.

 

[gobble]

I agree a lot of great brands and products are being made in China. But open those and compare the old European build. check the soldering points, the PCB finish...check the case finish, the quality of material ,,,
Nowadays we dont have choice...
Just open old Casio calculators made in Japan and new ones (chinese) and see the pcbs. Both computes correctly with numbers entered....

And I guess most of the European manufactures especially electronics have intelligently moved the factories to China, not only because of the cost factor. But also the toxic nature of the Industry. They do not want spoil their environment any more . And Chinese /Indian intelligent Idiots want to show off in the World that they are growing.....

Few products are built to last in nowadays use and throw culture. So its a global phenomena.

Yeah environment issues are there, but so is retaining jobs (within EU) a sensitive political issue is it not?

Cheers

 

[kaushik]

All Chinese made hifi are not bad.
Some of the locally produced Chinese Hi fidelity gear (2-channel - Chinese brands) are far superior to the ones they assemble for mainstream European/Japanese brands. There are quite a few of such brands out there. They do not have brand visibility nor are they vying for the same market share as the denons or Yamahas of the world.

let me share one experience,
i was looking for toroidal transformer ,just sent a query to a china company, i thought may be cheap ones will be made in small factory and if price works out ,i will order....

their representative came on skype , she sent me the factory
pics and the compliance list.the machinery ,huge test setup, I was shocked how good they were. Samples were just 5$ but due to their policy of using only priority mail 100$ was shipping.
So i simply said i got different source here..

 

[nitinbose]

Hi,

I would like to mention that Chinese items are never bad. The reason why most people shy away from far-east products is because of the bad experience they've had.

Because the manufacturing costs in the far-east are pretty low, they're able to sell more economically which makes other countries naturally feel "jealous" so its a marketing trick to sell some stuff that's made in Philippines or India (some real cheap units) and then rebrand as made in china and bring it to the world, so that people shy them off!

The real made in china goods are in par with the Japanese or european stuff, but we'll rarely get to see them. I've been to china and did buy some computer stuff.. and am amazed by the quality and workmanship.

The same goes for "made in india" products. There are some products that equal or even supercede international standards - makes me proud to use those Indian goods!

The bottom line: As long as the quality standards are met, there's nothing to worry. Companies like Sony, whether made in japan, china or India are becoming lower standard as they're badly trying to reduce costs.

regards,

Nitin.

 

[square_wave]

I know one veteran commercial guy who participates in almost all the hifi shows in the world and rubs shoulders with some of the who is who in the hifi business. He once told me that some of the local hi-end brands in china are far far superior to almost all mainstream Japanese/European brand which are assembled there. They can even give some of the true hi-end from Japan/US/Europe a run for their money.