Counterfeit Chinese Cables

As I stated earlier in the thread, I purchased a set of Chinese "Neardost" Odin Gold IC's (RCA) recently and then purchased an additional 5 pairs of them as they significantly bettered a much pricier IC, which I simply sold off (two pairs) recently for about 3X  more than I paid for the 6 pairs of Ali Express cables. 

Did an interesting comparison at a friend's place yesterday; his system is considerably more "upmarket" than mine is, consisting of a Clearaudio Innovation table & Charisma cartridge, an Allnic phono preamp (forget the model), an Allnic L-10000 preamp, Bryston 14B Cubed power amp and B&W 802D3 speakers. 

This was not an apples to apples comparison (ie. Chinese Odin Gold vs. the real thing) but we did compare the Chinese Odin Gold in his system to genuine (older) Nordost Valhalla V1. I took two sets of the Chinese OG over and they simply replaced the two sets of Valhalla running between his phono preamp/preamp and preamp/power amp. 

For music, we listened to a copy of Lloyd Cole's Antidepressant as well as an "Audiophile Series" half speed master of Supertramp's Crime of the Century. 

This was not a blind test, but sighted, and there were 4 of us there including me. 

The 3 others preferred the Valhalla but personally, I did not like it as much as the Chinese knockoff Golds. The others found the Valhalla to be more detailed (which I can understand) and also felt that it sounded fuller, which I could not understand and definitely disagreed with. 

The strengths of the Valhalla were in high frequency extension (by comparison the Gold knockoffs sounded slightly rolled off) and they sounded tighter and more controlled in the bass. But they also sounded considerably thinner (to me only, which I thought was a bit strange) and that thinness contributed to what I perceived to be a "sense" of more detail that you often get with a cable that does sound slightly thinner with what I think is an emphasis on the upper midrange. 

By comparison, the Gold knockoffs sounded to me quite a bit fuller/richer in the midrange (some might possibly find them too "bloomy" there but I certainly did not) but bass was not quite as tight and there was slightly less treble energy. They had a slightly more "mid hall" presentation than the Valhallas as far as I was concerned.

One of the others commented, for example, that he felt that a sax solo sounded more detailed on the Valhallas and I would agree that leading and trailing edge of notes certainly had more apparent detail, but at the expense of body and richness of sound from the sax itself. 

Similarly, the Valhalla also seemed to "highlight" vocals a bit more, isolating them in space but also sounding slightly sibilant to me. 

In the end, none of us really know what the master tape sounds like so it comes down to subjective preferences in many cases. To some, differences are more pronounced to others and those subjective preferences come into play. 

So differences were heard and preferences expressed. The one comment from the group that was unanimously agreed upon was that the price differential made absolutely no sense: $100 Cnd. for the two sets of Gold knockoffs vs. the new retail price of two sets of the Valhalla at the time (I believe my friend purchased used) of around $8000 Cnd. And that the overall presentation of both interconnects was much closer than would be expected at the price points. 

Thinking afterward, I also thought that if my friends preferred the Valhallas overall presentation that the straight knockoff Odin might be preferable to them as opposed to the Gold, which is supposed to have a warmer tonal balance and different presentation vs. the non-Gold knockoffs (and why I ordered the Golds in the first place). 

The "problem" with the Chinese knock offs is that there are so many variants of them that it is difficult to find any general consensus as to which one might be "the best". And it is a subjective hobby with subjective listening preferences.

The reading that I’ve done (some here, most on other forums) suggested that the newer Odin Golds were the ones which rated the highest among users, but it would be fair to say that most of those users probably preferred a slightly warmer overall presentation in their interconnects, which was what I was interested in.

I ordered a pair of Chinese Nordost Odin Gold IC’s (RCA to RCA with the fake Holo plugs) off Aliexpress to test them out and was very pleased with them. The end result: I ordered 4 more sets of IC’s at a total cost of $250 Cnd delivered-these replace IC’s in both my main and secondary system.

I sold off two sets of very highly thought of interconnects in the main system (one was 1.5 m and the other .7 m) that have a retail price of $800 Cnd. (I bought one set new and one used) for $500, put $250 in my pocket and ended up with much better performance in both systems.

Consider me happy. I might cryo and have the fake Odin Golds burned in after that at some point, but even without that treatment they definitely outperformed a very good set of OCC copper IC’s terminated with genuine Furutech plugs.

Hard to believe that anyone buying the Chinese Odin Golds with the holo plugs at $50 a pop for 1M pairs would be disappointed.

I only have experience with the fake Golds but I really like them. At somewhere around the 50-75 hour mark they became much more relaxed and holographic for lack of a better word (and they are pretty relaxed right out of the bag). Soundstage depth was probably marginally enhanced but depth or sense of depth seemed to really improve with break in. They are a very "musical" cable as opposed to a "hi-fi" sounding cable.

I’m going to experiment a bit further and have a couple of sets of the Golds cryogenically treated and see how they react. As it is right now, they are the only non-cryoed cables in my system as I’ve been either having stuff cryoed myself or running cables that have been treated by the manufacturer for the past 15+ years.

I’m not looking forward to the burn-in post cryo as it will be a bit nasty and definitely take some time (50-100 hours all over again I’d expect, maybe more) and I normally just take cables in to one of my local dealers to have them run on the cable cooker for a few days after cryo. Cost is there but the benefits of not having to deal with burn-in are worth it IMO.

But my dealer with the cable cooker is a Nordost dealer and I don’t have the heart to show up there with multiple pairs of fake Odin Golds (would be two initially and then possibly 4 more!) and ask them to cook them lol!

Jetter:

The first two pairs I purchased from Preffair and the remainder (4 pairs) were purchased from Moonsaudio. All Nordost Odin Gold rca to rca. They appear to be identical in construction/plugs etc. and perform the same. 

Anyone who says these are garbage has clearly never heard them. To follow up on my last post, I did go ahead and have all the sets I owned cryoed and burned in on an Audiodharma cable cooker (I initially cryoed and burned in 2 sets and then compared them to stock without cryo/burn-in) and they improved further and exhibited the kinds of improvements I've always had doing this with cables: notably improved detail, refinement and smoothness, a slightly larger soundstage, etc. 

They are very good cables and easily displaced some pretty good stuff I was using (and thought was a bit of a bargain) before that retails around the $300 mark. And, as I said, I compared them directly in a very good system to real Valhalla version 1 (before cryo and burn-in) and preferred them to the real Valhalla v1. 

phastm3 seems to have them hooked up to some very nice equipment. It would be interesting if he could comment on (generally) what he was using before and how the Odin Golds compare (it looks like he is using all Odin Gold as well). 

Let's put this into some context and perspective in terms of the "illegality". These knockoffs are being sold not at 50-60% of Nordost's prices, let alone the 10% stated above by a poster concerned about the counterfeiting. The Odin Gold IC's I purchased are being sold at 1/20th of 1% of the quoted retail price of the real thing lol! There was not much chance I believed them to be actual Odin Gold haha!

The idea that Nordost is being damaged in any real way is ludicrous as the buyer for one product is simply not the buyer for the other. So it's pretty ridiculous to suggest Nordost is being harmed in any meaningful way. If someone wants to suggest that there might be an issue with someone reselling and representing the item as the real thing then that is another issue entirely and far more reprehensible IMO. Save your outrage for that. 

So as far as any outrage I feel toward the Ali-express sellers of the interconnects I bought, I'd put it at about the same level of outrage that I feel toward people driving 2-3 miles per hour over the speed limit. That's illegal too, and much more likely to actually be harmful. As you can tell, I'm not losing any sleep over that either. I do that for things that are actually important. 

I'm not really interested in "slippery slope" type arguments here. It would be great if we lived in a black and white world but unfortunately we do not. Once again: context & perspective. 

Continue on with discussion about the actual cable (which as I've said, is really quite good). 

Agreed. Public Service announcement: All six pairs of my imitation (it is the sincerest form of flattery!) Odin Gold interconnects share the same serial number 02280.

Under no circumstances should anyone pay more than $19 for a half metre pair or about $38 (delivered to your door lol) for Odin Gold IC’s bearing this serial number!

😉

Can't comment on authentic Nordost Odin 2 as have no experience with it, but as I posted upthread, I compared the Chinese Odin Gold RCA interconnects (2 sets) in a friends system directly with authentic/real Nordost Valhalla V1.

In that system the Chinese OG replaced the Valhalla 1 running from an Allnic Phono Preamp (can't recall the model number but it's higher up in the Allnic range and retailing at around $10K I believe) to an Allnic L-10000 linestage and then from the L-10000 to a Bryston 14B Cubed power amp. Turntable was a Clearaudio Innovation with Universal Tonearm and Clearaudio's top of the line MM cartridge. Speakers were big B&W floorstander Diamonds. A very nice system. 

This was not a blind test but rather sighted. There were 4 of us there and the 3 others felt the Valhalla 1 was a bit more detailed (but in no way really embarrassing the Chinese Odin Gold). That was possible but I felt that the detail may have been more distortion related than real and I thought the Chinese Odin Gold had a much quieter, blacker background and sounded noticeably smoother, more refined and more natural than the real Valhalla 1. 

And that was before I cryoed the Chinese Neardost and had it burned in on an Audiodharma cable cooker, which improved it further (more extended at both frequency extremes, more detailed midrange while still retaining all the smoothness, and a much wider soundstage). I really felt that the real Valhalla 1 would end up giving me listening fatigue over longer sessions. 

Cost on the Neardost Odin Gold for two pairs of RCA's: about $80. Cost for the two sets of real Valhalla 1 purchased a few years ago used: about $3,000 as I recall. 

The Chinese Odin Gold was not only competitive: I wouldn't trade it even for the real Valhalla, unless of course I was going to pawn off the real Valhalla on some poor unsuspecting sucker for some ridiculous price and then just buy another couple of sets of the Chinese OG. 

Just another experience that those with an open mind might want to consider.

I have no experience with any Aliexpress Neardosts other than the Odin Gold RCA interconnects so the rest of the stuff may well be junk, but I really like the Chinese Odin Golds, and sold off some much more expensive IC's-but not in the same cost league as the Nordost Valhalla's-after buying just one set of the fake Odin Golds to experiment with. I then bought 5 more sets to completely outfit both systems in the house and pocketed about $500 after selling 2 pairs of reasonably well known IC's that I was using in the main system from a North American manufacturer.

FWIW, I have a couple of friends who are also using the Audiocrast ribbon speaker cables mentioned above who also really like them. I think I'd take a run at those if I felt like changing speaker cables, as opposed to the fake Odin Gold speaker cables which seem to get a bit more of a lukewarm review. But I'm reasonably happy with my current speaker cables so will sit tight. 

"I’m not interested in buying fake cables just to pretend I have Cardas or Nordost. Just looking for a good value cable."

Tubeguy76:

You could do much worse than purchasing the Aliexpress Accuphase 40th cables, both power and interconnect. 

I started off with one of the power cables and now have 6 of them. Was using the Chinese Nordost Odin Gold RCA's (yeah for $50-$60, I knew that I was not buying the real thing which Nordost sells for $30K ;)) and they had replaced some very well known and highly regarded $300-$400 IC's but bought a few of the Accuphase IC's-they are ridiculously inexpensive at around $25 pair-and felt them to be an improvement on the fake Odin Golds (which I compared to real Nordost Valhalla version 1 in a friend's much more expensive system and actually preferred the Chinese cables), which have now moved to my secondary system. 

Also splurged on the Accuphase USB cable and it did not disappoint either. 

Probably wouldn't spring for the speaker cables though and am not making any changes there at the moment-currently using cryoed Mogami 3103 and no real desire to change-it is a very good cable. 

On the Ali speaker cables, the ones that usually get the most buzz are the ribbon Valhallas. Have a few friends using those, one in a very high end system (Transrotor turntable with Reed arm, Threshold amplification, top of the line Coincident speakers etc.), and they do sound very good. 

As I've mentioned here before, the Accuphase power cable is being sold under a different name here on Audiogon for $350 and up (depending on length) with some rave reviews. Or you can purchase on Ali direct for about $40-$50. 

"A question to all who currently own these counterfeit cables…

When you’re ready to move on and upgrade, what will you do with these fakes?"

I have a few sets of the Chinese Nordost Odin Gold IC's here. They're good cables (having replaced some $300-$400 IC's) and I now have a few extras (as I upgraded to the Accuphase 40th Anniversary IC's at $20 a pair haha!) and will probably just keep them as it's nice to have some extras around to accommodate changes/additions in the secondary system. Or I might just give them to a younger audiophile who might be building a system that could put them to use, telling them of course that they're fakes. 

If I was to sell them on, I'd clearly identify them as Chinese clones and sell them at a reasonable price, certainly less than what they could be purchased for directly on Aliexpress. And the ones I have here have been cryoed and burned in on an Audiodharma cable cooker. 

I'd certainly make an effort to sell them to someone that I thought would not misrepresent them in the future, but stuff happens and there are unscrupulous people out there-it is just human nature sadly. 

I sold a Koetsu Black (a real one LOL!) about 20-25 years ago on this site that had a few thousand hours on it and needed to be retipped or rebuilt (which was not really an affordable option in those days-would have needed to go back to Koetsu for big $$$, which I was not willing to do), fully disclosing to the Buyer these details. He turned around and passed it on as a much newer cartridge selling it to another member here for big $$$. Info on this may still be archived here-that 3rd buyer complained through Audiogon and I came forward to support him and I believe the buyer I sold to was forced to refund the $$$ and may have been banned. 

Unfortunately stuff like this is going to happen, whether it's with counterfeit or non-counterfeit goods. How many 70's  Pioneer or Marantz receivers have been picked up at the Goodwill, sprayed with some contact cleaner and then sold for thousands of $$$ with a claim that they've been fully serviced. 

As I have stated clearly in threads like these many times, buying the Nordost clones (or the Accuphase branded product) has not taken any money out of the pockets of Nordost. The Chinese "Nordost" are $50 and the real Nordost are $30,000. Yes, I'd prefer that the Chinese not label or brand them as Nordost. But I'd also prefer that Nordost not sell their real Nordost Golds for $30,000. Frankly, I find both to be almost equally distasteful, for lack of a better word. 

In the overall scheme of things in my life which I feel are distasteful, though, both rank very low in terms of being excessively bothersome (ie. there are much more important things to get worked up about).

As in: I'm going to get about as worked up about buying the Chinese clone wire as I am thinking about how disgustingly obscene it might be that Nordost is selling interconnects for $30K at what are surely outrageous profit margins and the guy that's buying them could be donating that money to feed a small village in Africa for a year or even impoverished people more local to him. (Now if the guy wants to buy the real Nordost Gold AND support the impoverished, clearly I could have no problem with that!) And I am certainly not a bleeding heart liberal. 

There are a lot of different ways to actually look at this situation. It's not really a black and white one to me. Lots of grey here. 

Am I my audiophile brother's keeper? Yeah, in the sense of not misrepresenting something and ripping someone off going forward. But no in the sense of being responsible for the scumbag who might buy from me to resell and make a profit. 

And, as I say, there's plenty of that going on in the hobby and sites like this on non-counterfeit product as well. 

The Nordost Odin Golds that I bought off Aliexpress were $50. The real Nordost Odin Golds are $40,000.

There was no intention to deceive or defraud me by the Chinese sellers of these cables, unless of course they either assumed I was incredibly/particularly stupid or I was in fact incredibly/particularly stupid. 

Same with the Accuphase stuff I bought for other reasons which I won't go into to keep my post brief.  

By definition then (at least the definition given above), I suppose they can no longer be considered counterfeit, at least not for the initial purchaser. The fraudulent behaviour would then fall upon a reseller of the cable who was misrepresenting it to deceive and defraud and profit. 

I propose we change the name of the thread to "Blatantly Obvious Reproduction Chinese Cables" to eliminate all the indignation and name calling.

There ya go! Problem solved. Carry on......