re "Frankly I’m pretty amazed by companies like Schiit, Rogue and some others who can play in the budget/midFi categories and still manufacture here in the US what with our significantly higher wages, health benefits, and overall costs of doing business — truly impressive."
INDEED, and I salute them. My system, including Vandersteens, is American-made except for my Rega CD player. I try to avoid China-made products because of their political system and hegemony, and their piracy of intellectual property. They have capitalized (see what I did there?😎 ) on America's insatiable demand for cheaper goods (looking at you Walmart and Walton family), which had led to the export of manufacturing offshore and to China by American companies.
Their manufacturing skill is truly amazing though.
Will China become the poor man’s dealer for high end audio?
With the insane prices now being asked for audio equipment from manufacturers around the globe is china going to fill in the gap between the haves and have-nots.? We are already seeing some signs of this with manufacturers like Jays Audio and Denafrips offering product-performance prices below global market value. The only thing I see holding them back is they will always be one leg behind the rest of the world since they copy most of the technology they use and world wide acceptance.
China is following the pattern Japan did. Advance rapidly in a few decades and be very financially successful while having a very low birth rate. When you aren't spending resources on bringing up the next generation you can have incredible economic growth but it's not sustainable. China might be almost over. Demographic collapse is their future. New Chinese Demographic Data = Population Collapse || Peter Zeihan - YouTube |
@clearthinker , you clearly live inside a propaganda hole and seem to have an unclear view of the world...Forget the nations who are neutral or hostile as a reaction to US foreign policy, you could go around and even ask the US ’allied’ nations (vassal states in reality such as Germany, France, Japan, Canada, Italy, etc) about who they think is the real aggressor in this world. They will only point to one nation and it certainly won’t be China. Carry on.... |
Canada became a dictatorship too... Guess why and how ?.. There is no reason rational or historical to judge creativty of countries from political standpoint... Free countries are better for creativity yes, but there is varieties and level of freedom and varieties and levels of dictatorship... Pick your flavor .... Suit your tastes and dreams.. Three of my dac are chinese, one is french... All are good and useful ... My Akg K340 is german design .... My 2 Sansui amplifier are from Japan... My microzotl2 is American... All are stupendous technology ... I am an Earth free spirit/soul forcefully interned in Canada dictatorship not long ago by birth ... 😊😁 Conditioned by medias sold to the power and with no illusion on government right now...Guess why ?
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Sapienti sat .... https://youtu.be/XUSiCEx3e-0 |
My amps are Chinese. My DAC is Chinese. My cables are Chinese, at least most of them. Most of my accessories (footers etc) also are. My Audiolab transport is British but made in China.
I'm "poor". There is no way I could afford ANYTHING half decent from western brands. But I own a fantastic sounding system. |
My current preference is tube amps. In my price range if I bought new, I suspect my best value would be in a Chinese amp based on previous experience and what I see out there. The manufacturers I would want to choose from would be less than the U.S. selection though. America is great for innovation, but if you can't see that China is on the rise as the dominant and growing country/empire in the world, I think you're in denial. China cannot currently make my plant's aerospace parts, but they will get there. Different countries have different cultures, different financial and manufacturing goals, and different tastes. I was reading on distributor's site where they warned about the different sound signature of high end Chinese speakers designed for Chinese consumers that may not meet western expectations. I lived in Germany, loved it, and loved the German people. As a manufacturer using German equipment, I hate German equipment. There is certain equipment where Germany is the only or one of the few choices and nothing available from innovative U.S. Despite what you may hear about German precision stereotype, German equipment is overcomplicated, not reliable, not well supported especially not providing information to their American distributors, and difficult to maintain. The Germans are slow to respond to issues if they do at all and are very arrogant. They don't believe complaints from the American arm of their company let alone their customers. Luckily I've only had experience with a little French equipment. Similar to German equipment issues except not over-engineered, zero customer support, and extremely unreliable. I bring up non-audio examples because the supposed best or not harshly judged countries also make crap. As China continues to build infrastructure and improve technology, it will dominate more and more markets. One of my favorite amps still is a Chinese built hand wired beauty. I would still have it if it didn't weigh 115 lbs and had to be flipped to bias tubes. I have a great Japan built amp now, but still miss the China built one. There is great American gear, but also manufacturers that provide decent gear at an overblown price that spend more money on marketing than their products. This really applies to manufacturers worldwide though. As said previously or in other words, I don't think innovation is key with a lot of products versus maturity of the company, design team, product line, and customer base as far as providing the highest quality products. Innovative to me is the guy in his basement that figures out a $20 upgrade to a $200 DAC that makes it sound like $500. Insanely priced products referenced in OP are either warranted because of the years and cost to develop them, or they are overpriced at price enough consumers are willing to accept or both. Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see a lot of innovative products. If anything most consumers shy away from innovative designs. Maybe the thought of innovation doesn't make as much sense to me as just good design is being referenced. All the U.K. gear I've had has been high end to me, so low-mid fi here. It's all been of high quality and I enjoy what I've heard of British sound signature. Not sure about how innovative it is. Thinking about tubes, what does it matter who's best if the U.S. and U.K. don't make tubes any more? Better to start designing amps around the tubes available instead of having to do tube rolling to tubes that cost as much or more than the amp or are no longer available. I have heard very good Chinese tubes and am hopeful for continued improvement with the lack of other countries/manufacturers. |
Not sure why so many people feel the need to downplay what China is able to offer in the way of high quality equipment. Making blanket statements about how they will never compete with equipment assembled in the good old USA, although said equipment is made mostly from parts produced in good old China. Because we don't get the same negative stereotypes about equipment made in Germany, Canada or the United Kingdom, one can only assume that they are judged by a different standard. |
There is one prejudice that say : "Chineses are not innovative"... There is another prejudice that say : "Americans are ignorant"... Then at least in this thread the two prejudices will be proven wrong... Some american know about Needham work.. And some american own already very well designed high-end chinese products.. Reestablishing facts is not "virtue signaling"...
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I answered to some poster expressing prejudice ... I dont know where i backtrack...China is not CCP...
I say the same thing from the beginning...
But sometimes i posted a bit too much... You are right...about that point..😊 My posts were informative at least... And i answered clearly about the question asked.. And sorry anecdotes are not facts... I posted an australian study about high tech status in China.. This is better than anecdotes or face to face few people with their opinions.. Now compare my posts to this :
I accept your critic about my numerous posts... But posts as your created my reaxction... Then i can apologize because you are not wrong completely about my reaction... But your post is a caricatural PREJUDICE... Not expression of facts... Then buy a mirror and look at your own prejudice... Myself I apologize for my strong reaction not for my content...
Then if i read your own post expressing gross prejudice, i prefer to be classified in the " intellectual superiority" pretenses side instead of on your side... Sorry to say so... And remembering long chinese creativity in history is not virtue signaling...It is simple fact we cannot forgot BEFORE judging chinese as not innovative as you SPECIFICALLY wrote.. I posted too much... You are right on that ... Thats all... At least some of the people reading my post will learn something... Intellectual superiority or not ... 😊 By the way because you did not have any real arguments you attacked me now personally in my posts... Take your own part of this tempest in a cup of water... Admit that you expressed only prejudice... Instead of attacking me... I answered your post by facts...
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My posts were there against the idiotic claims and prejudices expressed here against chinese culture... The CCP is NOT chinese culture...The nazi nor the soviet were german and russian culture... @mahgister You are the one that erroneously conflated simple factual statements about face to face experience related to specific situations into a gross slur against an entire population. Nothing of the sort happened, except in your imagination. You are the one that introduced the CCP. Now you want to backtrack as if the CCP has no influence on the lives and future of the population. You have created a mountain out of a mole hill with long rambling posts full of virtue signaling, feigned outrage, and tone of intellectual superiority. |
«Such critiques strike a familiar chord with Jonathan Halpern, who has dealt in audiophile gear for 25 years, the last 17 with his own distribution company, Tone Imports. Just a few decades ago, he recalls, Japanese audio equipment was derided as shoddy and derivative, with legitimate criticism tainted by racially charged language. But, said Mr. Halpern, over time Japanese brands evolved from derivative to innovative, and are now widely considered to produce some of the world’s best high-end audio equipment. Many of these Chinese companies could be following a similar course, he says.» Perhaps he knows better than some here... 😊 It seems not only history , and my referenced Australian study in my above post on china high tech , proved chinese creativity , but in audio too , the story has already begun..
https://www.tnt-audio.com/ampli/jungson_ja99_e.html https://grantfidelity.com/new/index.php/2020/06/09/who-is-analog-sound-by-line-magnetic/ https://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/audiospace5/1.html https://positive-feedback.com/Issue24/dussun.htm https://hometheaterhifi.com/volume_9_2/consonance-reference-11-preamp-6-2002.html Do you want more ?
«Ignorance is a full time job too »--Groucho Marx 🤓 |
The CCP is busy with piloting long term geopolitics and silk road project... It dont gives a damn about Audio...If you are a model silent consumers , you can buy what you want ... My posts were there against the idiotic claims and prejudices expressed here against chinese culture... The CCP is NOT chinese culture...The nazi nor the soviet were german and russian culture... Is there audio High -END company innovative in China ? Probably some few in their beginnings... It takes how many years for a company to be born , amass enough capitals to invest in research ? 10 to 20 years... AKG or Sansui dont grew wings and enough funds to create their amplifiers and top Headphones in few years...
The real opening to a market economy begun after Deng xiao Ping ...In 1994 ... The real "bourgeois" class out of poverty able to buy high-end audio did not exist before and begin to grow 20 years ago... Then innovation in high-end audio will come to light in the next decade, beginning now... It is simple to see that without bashing one billion people creativity ...China was in mass hungers period before 1990... China comes out of that completely after 2000... Audio high-end need enough CONSUMERS with enough money... This exist only for the last decade... High-end audio begin now in China...And their high-end first products are sold in an internal small market in Shangai or other big cities in all probabilities ... They will not beat South Korea and Japan high-end next week... Then apart from the narrow mind prejudices against any country creativity directed against china here i killed with my speficic references, the question of the OP is answered by some posts who said the same as me : audio high end business need a critical mass of consumers, enough demand , and an history that takes 10 to 20 years to amass enough research fund to INNOVATE... Wait few years and see...
By the way a company as Hidizs punch over the ratio S.Q./price minimal qualities... They need time to innovate... It is born few years ago and already well known.. «Hidizs products have garnered several prestigious professional certifications, including Japan Hi-Res Audio, Hi-Res Audio wireless, Sony LDAC, and MQA. Additionally, our dedication to excellence has been recognized by winning the VGP Golden Prize for three consecutive years (2019, 2020, 2021). Notably, Hidizs's renowned classics, the AP80 & AP80 Pro, secured a remarkable 7th place at the Yearly Best Earphones Sales Award in Japan from 2018 to 2021.»
Then what do you want ? I already own this dap/dac/portable/battery/bank/equalizer which is the smallest in size for under 200 bucks... What they will do in 10 years ?
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Will China become the poor man’s dealer for high end audio? Remember all, that was the original question. Not does China have a long and rich history. Not a question even remotely connected to the entire population of China. Not a question related to Chinese capability in other areas of technology, real or imaginary proposed in a study. Innovation has been thrown around as a talking point. An overused term diluted by legions of marketing departments. Tweaking well established designs is not innovation. Combining old and new technology (tubes and solid state) is not innovation. Flashy packaging is not innovation. Real innovation is solving a problem or need with a new, different, and never done before approach. Topping has made a name with good measuring products that are inexpensive. Is that innovation? NO. Simply cutting costs to the minimum, particularly labor and quality. Cost more to repair a failure than just buy a new unit. Better, Faster, Cheaper - pick any two remains true. Denafrips has been well received for performance and quality in the mid-Fi zone. Claims of hand matched components. Hardly any innovation there. R2R DAC, done before. Also, not clear whether Denafrips is really a Chinese company. Made in China certainly. Is there an existing Chinese Hi End Audio company? Is there??? After all that i have said about chinese people creativity, i want to be clear now , the CCP is not China , but an abominable dictatorship of the worst kind imposed upon china... There is no choice nor any freedom in China... I hope to be clear... There it is, the elephant in the room @mahgister finally mentioned. If something is important to the CCP, it will happen. If not important to the CCP, not likely to happen. Is it important to the CCP to have a competitive Hi End Audio industry? By competitive, that means more than a couple companies allowed to exist simply for CCP PR purposes.
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For now.
If some have their way, it'll get even worse, but by that time we're all gonna be frogs slowly boiling in that pot. All the best,
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@nonoise yep. Only our air is cleaner. |
If China and Korea lack creativity and innovation , which are only American qualities for some , what about India ? Do you think they lack the knowledge to design Hi-FI if they want and need to in the future ? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KS4AXLbVBqQ
It seems India hi-fi will come soon the next decade to rival perhaps anything here, why not ? «The Thiyaga Hybrid Integrated amplifier consists of a preamplifier section designed around a pair of 6n2p vacuum tubes driving a solid state power amplifier section that puts out 180 watts at 8ohms with a THD specification of 0.02% at 1KHz. »
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Now a small lesson in history... Korea has been in interaction with China for millenias and with Japan too... Diplomatically and with wars periods in succession... Confucean culture and not only Buddhism pervade Korean history... If the chinese could not innovate themselves , and if the chinese were those who taught Korea about philosophy and technology all along his history , how can Koreans can produce the greatest breakthrough in SCIENCE and APPLIED technology for the decades to come just NOW ? If koreans can be creative and innovate , chinese are able too... Simple deduction direct from history... It is a bit more important than a new refined amplifier by the way ... For those who know how to read this is my news from five days ago : https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.12008 We must wait for the confirmation of these experiments... But if it is proven , this is the greatest revolution to come, thanks to Koreans... This is ONLY an example... People who criticize China as being unable to innovate are ignorant of history so much , they dont even know the lineage of relation between Korea and China through millenias... Do you think this psychical bond is erased by 70 years of capitalism and American influence in South Korea ? The same ignorance expressing the opinion that China is unable to innovate had forgot that Taiwan is a CHINESE culture and country...If not politically right now by all other links.. Read that :
«The First Room-Temperature Ambient-Pressure Superconductor For the first time in the world, we succeeded in synthesizing the room-temperature superconductor (Tc≥400 K, 127∘C) working at ambient pressure with a modified lead-apatite (LK-99) structure. The superconductivity of LK-99 is proved with the Critical temperature (Tc), Zero-resistivity, Critical current (Ic), Critical magnetic field (Hc), and the Meissner effect. The superconductivity of LK-99 originates from minute structural distortion by a slight volume shrinkage (0.48 %), not by external factors such as temperature and pressure. The shrinkage is caused by Cu2+ substitution of Pb2+(2) ions in the insulating network of Pb(2)-phosphate and it generates the stress. It concurrently transfers to Pb(1) of the cylindrical column resulting in distortion of the cylindrical column interface, which creates superconducting quantum wells (SQWs) in the interface. The heat capacity results indicated that the new model is suitable for explaining the superconductivity of LK-99. The unique structure of LK-99 that allows the minute distorted structure to be maintained in the interfaces is the most important factor that LK-99 maintains and exhibits superconductivity at room temperatures and ambient pressure.
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Anecdotes has a meaning generally when a long history confirm them... Free speech has a long history for example here in America, then if someone claims that American are all for censorship and dare not to think their mind and speak it because someone experienced the opposite anecdotally, this anecdote cannot erase the historical fact of the principle of free speech and infirm it... Especially when others anecdote confirm the historical facts... History teach us how to think.... It is the reason why without a sense of history , so general it may be it is IMPOSSIBLE to think clearly... How do you relate meanings across fields without history in the short and longer term ?
Thanks for your post which is corroborated by history...
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Already happening @stringreen and people do not care if they can get cheep chit. |
What's to enjoy about that @stringreen ? |
I can also make similar assertions. I worked with a lot of technical folks in Silicon Valley for a decade. A lot of these folks were FOB from China (some went back to China to form business and innovate). In my experience the Chinese were some of the most brilliant and creative minds I worked with. I guess based on my experience I can conclude that all billion Chinese are incredibly talented and innovative.
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You speak as someone who could say with the same kind of prejudices that all americans are without tact nor education and despise anything which is non american ... Saying that about ALL americans would be a gross caricature , even if someone add that he learned this in college discussion and with serious people doinf business in America ...Saying that china is unable to became creative even in high end audio is a CARICATURE, not a fact.. @mahgister Respectfully, you need to read my words again and not bring along your own prejudice and bias. First hand experience is the foundation of my statements. Nothing you say has any bearing on my actual face to face experience. Really presumptuous and arrogant to claim my experience is a caricature. You have a different first hand experience, fine, let's hear it. Creativity, that you newly introduce, is different than innovation. Innovation is a completely different approach to design or manufacturing. Creativity is a broad brush, ill defined terminology. |
High end audio is a specialized niche and i dont know about it in China... My point Is about your caricature:
I will trust more a study done by a serious group in Australia, which is not friend of China AT ALL , about chinese leadership in many high tech fieldsover gossip presented as facts.. You speak as someone who could say with the same kind of prejudices that all americans are without tact nor education and despise anything which is non american ... Saying that about ALL americans would be a gross caricature , even if someone add that he learned this in college discussion and with serious people doinf business in America ...Saying that china is unable to became creative even in high end audio is a CARICATURE, not a fact.. Anyway your opinion are yours...me i only know history and studies about China as the australian one... There is CREATIVITY in all countries where people can eat and be educated... This is FACT... |
You judged more than one billion people by anecdotes and ridiculous affirmation.. NO, NO, NO @mahgister. You jumped to that grossly exaggerated assumption and then go completely off the rails adding "anecdotes" and "ridiculous affirmation". Did not say China is incapable of innovation in any field, only high end audio. There are very few true innovators worldwide in audio. I stated FACT from first hand college experience and discussion with multiple people doing business in China. I will take first hand experience from credible people over studies any day. You have different FIRST HAND experience to offer not produced by others, let's hear it.
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@johnnotkathi Might be better to start a new post for this so you get more and possibly more targeted responses. That said, I haven’t heard the 2.2 (or 2 2) but had the 1.6es in my system on an extended demo and thought they sounded superb. Obviously the 1.6 incorporated the more updated of Jim’s thinking, design, and driver technology that might push me in that direction. They’re on the smaller side and won’t produce the lower dynamics that’ll blow you outta your chair, but everything from there on up is supremely transparent and enticing. And obviously the 3D imaging/soundstage is mesmerizing. Hope this helps at least somewhat. |
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OK, hopefully last on the topic. I assure you, I was not offended. Maybe it is just me, but I can react to things, in varying degrees, personally or professionally, without offense taken. I can also offer recommendations, suggest actions etc, personally or professionally w/out offense. We may differ in opinions on censorship. I simply am not interested in engaging in debate regarding medical/political issues here (emphasis added). Elsewhere, sure, assuming I'm in the mood. I too prefer friendship, camaraderie, etc. I was rooting for you in past posts, calling out what I felt was bigotry. Thanks for your apology, however it was not needed. Maybe I will join further discussions. My current audio issue is whether to buy Thiel 1.6's or 2.2's to upgrade my system. Thoughts? |
I didn’t think that you were offended. I interpreted what you said as meaning that the comments were inappropriate. There are many objective measurement vs subjective listening threads that discuss “science”. These are pretty lively discussions. As you have seen, most component, or music threads are threads where members try to help other members. |