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Difference in quality in products made in China?

There is a belief among many audiophiles that electronics assembled in China or Korea are not as well made as products assembled in the USA and England. This has nothing to do,(I believe) with the "technical abilities" of workers, as it has to do with standards of quality control, and the sourcing of less quality parts throughout Asia

This may be all hogwash and just biased opinion, but this question comes up to often to be quickly dismissed. From my own experience which is limited compared to other members, the products(amps. pre-amps CD players) I have owned that were made in the USA, or UK, and Canada, have been solid in terms of long term reliability. I would like to hear others opinions on this issue.
sunnyjim
wolf_garcia
6,631 posts
 
I re-rest my case.
radni
96 posts
 
I had bought a Cary Audio Design CD player CDP 303 about 12 years ago, and to my surprise I found at the back panel there was a sticker "assembled in Hong Kong " . Within second year the laser lense assembly failed and I had to replace it . Few more years later the analog output stage failed , I found that DAC section has failed . Instead of repairing , I bought a stand alone Bryston DAC to take digital output from my CDP . Four months back it had broken a cd drawer assembly gear . I bought a replacement Gera assembly with belt from eBay and replaced it . So it works fine now .
Against his : I also have a Sony CD player CDP 910 ( 10 cd magazine type ) , MADE IN JAPAN , bought in 1993 . I use it now on my second system . This CD player has never ever given me any problem, and works flawless even today. Not even rubber belt replacement !
Price I paid for Sony CD player was about $500 in 1993, while list price for Cary CDP 303 was $3000 in 2002.
16hzlover's avatar
16hzlover
16 posts
 
The speaker build houses here were giving us a 30% failure rate, we switched to China and now have a zero% failure rate, at 1/3 the build cost.
rodman99999
6,032 posts
 
( http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/09/us/us-panel-calls-huawei-and-zte-national-security-threat.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 )closely related: ( http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/01/22/the_top_10_chinese_cyber_attacks_that_we_know_of ) (vhttp://timelines.latimes.com/la-fg-china-cyber-disclosures-timeline/ )
nonoise's avatar
nonoise
10,590 posts
 
Different politics, economies and world views. Spying has been going on for so long now. It's just gotten so sophisticated that "why bother?" and "what, me worry?" are the bars for conscience.

Just now on the news I saw a 10 yr old girl who goes by the moniker CyFi who got bored with a video game and hacked the clock program to speed things up. I think I was still playing with Lincoln Logs at that age.

We live in different times and tech is outpacing us. I'm so glad retirement is on my horizon: I couldn't compete on that level but you know, they could ask for my opinion now and then.

All the best,
Nonoise
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