Chinese fake cables How fake, how good?

scroydon14 posts01-18-2021 3:06pmThe origin of manufacturing is irrelevant to the discussion.

If a knockoff sound as good as genuine it may be genuine but pushed out the back door by employees trying to pad a paycheck. Theft of property rights is often the norm in China and genuine R&D gets robbed of cashflow that furthers more R&D.

Wow do I come into this discussion late! Two years! 

First, let me say I am one of the poor sots that can hear cable differences. It's a curse. For you that don't, you are blessed. You will never be tempted to pay the ourtageous prices for cables the rest of us are. Second, I, like most of you, have a beer bottle pocket and champaign taste.  That said, I am in the process of upgrading/tweeking my old sound system. At the core is a 90's era Conrad Johnson preamp and amp. I have loved my old Cardas Quadlinks that I have owned for 30 years. They were my reference cable. The truth is, however, the highs now sound veiled. They are lacking the detail and sound staging (like air) that new cables and tastes seem to be. I tried 4 different levels of Cardas cables and without a doubt chose the Clear interconnects. I paid $2800. NUTS. Me and the price! Before I bought those, I returned a set of Parsecs because for that sound, they weren't worth $400. I bought "Cardas Clear Light's" off the Aliexpress for $45 for curiosity. The appearence and visible build quality was shockingly accurate. The highs sounded very similar to the Parsecs, but seemd to have a better bass. I couldn't do A/B testing, but really! They bumped out the old and very real Quadlinks.  I am willing to pay the high price (gulp) when the product warrents it, as the legit Clears really did. But, in defense of the Chinese manufacturing, they can make decent quality products. Not all of it is junk. I think they should just put their own name on the things (like SKW for example). The clones could say: "compare sound signature to (insert brand)" .  A lot more of us would be open to trying them and they could be compared to the real thng in the open market. AND it might drive the authentic cable prices down. 

As long as this old thread has been brought back from the dead, I might as well pitch in my feelings.

I have no problems buying Chinese cable "clones", because I am not taking any money out of the pockets of the real companies. As much as I spend on audio, I am not about to spend high dollars for cables*.

So, if I buy Chinese cable clones, I do not do it in lieu of buying the original cable, but as a standalone purchase. I am not weighing the 2 options; spend thousands on this Nordost cable, or spend under $100 for this clone, because I would never do the the former in the first place. And I doubt, anyone with the kind of money who would be able to buy the original Nordost (or whatever other high end cable), is going to be buying the Chinese clone.

The first Chinese clone I bought was about 4 years ago. My cousin, who belongs to an audiophile club in Phoenix, told me about them after his club did listening tests of a flat cable Nordost clone. I bought a pair of .5 meter cables for about $50 to go between my phono stage and preamp. It’s built very good, uses non ferrous RCA connectors.

Does it sound as good as the real thing? I have no idea. But it is as good as the more budget level audiophile cables (Blue Jeans, Morrow, and their ilk), for still quite a bit less those.

I also bought a Chinese clone of a MBL 6010 preamp as a "stop gap" a year ago, after my preamp blew up. I doubt it sounds as good as the real thing, but it sounds better than my old Luxman (a highly thought of vintage unit), for sure, and it holds its own against my friend’s Parasound JC2.

*I am not a ’cable denier’ (I hate that term)

It’s not black and white. Many US audio electronics, speakers, etc. contain parts made in China. Resistors, capacitors, batteries, cables for instruments(like this) etc. or they are entirely assembled in China, or elsewhere. Those products are, nevertheless, designated as Made in the USA. This is not to say China isn’t capable of making some products, including some audio products, that are very high quality.

Totally agree with that. And, as a rule, quality depends on a budget. 

This is not a best case for saving money

My $10 interconnects sound like Telefunkens—open, clear, transparent, neutral and fast. I’ve compared them to ICs up to $500 and the win every time.

I purchased a cheap Chinese made PC on Amazon, just to try it and see for myself . Thick with red/black weaving for that “audiophile” look with a plug stamped “hospital grade”. Was $30 at the time. Looking closely at the plug through the semi transparent plug, you could see half or more of the wire was frayed and sticking out from the terminal screw not making contact.  Pure junk that might end up being a safety hazard..  even at $30, it’s a huge ripoff. 

This DIY bulk speaker cable (8 awg @ $13.75/foot) available from GR Research (construction instructions here) appears remarkably similar to this bulk speaker cable ($4.05/foot) available from China, which is supposed to be similar to Kimber 12TC ($35.50/foot @ Partsconnexion). 

Kimber 12TC is OFHC wire in Teflon, while the GR Research is apparently OFHC in polyethylene, and the Chinese version is advertised as OCC in Teflon.  In any case, the Chinese cable provides a lot of copper for $4/foot in a weave that appears identical to 12TC, so if I were just starting out to build a system I would have no hesitation giving the Ali Express version of this cable a try, leaving me more money to spend on electronics and speakers.

I'm not sure exactly what the discussion is about???  Are we talking about Chinese wire copying wire made in the USA from copper / silver / trace metals mined in the USA, or are you talking about using Chinese produced wire purchased by a USA company terminated by connectors made in the USA and sold as a name brand or are these copies of name brand cables completely sourced from China and marketed as something elite?  

Or finally is this a discussion of false advertising claiming a product is a brand name when it's just a clone of a brand name which means it may or maynot perform as expected?  

All of the above.

mitch2, that is the point. The price and quality of the cable is actually better than GRs I have a few. The OCC silver clad with teflon coating and a 16 strand tight inner weave is really really good cable. I put silver clad over red copper fork spades for terminal ends. The same ends for the OCC silver clad teflon ribbon. 
65-125.00. 2-5 meter pairs of cables already made up.. I swap end too, it take me 20 minutes to swap to any terminal I use and shrink tube it up..

There is a silver twist RCA I use that is just stunning it's a silicone polyvinyl, VERY close to teflon.. 50.00 for 2 meters. 39.00 for a 1 meter and silver over red copper locking RCAs

I have a cooker, so they get a good conditioning for a couple of weeks..

China gets it’s copper from the same place we do in the US. Chile. The largest copper mines in the world are in South America and 59% of the copper used in the US is from Chile. 
 

I used to be an engineer at Cooper industries (Belden wire and Champion Industrial Spark Plugs). Left after Federal Mogul bought us. 
 

So the quality of the core materials used in the US and China are the same. Not the case in finished goods, a few good mfrs in PRC though. 

How would one tell if they're counterfeits ?

Is the only way to buy cables is to buy them brand new and through a reputable dealer?

If you buy on Aliexpress you can be sure they are clones but it doesn't mean they sound bad, as many have indicated. If you are buying on ebay from a local seller you can't be sure even when the asking price is 10x that of the Chinese product . Buying from dealers, probably the safest option but can you still be sure? 

as greater volumes of manufacture get shifted to China the boundaries become ever more indistinct..

Astelmaszek, you have no idea what you're talking about, first of all ofc is not single crystal wire and it doesn't come in eight nines, I think you should go and check your facts and do your research a little bit better. LOL

Thank you to those who offer a logical and even handed take along with impressions. Especially those with actual experience to contribute and not those espousing various opinions of questionable relevance that no one asked for.

I was curious about some Nordost Odin speaker cables and I usually buy good value for money quality Neotech based OCC cables local in Australia from boutique audio makers but for my needs (extra long speaker cables) there are few affordable quality alternatives.

I know someone who had a good experience with their (Odin) RCA interconnects so I was curious if this applied to the speaker cables.

It is between this and another (Aliexpress) no-name hybrid OCC silver/copper (not SPC) for a very similar price. The "Odin" seller even offered to make the cable slightly longer than ordered in case my measurements were short.

Service was responsive and helpful. Now to see if the product is worth its salt. I would never even consider any expensive cables so basically the only thing this "Odin" cable is competing with is the local value and budget options.

This is for my bedroom system so I will see how they are. I actually have authentic Analysis Oval 12 on every speaker of my pretty high end 5.1 HT system (Wisdom Audio L75) and I am now a bit curious as to whether this will give them a run for their money.

I bought a power cable on Amazon and it sounded better than the stock. I also bought a "Krell" power cable and it's great. I took the ends off and the shielding is properly grounded on all of them to the ground pin/plug. The copper strands are thick and actual copper, no aluminum copper cladding. Great care was taken to assemble the cables as well. The Chinese made cables are very good and aren't overpriced by any means. Definitely a happy customer here with Luxman equipment. 

I highly recommend the Xangsane brand, available on their own website or from aliexpress. No clones, just very well engineered and constructed cables that sound very good and are very sanely priced.

I have bought a Xangsane power cable, and I confirm it is a high quality product.

On a lark (a hundred bucks to satisfy my own curiousity), I bought a few Xangsane power cables. "Silver Plated", massive, very well constructed. These aren't clones or gray market over stocks. Just cables made and marketed by a Chinese company. Their advertising was replete with all the cool buzzwords about materials used, etc. 

Upon receipt, they sounded absolutely terrible. Not subtle. Worse than any OEM PC I own. So bad, that I took one completely apart. Nothing surprising. While I cannot confirm the materials used were as advertised, it was still seemingly very well built.

It did confirm to me that PCs matter (If a PC can make something sound better, then conversely, a PC can make it sound worse).

This is not to say they were a rip-off, or to generalize about Chinese products being bad. But I would say are but they aren't necessarily the low cost, low risk path to audio nirvana. 

Now I know.

nosualc

How many hours did you use this PC, to determine it sounded terrible?

Perhaps with a few more hours on it might yield a different perspective.

Cheers.....

Within 30 seconds I could hear they sounded terrible. They did not improve after being run overnight. The next day, I couldn't stand to listen to them any more. Experiment over.

Junk is junk. 

I bought Odin 2 ICs, coax cable, and speaker cables. The speaker cables were a bit too bright in my system, so I tried Odin 2 Gold which I really like. I also have the Odin Gold power cords. Unbelievable bargains

I know its old news by now, but it’s a pet peeve.  I think the adjective fake or counterfeit should be included in their naming convention whenever discussing these cables.

Calling the above cables by the name of the product they have counterfeited (Nordost) is like calling a kit car with a VW bug engine, imitating the real thing, a Shelby Cobra Roadster.

@jetter 

Agreed, but that's already understood in the context of this thread.