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Counterfeit Chinese Cables

I thought that I would write this for those who are curious about one of the many counterfeit Chinese interconnect cables that are available these days. I know that there have been threads about the subject before, and I was always curious because they seem to be such a bargain. I don't really recall much about what any members actually said about the performance of these counterfeit cables, and I didn't look back and do any research, but a couple of months ago there was a thread that came around to discussing the quality of Chinese made components, and oldhvymec said something that made sense to me.

He said that people that say that what they are making is junk should consider that much of what is in our gear, and a lot of our American brands are actually manufactured there. I decided shortly after that that I would take the chance on a set of interconnects, because I suspected that the interconnects going from my pre to my amp were the weak link and needed upgrading. The interconnects going from my DAC to my pre were Kimber Select which are very good, but the other set were LAT International (now defunct) which had cost $500.00 when new, but I had reason to believe they were lacking because I have one of their digital cables that turned out to be very poor sounding in comparison to others I own.

I decided on a one meter pair of counterfeit Nordost Odin interconnects for a total of $104.00 from Aliexpress. I received them a couple of weeks later. They appeared to be well made, and the locking fake WBT rca's were very impressive and are very tight. 

First impressions after installing them were light, thin sound, lacking bass. Each couple of days brought improvements, but from the beginning I noticed that they were quieter. Now, weeks later, I can say that they are drastically better that the LAT's in every way. Detail and ambience are much better, but it's the focus and separation of instruments that is most noticeable. 

I have no way of knowing if they are really a copy of the Nordost design, but I am impressed enough that I am going to try a counterfeit Nordost digital cable.

Obviously, this isn't a comparison that is useful to most, because there probably isn't anyone here using the LAT's, and everything is system dependent. I just wanted to relay my positive experience. 

Nordost ODIN&2 RCA Fever Audio Signal Cable Double Lotus Sterling Silver Audio Cord Video CD Amplifier Tube Cable High Quality| | - AliExpress

roxy54

Showing 2 responses by jacobsdad2000

jacobsdad2000
433 posts
 

Bit of a contradiction from your August Post.  In August it was the best cable ever and come October you're getting ripped off? 

I purchased; FURUTECH Flagship OCC HIFI Speaker Cable Fever Grade Audio Cable from China & from here in the States, both equal lengths. The cable price I paid for in the States were 10x’s more then the cable from China. The bottom line is, that there’s no difference whatsoever between the two! Makes me wonder if we're all getting ripped off?

 

danmar123's avatar

danmar123

331 posts

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^;

last weekend I pulled the other cable, now both channels have the Furutech. I can't get over how good this cable is. Worth every penny, the best upgrade I've done in years! I just might rewire my surround speakers.. Down the Rabbit hole again! LOL

jacobsdad2000
433 posts
 

@mahgister How many Canadian engineers? Also the us population is not 333,2888,000.

Your data is suspect also; This data is from 2005 and I think your numbers high for the US. 

ASSESSING UNDERGRADUATE ENGINEERING

Various articles in the popular media, speeches by policy-makers, and reports to Congress have stated that the United States graduates roughly 70,000 undergraduate engineers annually, whereas China graduates 600,000 and India 350,000. Even the National Academies and the U.S. Department of Education have cited these numbers. Such statements often conclude that because China and India collectively graduate 12 times more engineers than does the United States, the United States is in trouble. The remedy that typically follows is for the United States to graduate more engineers. Indeed, the Democrats in the House of Representatives in November 2005 proposed an Innovation Agenda that called for graduating 100,000 more engineers and scientists annually.

RATHER THAN TRYING TO MATCH THEIR DEMOGRAPHIC NUMBERS AND COST ADVANTAGES, THE UNITED STATES NEEDS TO FORCE COMPETITORS TO MATCH ITS ABILITY TO INNOVATE.

But we suspected that this information may not, in fact, be totally accurate. In an analysis of salary and employment data, we did not find any indication of a shortage of engineers in the United States. Also, we obtained anecdotal evidence from business executives doing business in India and China that indicated that those were the countries with shortages. To obtain better information about this issue, we embarked on a project to obtain comparable engineering graduation data from the United States, China, and India.

U.S. graduation statistics are readily available from the Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics. Extensive data on engineering education are also collected by the American Society for Engineering Education and the Engineering Workforce Commission. In order to collect similar data for China and India, we initially contacted more than 200 universities in China and 100 in India. Chinese universities readily provided aggregated data, but not detail. Some Indian universities shared comprehensive spreadsheets, but others claimed not to know how many engineering colleges were affiliated with their schools or lacked detail on graduation rates by major. In the case of China, we eventually obtained useful data from the Ministry of Education (MoE) and, most recently, from the China Education and Research Network (CERN). In India, we obtained data from the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM) and the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE).

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