How Is This Possible? Must be Counterfeits
I just stumbled upon this website and they have branded products such as Nordost and Audioquest at about 10% of the normal retail. How is this even possible and if they are indeed fakes, how come companies like Nordost do not sue them? Truly puzzling. https://www.aliexpress.us/w/wholesale-nordost.html?spm=a2g0o.detail.search.0
These cable brands mentioned on here do not manufacture cables in the first place but buy from actual manufacturers (or import from China) and resell them. Do not buy fake cables though. Buy no brand cables or WBC/Canare cables on Amazon so that you can return for a full refund. Cable burn-in is totally fake. Just be smart and don't waste money. |
I bought a bi-amp speaker cable set from Aliexpress , so four cables, the Odin branded with the wood block and spade connectors. The cables arrived within a week, so that’s a good start Before the cables were used, it was worth to test the cables for polarity and resistance. So the red had to match with red, and black with black, all cool there. The resistance measurement told the truth on how these particular cables were made. The resistance measured with a Fluke 289 in relative mode varied from 1 ohm to 80 ohms. The branded Furutech connector was heatshrinked onto the cable, and the clamping screw just spun and stripped, so clamping the cable was useless. The vendor was sceptical that the readings wouldn’t affect the sound, but eventually saw reason and granted a full refund. They paid for the return shipping to a local agent. So now, have bought Furutech a36 diy cable, connectors, and the same spade furutech connectors as the Odin, let’s see how that works. |
Let me tell you my story wt Chinese clones. Three years ago I bought some Chinbese Odin for $150 for a friend's system. Of course it sounded "okay", looking mysteriously close to the OEM. But the main body's plastic wouldn't flex as does pure FEP (Teflon). Indeed, it was cheap extruded PE...milk jugs! But I decided to explore further, buying a meter of the stuff and comparing jumpers made from it on my ref speakers, which had "enjoyed" Nordost SPM for decades. Couldn't pass an AB/X. So I carefully slit off ALL the outer cheap PE body, leaving a loose ribbon of individual plated Cu conductors that indeed had a very thin FEP cover on each. Huh...at least they paid lip service to that inner dielectric. Further, the coiled synthetic red "spacer" was identical to Nordost's. So I taped up these now-semi-naked strands and repeated the demos. Still no delta. Finally, I skinned off ALL the FEP and red spiral-wrap, gently and lightly taping the flat and naked array in the same geometry as original (and OEM). STILL no difference in sound. Eventually I bought some pure solid 20AWG silver strands, stuffed them in air tubes, wrapped as a star-quad (net 14AWG), using nice spades, and VOILA, all the solver-PLATED-copper crap I'd been listening to disappeared! Ok...this isn't a thread about conductor metals nor my ArgentPur startup, but about the extent to which a Chinese shop cloned Odin...except for the big bulky carcass. But to this day I continue to have disdain for ANY and all plated conductors. |
A couple years ago I had some Cardas Cygnus speaker cables that I bought from a dealer new. I wanted my interconnects to match but wasn't ready to shell out the cash so bought them from Ali. I knew they were fake but thought why not try. Part of the cable upgrade for me is aesthetics. Well, the aesthetics were alright but the sound was NOT. I had modest Audioquest King Cobra IC at the time and the sound got very shrill and lost life. I was impressed that they allowed me to return them for a full refund without any fuss. |
@audphile1 I was given the kopi luwak beans as a gift, and i have to say, nothing special. |
Selling the Bridge of San Francisco for a price as low as $ 60K is not a scam if you believe that you own the bridge and no one can contradict you because you live in Australia and it make you feel good.. Trust me i can sell it right now for this price...I will wait for those interested ...😊
Cables with very high price appear to me as a scam of his own for very rich people able to call that a good deal because it make "a difference" ... Anything can make a difference ... Legally or not ... Legitimate or not ... How about my own cable i may sell 100K bucks only , why not ? i modified them with my secret mixture (shungite+quartz+copper ) ? 😊 Nobody ready to buy multi thousand dollars cable dare to try my simple experiment ... i trust myself ONLY my experiment ... At peanuts costs ... |
’Counterfeit’ is when product of inferior quality pretends to be a real thing. As far as I can tell, Chinese knockoff do no pretend and simply advertise as ’same schematics’ for amps or ’same materials and technology’. Prices of ’real’ thing are not defined by quality or cost of materials. They are defined by how many units company can sell using its brand name. dCS sells DACs for $20K. Chinese can use same parts, they have same quality of engineers and FPGA programmers, China manufactures those 0.0001% tolerance parts so they can definitely replicate products at fraction of their brand name costs. This is generally normal process in all industries. Eventually everyone can make your better mousetrap and it is no longer exclusive. |
Nordost selling a cable for $60k is not a scam if you believe that it makes your system sound better. It is also true that no one will be able to rank any group of high-end cables by price, and you could probably include a few quality made Chinese knockoffs in that group along with them. The question you have to ask about the fakes is, are they made as described in the product description details? If they are-- they just might be decent cables. Honestly, anyone that believes they’re getting a real value for spending $60k on a cable, and has the money to do it -- well I’m pretty sure you’re what Nordost calls "a perfect customer". Using excellent cables is important in any highly resolving audio system-- and a lot of cable companies take advantage of that situation by pricing their products crazy high -- because confirmation bias can be, with the right marketing, a gold mine. |
Why.......of course, they’re counterfeit cables. There’s a gentleman of youtube who has acquired several of the fake, Chinese made cables, which are sold on-line on AliExpress, and proceeds to dissect them in order to demonstrate and confirm their inauthenticity. The gentleman points out the differences between the fake and the authentic cables. The gentleman also proceeds to audition and evaluate the fake cable in his own system. The gentleman states that the fake cables are exceptionally built, and their sound quality in his system, although obviously not on par with the real thing, are still some of the best he’s heard. And boy do those fake cables look good. |
+1 @bbarten |
Stumbling upon AliExpress, is kinda like stumbling upon Amazon :)
Counterfeits galore…
But, there are original Chinese brands of cable that are very good for the money. I picked up a phono cable as I was having issues with noise with the one I was using. Problem solved. Sounds great and no noise. Wasn’t ready to spend $$$’s on a cable now, but for the comparative low cost of this cable - 150??? - the problem was fixed. At least now I know the issue was indeed w the cable. it’s also a great source for diy “bits”, if you’re into that.
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No one bashed any Chinese products. The discussion was how they effectively copy products and sell them blatantly as the same brand. If they were selling as a duplicate brand name, example Sharp Vs Shrap, then that would be different. Don’t jump into conclusions just because have so much time on hand. |
I am flabbergasted by the way the brain work... Others had all the faults , ourselves none ... I bet many had never read a book ... 😊 For sure it is true the CCP dont recognise any patent laws...😁 But what else is also true ?
To stay in the cables thread i must say that i just damped my chinese preamplifier tubes with silicone rings...(1 dollars for 10)😎 Way better imaging and details ...Like buying a way costlier cable upgrade... You know what i means ? 😁 I never encountered this improvement change with an European tube amplifier which i bought for a way higher cost than my chinese preamplifier ( 6 times higher cost)... Anyway it was so bad headphone amplifier , a well reviewed one by the way , i sold it with 40 tubes few years ago for a low price 😁... I vouch to never bought tubes again ... 😊 I was wrong ... Then i will not bash low cost Chinese product. Some are more than just good for the price ...Some are trash... It is the same thing in any country by the way some gear are bad and some are good ...
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Stupidity is what it is. There are miniscule to non-existent gains in cables above a certain price point. There are much bigger gains by spending in other areas. I have some of the more expensive cables from the likes of Ansuz, Audioquest, etc, mostly given to me by a couple of friends at some point. I can at least appreciate the technical ideas there with some brands, i.e., some of the more innovative ways of noise rejection by the likes of Ansuz, etc. Nordost is just a silly non-cranial brand, ugh ( a whole lotta nothing there, but fluff)...Makes sense to me that the Chinese are selling it for 60 bucks.
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For sure... And most Chinese as most American engineers will laugh at me using shungite and quartz... It only prove that engineers had limits... Being nothing i had no limits...😊 My cables are "different" but i dont sell them ... 😉
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Perhaps a lot more than in most parts of the world for obvious reasons and yes most of engineers including Chinese strongly believe that the only difference between any wire including fakes and Nordost is just a brand name for which you can pay upto $30k more. |
It is not far less preposterous to think that buying a 50,000 bucks gear upgrade for a living room will be 30,000 times better than a 20,000 system in a dedicated acoustic room ... And this proposal is the general intuition among many audiophiles.. Acoustics rules audio not price tags ...
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I looked at them, they are not nearly the same external quality. Also, a number of people have cut them open… scraping the silver coating off the copper wire. They sound nothing like the refined Odin 2… vailed, less dynamic, less detailed not close to the same league. There is actually more than one imitator making these things. A number of different brands. |
How did you determine this? Did you actually cut into your expensive original Nordost and the fake one, lay them out side by side to see what the layup is, etc? 😑 How different did they sound sonically? any specifics you can elaborate on? |
I have worked in mainland China and across the globe for decades in the manufacturing supply chains. China is full of great people, hundreds that I have known. The vast majority are great people with similar hopes and dreams… with about 700 million trying to get from lower class near poverty to the middle class.
The government of China does not recognize international patent laws and some people take advantage of this. Yes, this is bad, they should and as they develop their own proprietary technology they will eventually want to protect it and get on board. The US is full of people that do much worse than this. It is unfair to generalize from the actions of a few to all. I read about the fakes and since I had a pair of Nordost Odin 2 interconnects for a while I bought a pair of fakes from AliExpress. No, they do not sound like the real thing or are they constructed of the same materials. I’ll throw them out at some point versus let some one try to pass them off as real. |
Some even asked the question ...😊 Some even buy a 20,000 bucks cable...😋 Some even will hear no differences between the 20,000 bucks cables and the fake...😁 Some smile because even if effectively cables matter they dont matter as much for 20,000 bucks in most limited budget ... Those who will contradict this will argue that there is a "difference"... They are not even wrong...I myself hear a difference between all my cables...Yes i am not deaf... I tuned my 100 resonators and it was not bad... 😏 My point is any system must be balanced by all parameters implied in a room ...Cables matter way less than the acoustic location and price of my chair ...😎 Give me a 20,000 bucks chair ... I will use a chinese non counterfeit cables and all will be OK in my marvellous acoustically well located chair ... If all details matter as claimed by cables sellers , the chair position matter way more among many other as much important acoustic parameter... Why there is no chair position and comfort threads between two cables thread ? Because no one sell acoustic chair ... 😉 |
Just buy a Prius. You won’t feel the difference and for the money you saved buy yourself a Louis Vuitton suitcase. |
This Taleb know something others dont know : I read his books by the way and his master was Benoit Mandelbrot the genius creating fractals geometry who i read in 1976 in french when he was unknown ...😊 I trust Taleb judgement listen the video he commented about a Chinese diplomat speaking of Great Britain ... https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1776964373761720543 https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1776801470874071551 Some Chinese cable are certainly good but i dont know which one , as some american cable are good but i dont know which one ... Bashing all chinese products is childish reaction ... |
comedy |
No acoustician ever bought 30,000 bucks cable for his system guess why ? 😊 you are probably not far from truth :
Some chinese are crook and ignorant... Some others are not... How many engineers are created each years in China ?
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@jmalen123 Totally agree re build your own. I think my next power cables will be DIY with parts from VH Audio. https://www.vhaudio.com/neotech-nep-3200.html I built my speaker cables with their CHeLA wire. I'd put them up against cables costing 10 times as much. |
I had a similar thread a while back; the whole thing boggles my mind too. A better question is why Chinese websites like this are allowed to be seen in our Continent, and the rest of the world, while China bans multiple websites, social media platforms, and anything else they don't like- such as journalism that tells the truth. I suppose we value freedom of speech, and we don't want to stoop as low as them. |
Yeah, save your money, I have tried it and it's not worth it. One of those things to do just to say you did it perhaps. Like flying to space for 50 million? I wouldn't buy it again for the same price as the regular coffee I get shipped to my house at $20 a bag. |
