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.
My next reincarnation is in China... What is your big picture ? 😁 Seriously i dont want to throw a stone to anyone buying counterfeit by human curiosity... I am in the same opinion as you about reselling them... It is a fraud...Period. I never bought a counterfeit even by curiosity as i said because i dont take cables branded name seriously as a main factor ...
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Don’t tell me what to do and I won’t tell you where to go @roxy54 |
I am so glad not to be obsessed by cables which are among all factors implied in S.Q. experience a real but secondary factor... It is the opposite for acoustics considered to be secondary factor compared to amplifier price tag or even to cables price tags... Buying Chinese conterfeit with a branded name by curiosity is not a sin ... Reselling it is a sin ... 😊 Because cables are for me secondary matter i bought genuine good Chinese cable with Chinese name ... |
@maxima95 no I am not one to follow. At least that fellow has owned the real deal unlike the OP and I guess you. So who is fool? U? |
@tksteingraber no doubt there are parts in our audio components that are made in china. But most if not all are major parts suppliers and the risk for manufacturers to get involved with something akin to the counterfeit cable manufacturing isn’t worth it on many levels including quality which isn’t controlled to the degree required by reputable component manufacturers. The counterfeit industry is a different animal. |
@audphile1 Your question - what materials are used by the chinese to allow them to produce a Nordost Valhalla or Odin counterfeit they can sell for $50 and still make money, raises a disturbing issue for me. That being, you can actually build a cable for $50 and still turn a profit. The price we pay for cables cannot be supported by the cost to manufacture. IMHO. And I don't have fake cables in my system. I paid thousands and resented the margins every time. We are involved in a hobby that allows manufacturers and vendors to take advantage. Again IMHO. You only need to look at the $7,000,000 power cable to know something is not right.
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@maxima95 +1 Exactly!!! |
“- what materials are used by the chinese to allow them to produce a Nordost Valhalla or Odin counterfeit they can sell for $50 and still make money - who builds all this stuff? Have you seen a factory tour? I bet child labor is involved - pretty sure the CCP is grateful for your contribution” Don’t disagree but isn’t this the case for all the Chinese parts and components used in products made/assembled outside of China including USA. At least the assembly labor and some of the parts are not. Not even getting into raw materials. I don’t think any of my USA made audio components don’t have ties to Chinese parts or materials. |
In addition…few more things to think about - - what materials are used by the chinese to allow them to produce a Nordost Valhalla or Odin counterfeit they can sell for $50 and still make money - who builds all this stuff? Have you seen a factory tour? I bet child labor is involved - pretty sure the CCP is grateful for your contribution @hdm sorry man but none of what you said above justifies this. If you can’t afford and or don’t like Nordost selling $30,000 cables, don’t buy them. There are plenty of legitimately good cables available from hard working folks like TWL in example. If you want decent sounding affordable cables they are out there. They just don’t look like Odin or Valhalla. But…you all do as you please. Right wrong or different. |
@pennfootball71 I was raised and believe that if you don’t have anything nice to “Sprook?” you should say nothing at all. It would be an advantageous philosophy to adapt to improve your credibility and support from fellow goners as we share our audio experiences. Name calling instead of being civil in discussing others differing opinions is so petty. @tubeguy76 sprook comment is for any of us that buy and comment in public about these Ali branded products is how I read it. Agree with you, I would never buy real Nordost so no business impact to them. These cables have more impact on the brands in my price range that I may not buy. @audphile1 I would never resell these brand name copies. Repurpose the parts or damage and dispose of them. |
Yeah some of you’re going to box them up and keep them in the basement when you move on. Or tie your garbage bag with these cables which is even a better strategy. That’s just you though. It’s inevitable that some of these cables will end up on a used market at some point and be sold as genuine. It has been happening and will continue to happen and all of you bragging about this garbage and hyping it up will have something to do with it. On a used market it hurts sellers and buyers alike. It causes unnecessary paranoia and overhead that includes disputes, endless back and forth emails, sending cables to manufacturers to get authenticated for a fee, etc Nice job! |
"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.
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@questforhifi I've wondered about that same thing. The Valhalla 2 Reference Speaker Cable is listed at $750 CDN (OCC wire) on the HI FI Audio site. Also listed for $635 CDN (OFC) on the same site. No one seems to have answered your question yet. $750 is a lot of cheese to try out a set of knock off cables. Also not sure that I would ever believe the OCC claim on Ali. They clearly state OFC in the product description. Maybe it just cost $35 extra to type OCC in the title line. 🤣 Nordost Valhalla 2 Reference Speaker Cables OCC Silver Plated Loudspeaker Wire with Gold Plated Serrated Banana Plugs
The Valhalla 2 Reference Speaker Cable consists of twenty-eight conductors divided into four groups of seven. Each conductor is made from solid core 99.999999% oxygen free copper and plated with 85 microns of silver. A Dual Mono-Filament wrap is applied and helically wound around each conductor before a precision FEP jacket is extruded over the outside. The transmission speed of the cable is extremely fast, at 97% the speed of light. V2 exemplifies state of the art technology with very wide bandwidth signals and minimum phase shift. It delivers incredible transient response and dynamic resolution, preserving depth of musical detail and allowing listeners to follow complex recordings with ease. Plug: gold-plated spade connectors or Nordost low-mass Z plugs. |
They go in a box in the basement. Not really fair to sell them. I thought of defacing them and selling them, but not worth the time. In the case of the power cords, I pirated the connectors for some domestic name brand OCC cords I bought that would benefit from the upgrade. The power connectors are top notch on the cables knockoffs that I bought. FWIW, I did not find that the power, speaker or interconnect cables were anything special. All nicely made, but guessing that the underlying copper/silver quality is poor.
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Yeah not sure who the “sprook” comment was for but it seems these cables are actually good and they should be branded differently. To me, the draw is that they work well, not that they’re using high end branding. I suppose I’m part of the problem, but, I’m not a customer for the big brands and likely never will be. |
I never bought Chinese counterfeit cables with Occidental brand names... We cannot resold them first...for the evident reason alluded to by audphile1 I know it is counterfeit... Then it may be good cable but i will feel bad reading the false "branded name "...Disturbing evident truth i refuse to live with ... ( i dont judge anyone here and if someone dont resold it i understand why he want to try it by curiosity ) What i did is buying Chinese cables with Chinese design name ...Problem solved ...😎 I was satisfied with no disturbing false branded name .. If the Chinese can make a good cable anyway they can sell it too with a Chinese name and they did at even a lowest price ... 😊 Then there is no real advantage to buy counterfeit Chinese cables... On the opposite there is good reason to buy some of their low cost cables ... They dont change the cable technology because they put a counterfeit branded name with more flashy parts ...😊 |
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@pennfootball71 typo aside you are right. Special indeed to hawk illegal goods. |
@tubeguy76 i feel these Chinese Odin cables are exceptional value and sound very good. Better than many more expensive lines. I bought the Valhalla ribbon white speaker cables and they are excellent once broken in at 75 + hours. Mine were branded Audiocrast but identical. I had them on both my systems and was very happy. Bested Nordost Odin 2 silver round speaker cables, Mogami and Dh labs Q-10 very noticeably. I moved on in my main system when I Came across a used pair of Goertz MI 3 copper ribbon speaker cables. They have amazing performance for their price…not to get sidetracked. Also have several Odin gold power cables, Odin gold IC’s, Odin silver IC and ethernet. All perform way a over their price and compare very favorably to my favorite cable line Audio Envy. Some SS components the Odin’s sound as good or better than AE. Tube gear AE all the way. Just my experience with my systems, ears, and taste preference. |
@hdm Thank you, that's the feedback I was looking for, much appreciated. I was looking at the Accuphase cables and the ribbon Valhallas so it seems I'm on the right track.
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"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. |
I read some posts a while back by someone thinking they scored a real pair of Cardas Clear Sky interconnects at a great deal. Hopefully you are correct that most know better than to fall for it.
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@decooney A buyer doesn't need a sharp eye, or even know what a real Cardas cable is supposed to look like. The fact they are buying on Ali Express means the cable is a knock off. Surely no one believes they are getting the real thing for $50. And if they do, then they deserve exactly what they get. |
Given our concerns about keeping our cable makers going, what are the ethics of buying cables used on sites like this rather than new, directly from the manufacturer? Can it be justified by the hope that the money will eventually trickle up to the producers if that money eventually ends up in the hands of someone who will is selling their stuff to get enough money to buy something new? Otherwise, is it much better than buying counterfeits as long as one acknowledges that they are precisely that? (I prefer to buy used rather than counterfeits, although just to try it I have a couple of "$12" name-brand interconnects on order. When they arrive, I will write "Fake" next to the brand so there is no mistaking their origin.) But, that said, should we be also beating ourselves up for trying to score equipment we desire but can't afford new rather than buying only what we can afford at list price? |
@tubeguy76 PM me. I have some AliExpress Nordost Odin cords. |
If anyone wants to see what FAKE COUNTERFEIT Cardas interconnect cables look like, go to aliexpress right now, and type in "Cardas" or "Cardas RCA" or "Cardas XLR". Good grief, now there is 5x more than last year. All crap junk. Every single pair on the site listed right now is absolutely 100% fake counterfeit garbage. I won't share how or ways to identify it online, NOT to give them a leg up on perfecting their craft of fakeness, but any Cardas owner or a sharp eye can see it on every single ad just studying the photos and text alone. There are at least 4-5 ways to identify the fakeness by studying closely without even cutting them open. If you do buy a set, before you throw them in the garbage, send them to Cardas to hang on their fake cable display, and so they can add more photos on their site. .
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Go to the ALIEXPRESS website and check out these fake “NORDOST” ODIN GOLD power cables video pushing them for sale online. Keep in mind that Ag bullion is selling at over $USD 2000 / oz when you check out and compare the AliExpress “princely” sales price at the link below at $CAD 54.96 … wow …. What a great deal!😅 Pay particular attention to the shite build connector plug along with the “made in USA” stamped on it, shite Litz cable build, and the absence of cable sheathing.
Nordost Odin Gold Hifi Power Cord Audio High Fidelity Fever Power Cable Schuko Version Power Line |
10+ pieces, extra 3% off