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Will You Consider Buying Made In China Gear

Will You Consider Buying Made In China Gear

  • Yes

    Votes: 49 39.5%
  • No

    Votes: 40 32.3%
  • An Owner Already

    Votes: 45 36.3%

  • Total voters
    124

ryder

pfm Member
I would be interested to know if anyone here owns any costly hifi gear say above £2k that's assembled or made in China or doesn't have any issues with the future purchase of one. It may not necessarily be a Chinese brand or manufacturer as it can be British, EU or American which have chosen to have their products manufactured or assembled in China.

I made a vow several years ago to not consider any expensive hifi equipment that's made in China but it's about to be broken. Rats. It's not a politically motivated decision but a personal one though.
 
I own an Auralic Altair G1. Pretty sure they're a Chinese company? Definitely built in China. It's excellent and I'm considering upgrading to a G2.1 at some point in the future.

If you want to boycott China then you'll be living a pretty complicated life of vetting everything you come into contact with every day. Where are you drawing the line, are components okay as long as the final product was put together somewhere else? Is it coming from the privileged position of being able to afford to support British products whenever possible, or a backlash against China specifically? Those two things are very different and the motives of one can be very different to the motives of the other. Is Japanese Hifi ok? What about American? South Korean? Are your Russian tubes okay now, or not so much anymore? Were they okay when all Russia stood for in your imagination was a crumbling USSR? If quality is your issue then you're ignoring the spectrum and I'll cycle back round to Auralic and say that's a very nice bit of kit.

Personally, I find the backlash against China in HiFi circles to be fairly backward and ignorant of the wider picture. It's also like a psychedelic continuation of Brexit. I dunno about you, but all that's done for me is make my world smaller, my opportunities and options more limited and my life more expensive. At least now we can ship immigrants off to Rwanda, though. Stand up fellas running that place.
 
Hi Ryder,
I have a pre-amp and a pair of power amps; all assembled in China , with around 70% of the parts from Europe/Japan/USA. I bought, originally, a pair of power amps, a couple of years ago and these amps are now upgraded to a new pair. I made a LARGE saving on both pairs and was/am delighted with both my old and my new pairs. Ah reckon these amps would, easily cost more than twice as much from a UK/US/European producer (IF a company even chose to try and make them). :cool:
 
It's so difficult to avoid items that are made (or at least the components are made) in China.
I don't think (at this time) I will be looking to buy anything like speakers or cd players ect that are made there.
No particular reason , other than a perceived inferior quality ...just my opinion (so don't burn me!)
 
Sad fact is Thatcher (& Tony Blairs) & Reagans low regulation free market mantras & there systematic destruction of there own manufacturing bases enabled the rise of China as the world's manufacturing hub.
Even sadder, when the Chinese military inevitably moves in to reclaim Taiwan the world will not be able to respond in the way it has against Russia without catastrophic consequences to the world economy.
As stated above it is probably virtually impossible to avoid buying electrical goods that have at least some Chinese made components.
Rant over.
TS
 
If quality is your issue then you're ignoring the spectrum and I'll cycle back round to Auralic and say that's a very nice bit of kit.
.

It's just a perception of inferior quality as mentioned by Mynamemynaim, nothing else. As mentioned earlier, it's not politically motivated. Good to know the Auralic Altair G1 lives up to expectations.
 
I don't own a single component costing £2k+, but own 2 amps, both under £600 and they are great sounding pieces of kit, one pair of speakers ordered which are already in the uk, but not yet delivered.
 
Sad fact is Thatcher (& Tony Blairs) & Reagans low regulation free market mantras & there systematic destruction of there own manufacturing bases enabled the rise of China as the world's manufacturing hub.
Even sadder, when the Chinese military inevitably moves in to reclaim Taiwan the world will not be able to respond in the way it has against Russia without catastrophic consequences to the world economy.
As stated above it is probably virtually impossible to avoid buying electrical goods that have at least some Chinese made components.
Rant over.
TS

You cannot blame either Thatcher or Blair, it was globalisation pushed ahead by WTO. The quickest way to a worldwide recession is for every country to restrict imports whilst at the same time trying to export, it just does not work that way and prices go up because everyone is buying everything from a mini cartel.

In 1948 GATT (later to become WTO) was set up and signed up to by 88 countries. This slowly started globalisation which pushed for unrestricted worldwide trade and drove up living conditions in the poorer countries.

If China did not exist, your standard of living and that of your parents in times past would have been much poorer and much more restricted.
 
You cannot blame either Thatcher or Blair, it was globalisation pushed ahead by WTO. The quickest way to a worldwide recession is for every country to restrict imports whilst at the same time trying to export, it just does not work that way and prices go up because everyone is buying everything from a mini cartel.

In 1948 GATT (later to become WTO) was set up and signed up to by 88 countries. This slowly started globalisation which pushed for unrestricted worldwide trade and drove up living conditions in the poorer countries.

If China did not exist, your standard of living and that of your parents in times past would have been much poorer and much more restricted.
My rant against Thatcher & Reagan may be a little simplistic but I think it is important to point out that the WTO is driven by Thatcherite & Reaganite light touch free market ideology which has contributed to the destruction of our planet, erosion of workers rights & the increasing wealth gap between the richest & poorest.
TS
 
If it is agreed that we need to sanction Russia for their actions, then should we not also sanction China for theirs?

Torture, mass detention, et al. Read the below as a starting point and then think carefully whether you really need that hifi component made in China.


https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/asia-and-the-pacific/east-asia/china/report-china/

I'm really not interested in this thread turning into political. Having said that, I looked at the link and there are no names on the people running the site.

Someone just sent me this yesterday. No comments from me but have a look.

 
It's just a perception of inferior quality as mentioned by Mynamemynaim, nothing else. As mentioned earlier, it's not politically motivated. Good to know the Auralic Altair G1 lives up to expectations.

Yeh that's fair enough. I admit I had my own reservations in terms of support etc. These totally stemmed from my own biases of the fact that cheap Chinese tat is abundant. Thing is though, Chinese manufacturing is a spectrum just like anywhere else and there's quality goods as well as there is tat. The sheer manufacturing volume along with the fact that the tat is usually more likely to be the easily visible, "day-to-day" items tends to highlight the fact, in my opinion. If you take Japanese HiFI for example, generally speaking it's considered "good" right? Likewise for guitars, there's an era of vintage guitar manufacturing from Japan that is pretty collectible and desirable, noted as it is for its quality. Truthfully, however, there was a considerable amount of shite coming from Japan at the same time and it's only one or two factories that are genuinely venerated with the benefit of hindsight.

None of that really stops the fact that we all hold these biases, but it does make me wonder if in 30 years there will be certain "ChiFi" that will become collectible and desirable in just the same way that has happened in just about every other manufacturing country.

@simon g both communist, China being even worse than Russia IMHO

This is so painfully reductive it's unreal.
 
I'm really not interested in this thread turning into political. Having said that, I looked at the link and there are no names on the people running the site.

Someone just sent me this yesterday. No comments from me but have a look.

Interesting video, don't think the people of Georgia would describe the Russian invasion as a "tiny war" & the bit where he says we need to get back to building mobile phones instead of weapons made me smile, when have mobile phones ever been made anywhere other than China?
TS
 
NO, QC is shocking and the quality is totally inconsistent - most of the time.

The two amplifiers I own are both finished to a high standard, I have also purchased countless items from Ali Express (had been living in SE Asia) for myself and partner and no complaints, so where do you find this 'most of the time'?
The two amps I own, do they look 'unfinished'
Latest Version Music Hall Mp-301 Mk3 Deluxe Edition 6l6 El34 Kt88 6j8p(6sj7)single-ended Class A Tube Amplifier Amp - Home Theater Amplifiers - AliExpress

Rftlys A2 KT88 Push Pull Tube Amplifier Integrated 12au7 Lamp Amp With Blue tooth|Amplifier| - AliExpress
 
Its not just in electronics, most of the worlds production is based in China and they get away with compromising QC simply by the fact that no one else can do the job for the same price and deliver so quickly.
 
I would be interested to know if anyone here owns any costly hifi gear say above £2k that's assembled or made in China or doesn't have any issues with the future purchase of one. It may not necessarily be a Chinese brand or manufacturer as it can be British, EU or American which have chosen to have their products manufactured or assembled in China.

I made a vow several years ago to not consider any expensive hifi equipment that's made in China but it's about to be broken. Rats. It's not a politically motivated decision but a personal one though.
If your decision not to buy Chinese built gear is as you say personal & not political can I ask what those personal reasons are?
Most peoples decision whether or not to buy Chinese built kit will be entirely political so I think it may have been a bit naive to expect politics to not feature in this thread.
For the record I have bought plenty of Chinese built hifi in the past & currently still own some (Quad 99CDP-2 & Topping A30pro).
I don't particularly have an issue with buying Chinese made goods from reputable companies, I lay no blame at Mr Topping or his employees door for the Chinese government's human rights abuses.
If IAG hadn't have swooped in & bought up Quad, Audiolab et al then given the lack of local political support for these companies they would probably no longer be in business.
TS
 


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