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Chinese "cloned" Naim, EAR kit etc

I think a few people might well buy it, and once they do and if it's received well there will be a few more.

Nobody would buy a real gaincard amp with all those quality gainclones around and the residual value of the genuine but very overpriced 47 labs original has been utterly hammered.

the clonemeisters have been offering NAP140 boards for quite a while now and they are fairly well received by the DIY community.

I think a full on built and cased unit would appeal to quite a few without construction skills.

I'm certainly looking forward to the NAP500 clone for £????
 
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It costs more than that to get a proper nap200 serviced,with the postage!
 
Really! that's appalling, the parts can't cost more than about £40 and you could fit them in an hour easily.
 
colasblue said:
I think a few people might well buy it, and once they do and if it's received well there will be a few more.

Nobody would buy a real gaincard amp with all those quality gainclones around and the residual value of the genuine but very overpriced 47 labs original has been utterly hammered.

the clonemeisters have been offering NAP140 boards for quite a while now and they are fairly well received by the DIY community.

I think a full on built and cased unit would appeal to quite a few without construction skills.

I'm certainly looking forward to the NAP500 clone for £????
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Interesting that the "cloned" NAP200 does not look exactly like the real unit with the simplified rear connections and casework. Not sure if the electronic parts and circuit board are simplified as well. Perhaps someone with electronics background buys it and makes a comparison with the original? Or evaluation can be made by looking at the photos on the eBay link?

I have to say, even if the copycats used the same exact parts in the transistors and capacitors and circuit boards etc., the quality of workmanship and assembly will likely be a compromise. Having said that, a rather adventurous effort from the Chinese. Has anybody bought this yet? Is a clone 552 available? That would be interesting. Maybe they could have a go at other gear such as Devialet and Hegel too.
 
The trouble is that there's no way of copyrighting the RCA amplifier circuit, which is what you have.

The board layout looks identical to the real thing, and they even claim the kit can be used to replace the real thing. Naim might be able to get them on that.

The components certainly aren't the same brands Naim use. That might not make much difference to how it sounds, but it will make some.

Component and build quality is always an unknown, but might actually be better than you expect.

It probably comes with no guarantees, but there are plenty of people who would be able to fix it if it broke

The box is unbranded but has a similar look.

Would anybody even be looking at it if it was being sold as "unoriginal RCA circuit transistorised amplifier"?

There certainly ought to be some way of stopping these characters piggy backing on somebody else's brand value by imitation, even if that brand value is largely based on hype.

OTOH Naim could actually sell their own stuff at sensible prices and then this sort of thing wouldn't happen at all. That's what the power transistor manufacturers had to do, price the fakemeisters out of business!
 
Considering the fact (?) that the copper in some Chinese transformers is of inferior quality, etc., how reliable is this clone? And I speak as someone who has bought 2 Ming Da amps, and several Consonance items.
 
colasblue said:
The trouble is that there's no way of copyrighting the RCA amplifier circuit, which is what you have.

The board layout looks identical to the real thing, and they even claim the kit can be used to replace the real thing. Naim might be able to get them on that.

The components certainly aren't the same brands Naim use. That might not make much difference to how it sounds, but it will make some.

The box is unbranded but has a similar look.

Would anybody even be looking at it if it was being sold as "unoriginal RCA circuit transistorised amplifier"?

There certainly ought to be some way of stopping these characters piggy backing on somebody else's brand value by imitation, even if that brand value is largely based on hype.
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If that were true, Behringer would have gone out of business years ago. The classic Marshall amp was a knock off of a Fender, the first Pultec into this country was on a bench, stripped down and cloned within a month. Mesa Boogies are actually souped up Fender amps, that is exactly what an original was. Warm audio, Mohog, Purple audio do ready built 1176s and now Warm do LA2A knocks offs down to the case work looking the same.
 
Interesting stuff, although I'm somewhat amused by the wording. 'Cloned' instead of 'copied'. It amounts to the same thing but does the wording make the difference between being sued or not, or is even a copy 'legal'?

Mick
 
I think my choice of words would be largely irrelevant in the eventuality of any legal action, after all I am not the cloner/copier and have no connection with him whoever he is.
 
colasblue said:
I think my choice of words would be largely irrelevant in the eventuality of any legal action, after all I am not the cloner/copier and have no connection with him whoever he is.
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Sorry; I was unclear. I meant the words in the ad on ebay.

Mick
 
I've actually been meaning to start a thread on this as there seems a lot of it about at present, e.g. here is a clone of an EAR 834P phono stage that looks pretty similar to me internally (I've owned real 834Ps). I believe very firmly in intellectual property and would actually like to see this stuff seized by customs/trading standards the way counterfeit clothing etc is. Same goes for pirated music.

PS I'll edit the thread title to better reflect the content.
 
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awkwardbydesign said:
Considering the fact (?) that the copper in some Chinese transformers is of inferior quality, etc., how reliable is this clone? And I speak as someone who has bought 2 Ming Da amps, and several Consonance items.
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Who knows, could be good, bad or indifferent, but if it's cheap enough....

Not clear if you believe your purchases to have been good or bad VFM or quality, but you've certainly made a few of them.
 
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3 different"clones"..
 
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