I have noted a number of warnings about cheap Chinese fake cables on this site but curiosity led me to the Aliexpress site where I found a number of presumably fake big name cables from predominantly Cardas, Nordost and Siltech at about 15% of the USA or Australian price. I found Cardas Clear Light interconnects at about US$100 and decided what the heck let's give them a try at that price. Before buying I asked the seller the daft question as to whether they were genuine and got the reply that they were an OEM and constructed the interconnects from genuine Cardas cables and connectors. They arrived in a plastic bag rather than the Cardas box , not a great start but the cables looked real, and when connected, much to my surprise, they sounded really good. After 100hours or so burn in they sounded great and better than the Nordost Quatre Fils I had been using. I then took them to an Australian hi end dealer who sold real Cardas and asked rather ingenuously whether my cables were the real deal. The dealer would not commit but agreed to compare them to the real thing on a set up costing at a guess around A$100,00. Neither I nor the sales person could tell any difference so he then tried them against the Cardas Clear. Then there was some difference, not extreme but subtle, and certainly IMO not worth the price difference even if you bought the genuine Cardas Clear Light. So are these cables really fake and even if they are given my experience they are well worth a try. Maybe I'll try Nordost Odin or Siltech 770i next.
The whole point of making a counterfeit is to rip you off. Most people are pissed when that happens.
I guess some people seem to have trouble picking up on the concept. I imagine this might give the counterfeiters some pause...maybe they’re not good enough at what they do??
1st counterfeiter: "Hey, are we supposed to be rippin' people off??? Or are we "manufacturers" now?? 2nd: "Hey, I dunno man, ya got me!"
It would be one thing if they were making their cables under there own name & marketing them that way to see if they could compete. But misrepresentation of a product is wrong on so many levels, it's pathetic.
I have a fake pair of Cardas Cross speaker cables, 8 ft with bananas. Put a max bid in on eBay for $75 and won them for 65 bucks U.S. Pretty convincing looking though...the shrink is correct and even the outside diameter is within .001 inches. (Spec is .580 inch, measured .579 inch) not much weight to them, my genuine Quadlink 5c power cables feel much beefier despite being smaller.
Sound was just so-so..no different than any cheap generic 12 guage wire. They ended up in my HT system because I really dont care too much about HT.
Greetings, I have been an audiophile for near 40 years I even had the privilege of working for Spectrum Loudspeakers of Toledo Ohio. Spectrums 108 model was hailed by Peter Moncrieff of IAR as the best budget speaker available in the 1980s. Due to my involvement with spectrum I developed the ability to hear. I was also allowed access to wires in the beginning of this industry. Monster and Kimber were in use for years, The Bigger the Better!
All has been bigger, better. I sought out the biggest wire I could buy. I have tried many cables. Fat wires including the Krell's Path. Two runs the size of a nickel per speaker. The Krell wire was pretty. But I confess it did not sound great. I have tried building cables, I even had a friend make me cables. All of the cables worked. But the sound was never exemplary.
Recently, I tried the Belden 9497 and The Duelund wire. I could hear the difference immediately! The Duelund wire is magical, unfortunately, the Duelund RCAs squealed painfully in my Krell system satellite system. I then tried the Belden 9497 wire single runs. It sounded, stealy but excellent. It is odd to me now considering that, I was unsatisfied with the sound in single runs, I doubled down. I actually purchased another set of the Belden 9497. The a few more feet for my second system.
The Belden cable changed my life! I say this because of post surgical gave me three months to listen. The double runs of BELDEN 9497 has made a greater improvement to my system than ANYTHING. By anything I mean I have been through and heard MILLIONS...
Recently, I attended a local hifi show and talked with the Audiquest Rep. and decided to try their new Z power cord. With the double runs of belden 9497 changes in the system are easy to discern. Ultimately, I purchased all audioquest power cables. Well, I say all, actually. A set of Siltech RCAs and Power cable became available. The Siltech power cable was better than the Audioquest power cables and all of the others that I have tried. I still have a HUGE Pangea AC9 cable on my Krell KSA 80. I can't believe these other skinny cable could be as good.
With the purchase of a Krell KAV 400xi, I decided to go with the Siltech. Due to the Siltech RCAs and Power Cables: Black Background, Detail, Musicality and DEPTH of Image. The Siltech sent my Kimber Silver Streaks packing... Along with my old sweet fat Cardas 300b Hexlinks.
That said, I purchased a pair of Balanced Audioquest Wel for $200. I received the cables put them in the, B&W 803s Oppo 205 to the Krell 400xi, beside the single ended RCA Siltech Cables. Initially, the WELs sound a bit ruff, without the Audioquest DBS system running. No Batteries were provided. After two days, with no DBS, the difference between the Siltech and Audioquest is subtle at best. The Siltech are nearly as good as the WEL cables.
Whether or not the Audioquest WEL cables are legit, I do not know, they rattle when tapped. That is suppose to be good? And these WEL cables are Excellent Sounding. The WEL cables have superb bass, Solid imaging, Full Midrange. The presence presented by these $200 WEL cables, have me twisting looking for things in my room. The sense of urgency and dynamics are startling! With the added bonus of such natural smooth transitions in dynamics, that I don't have to ride my volume control.
Let me be clear, after 40 years of audiophoolery the audioquest WEL cables are the Best that I have heard. Christopher Webbers Duelund RCA cables The Most Magical by FAR. I wish I could run them. The Webber Built rcas and balanced cables excel and out perform everything that i have heard. Instruments appear ALL over the place, DETAIL and MICRO DETAIL is breathtaking. I could consistently hear the air between the microphones, Instruments and Singers.
Over 40 year, I never heard much of a dramatic difference between Audio Cables. Much has improved with cable technology. To the extent that, I can say cables are as important as the electronics that you chose. You may never know, what your speakers and electronics are capable of without CAREFUL SPEAKER SETUP and CAREFUL CABLE selection. I don't think you will find a better speaker wire than the BELDEN 9497. Whether you run single runs with low powered tubes or double runs for higher powered applications.
The $200 Audioquest WEL that are available, may be the Second Best AUDIO bargain out there! BAR none! The WELS are HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!! Spend the $6 grand on a trip.
The best is BELDEN 9497. Buy it, Try it, Cry-Money it is a buck a foot!
I’m shock. Someone just informed me that there are also fake Purist Audio Design cables? All I know is that the day they (Chinese?) successfully make fake Synergistic Reserach active shielding cables/ cords, that’d be the day I’m looking into making my own cables or buying factory direct... so sad.
"
I only wear Chinese shoes. The tears of the children manufacturing them makes them so supple. I like to wear them while drinking the blood of bald eagles. Makes me feel so young again"
mazian OP16 posts04-09-2019 3:36amWhen I started this thread I mentioned that neither myself or the audio shop salesman could tell the difference between my fake Cardas Clear Light and the real thing. Geoff Kait seems to think that is not possible but I wonder how many Chinese cables Geoff has compared to the real thing. Anyway given my positive experience with the Cardas I decided to try the Odin copy for the mighty price of US$120.
>>>>>Actually I didn’t say it was not possible. Please don’t force words down my throat.
As I oft counsel, no single test is conclusive for a great many reasons. Especially when the results are negative. Perhaps especially when the subject of the test is cables. Read my lips 👄. Conclusions regarding possible differences between two cables might be established after many tests by many listeners in many different systems. But these conclusions can be very elusive. That’s why Cable debates are still going strong after 40 years. Hel-loo!
When I started this thread I mentioned that neither myself or the audio shop salesman could tell the difference between my fake Cardas Clear Light and the real thing. Geoff Kait seems to think that is not possible but I wonder how many Chinese cables Geoff has compared to the real thing. Anyway given my positive experience with the Cardas I decided to try the Odin copy for the mighty price of US$120. The result was amazing, better than the Cardas by far, so next on the list is the fake Odin 2. As I don't know anyone who has the means to buy the genuine Odin or even a Hi Fi shop in Australia likely to have a pair of interconnects lying around on their inventory I will never be able to compare my fake with the genuine article. I wonder how many of the naysayers re Chinese cables out there have actually tried them. I don't care what the cables look like, cryo'd or not, copper or connectors used, my sole criteria is what difference they make to the sound of my system and the fake cables I have tried so far make plenty difference and all positive.
You can not necessarily determine if the cables are real or fake by looking at them. You cannot tell if the cables have been cryo’d, which most high end cables are. You can’t tell if the copper is continuous cast copper or the purity or country of origin. You can’t tell how the welds were made on the connectors. You can’t tell if the cables have been controlled for directionality. As to how good the fakes are, they might be better than Brand X but they won’t be as good as the real thing. No way, Jose!
That's ironic. I was pouring over Aliexpress around the same time looking at these cables from various dealers. I decided to hold off and try something else for now, however I think there are a couple different scenarios that present themselves with these cables. Scenario 1 is the hope that these are made with the same cable material as the real deal product and that the Chinese manufacturer sold off extra product to local dealers either under the table or with slight name variances. Since final assembly on some products may be done back in the US, these Chinese products may be very close to the actual product. That's the dream scenario for buying these products, right? The other equally likely scenario (Scenario 2) is that the item has a fancy, similar appearance to the real deal, but is completely fake on the inside. Therefore a total bogus product and not worth even the time to consider. However, it's the lure of scenario 1 that makes these products so tempting and at the relatively low cost may be worth trying -- which leads me to think the makers and dealers of these products are aware of this minimal financial risk to out of market consumers (Americans, Europeans, etc.) so they use that to their advantage and produce complete fakes and price them to point where they "might just be the real deal" which takes me back to Scenario 2. This is why I decided to hold off.
However, I think it would be great if someone with some deeper pockets and more free time than myself wanted to start a Youtube channel simply for comparing Chi-Fi products and went as far as to have them disassembled for quality and material comparison. I think some of these products may be legit performers, while some may look the part on the outside but are constructed of foil chewing gum wrapper and coat hanger wire on the inside. Just don't be surprised if you get some calls from some legal departments of some top tier cable manufacturers if you take on that challenge.
clearthink and skycap are dead on! This is not a debate over how good a fake really is, the issue is the act and its damage to commerce of the legitimate firm. Fake pharmaceuticals may be formulated as well as the genuine article, however the pharmaceutical firm saddled with 2 billion dollars in total costs for R/D plus drug trials and FDA approval will be harmed.
STOP!! I'm not supporting the pharmaceuticals industry, only using them as an example of deep pockets investment corrupted by IP theft.
Stories abound of audio industry players setting up manufacturing in China, receiving a quality product for the money and then discovering renamed identical product in other markets. When approached, the Chinese manufacturers are dumbfounded there exists a problem as the contractual agreement is in their minds fully met. Of course all of the engineering and intellectual property has been stolen in the process.
Years ago Top Gear tested Chinese car models. One was eerily similar to the BMW X5. BMW had sued for design infringement and lost in Chinese courts. Imagine that!?
STOP!! Before some wander off waving a banner marked "China-phobic", I'm merely addressing a current prevalent offender, with full understanding there are plenty of others around the world to include U.S. firms. Check the court dockets.
I once purchased on a lark in Thailand a copy of Microsoft Office for $6 (180 Baht). It was a souvenir and I never loaded it. I was afraid to. I just wanted to see if it were possible to purchase on the black market.
For those who still support finding that special deal no matter what, I hope your house wiring is not mis-marked as 14-guage, the contractor having secured a smoking deal to cut costs, only to find in the post-fire forensics it to be 20-guage overwhelmed by a toaster oven.
Chinese corrupt/criminal empire are manufacturing FAKE commercial airline parts. Engine components, brake components, electronics, etc. All are grossly substandard and endanger the public. I find it no surprise to read in this thread that corrupt Chinese are also producing FAKE counterfeit audio cable. At least counterfeit audio cable is not lethal.
So many aspects of products fall in the gray area. I doubt audio cables made in China were ever assembled by child labor, doesn’t make business sense for the Chinese employer. And if we frown on forced labor, weren’t most license plates in the US made by prison labor? as for the profit margins versus the material cost, compare to the fashion industry. A High fashion pair of shoes costs a lot because of many factors not related to the product cost. Like they purposely want to be exclusive to certain people in order to maintain a high profile so they can continue to command ridiculously high prices. It’s only when you have huge volume that mega retailers bring costs down to grab a larger market share. don’t you think a designer handbag would come down tremendously in cost if one of the Marts thould they could turn over a gazillion of them? as for the different quality levels of knock offs, REFLEX watches can be had in China for ten bucks that will work for a month, forty bucks and it will work for six months, 120 bucks and it will actually look decent, 800 bucks and it will be indistinguishable from real to a consumer or 1600 bucks (stillonly 25% of the cost of real one) and the Zurich factory would be impressed at the quality of the knock off. you can’t possibly know what quality level of know off you are getting without real feedback from previous purchasers, not staged fake feedback posted by the supplier. The ethical aspect is clear, it is not ethical to use someone else’s name and associated positive reputation. Period. Can this be controlled? Yeah, to the same extent illegal drugs are , about 3-5%. is there an ethical work around? Sure. Advertise that your cable is 99% the same as the brand’s product at 25% of the cost, or something along that line. Done that way in auto parts all the time.
As someone already posted, some of the stuff coming out of China is junk. I bought some bulk 'furutech' rca cable and it was truly junk. Looked crap, quality crap, sounded crap - ended up in the bin. But, there are gems out there too, as my experience with the nordost cable leads me to believe. Do your homework, and buy from trusted China seller, and you'll surprise yourself. I never expected my $300 nordost cable to beat the $10000 genuine article, but it competes with everything I've tried up to $2000. I'm happy with that. Anyway, why are we worried about China?The real elephant in the room is Taiwan - I can't speak highly enough of the quality of the components coming out of this place. In my opinion, they are the worlds best in manufacturing individual hifi components at the moment. The current equivalent of where Japan was in the 1970s and 1980s.
American equipment manufacturers have been blurring the line for years. Audioquest made a video walk throuh of their plant to prove they were made in the USA. Well I call BS! The plant had spools of product and soldering stations but where is the foundry and the plastic extrusion machines, chillers and heavy equipment to make even bare wire yet alone insulated wire in a co-extruded sleeve? My uncle worked at Anaconda Copper in Hastings NY and the infrastructure is huge and Audioquest has a tiny building where they supposedly "manufacture" cables but in reality they are terminating bulk cable made elsewhere.
Apple probably has the best designed and built phones in the world and they are made in China by Foxcon. Why would people believe that anything made there is garbage? My guess is that most of these things are made in China and the bulk product is sent to be finished and packaged in other countries. With that said I have some genuine Tara labs cables and some from Alibaba. I have a very resolving system and I can not discern which is which sonically or visually. So YMMV and the price was exceptional.
Some fakes are pretty impressive, as far as getting the looks right. Some even use authentic parts to get the right look. Anyone can buy Audio Note RCA jacks and wire to make their own Audio Note cables. But, I've seen the authentic jacks put onto fake Audio Note wire to make quite bad sounding knock-offs. These fakes are pretty common on the used market.
As to some of the suggestions that the genuine wire is itself a rip off if you add up the cost of the parts, that is a trickier analysis. Can someone really make their own Nordost Odin cable--are all the constituent parts available and is there a practical way to actually assemble the parts? I've seen their cables and they are made of multiple strands of wire that are individually wrapped with some kind of fiber, which is itself covered by another insulator. It is meaningless to add up the amount of silver, amount of teflon, etc. to derive a "cost" of the material. I am sure Nordost has a crazy high margin on these products, but, if you like the performance of the cable, you have to pay the price to get it, or make it yourself, or find a cheaper alternative.
Hi, For me, I purchase my cables from Authorized dealers exclusively, never used, no matter what site they are on. Because of completely outrageous and in my opinion unjustified cost by some cable manufacturers, I simply cannot afford the perceived top shelf hooch. I can see why some people will try the knock-offs, I sometimes actually burst out with laughter when I see a interconnect that costs as much as my entire system! Crazy, right? I use authentic Kimber Silver Streaks throughout my system, they sound great to me and I can afford them. I know for a fact that there are many Fakes, even with this affordable cable, again, crazy. I'm quite content with the knowledge I'm supporting the now rare audio salon, the manufacturer, and feeling I get knowing I have the real thing. My 2 cents. GRM
Recently, I bought PS Audio ac12 power cords from China, look good, sound good. Saved lot of money. Cannot compare to one from US shops, they are expensive. I bought USA made stuff from PS Audio and had nothing but problems, had to send back to factory 4 times due to manufacturing problems (they told me that it is very rare, for some reason, I believe them!). So, buyer beware is the best approach.
Someone on another site sold me a fake Siltech SPX-800 power cable for $350 USD claiming it was authentic. The cable worked properly but it didn't make a noticeable difference on my amplifier so I had my suspicions about it's authenticity. I sent the fake to Plurison and was promptly told "there's not one microgram of silver in this cheap knock-off." They destroyed the cable and I was out the $350.
The exterior of the fake looked fantastic, even Plurison was somewhat impressed. The fakes can look really really good. Shame on whoever made the cable and bigger shame on the guy that sold it to me as "authentic." Buyer beware on the used market.
I have personal experience in making my own DIY cables, owning relatively high end cables, and also with "fake" cables purchased from established hi-fi shops in china. On the whole, and considering the cost, time of DIY, quality of materials, and workmanship, etc I find the china fakes very, very good and make for a very compelling argument. often the china retailers communication is better than their western counterparts, and although shipping takes a while, I've never had anything arrive damaged, or not at all. I am currently using a "fake" nordost odin supreme xlr interconnect purchased from china, and it sounds great. so much so, that my DIY cables, and more importantly, my much more expensive branded cables any sitting in the cupboard- they don't sound as good as the china "fake". I also made a DIY version of the nordost odin supreme power cable, and it sounds great too! again better than my branded cables of much higher cost. so, im considering purchasing more of the "fake" nordost odins (speaker, xlr, power) now. just my own real world experience...
A few months ago I spot someone selling a pair of fake Kimber TC8 speaker cables on Audiogon. I've been using the Kimber speaker cables for many years and I knew they were fake immediately. I asked the seller if they were authentic or fake the seller responded they were authentic. I reported it to the admin of this site but I'm not sure what happened. So be careful.
The downside to dealing with China - obviously the cheap labor is the reason why many countries do business with China - is that China is an excellent example of a state that is heavily involved in technology theft and misappropriation of ideas and products by any and all means available.
sbayne China's companies over the years have done a lot of manufacturing "off the books" meaning the item may be made on the same line as the legit product but simply is not shown in the accouting sent to the company requesting the work. Its very easy for them to hide extra runs of a product if the company - which is usually in the USA - doesn't have someone on site. This goes on in many industries, not only high-end audio. These products never go into the dealer network and therefore cannot be accounted for. I've heard the comment that authorized dealers sell excess inventory and create "Gray Market" products. That may occassionally occur but what happens more often, and on a much bigger scale, is the Chinese manufacturer is simply selling directly to an exporter the extra product it manufactured off the books. They count on doing this and often calculate it into their quotes when pricing a cost for manufacturing a product. So is it "counterfeit"? The answer is yes but it may be the exact same product you would buy from an authorized dealer.
there are two separate questions here--first the morality of buying chinese knockoffs and second the quality of said knockoffs. i don't address the first question, but from my experience these products, whether audio, handbags or watches, are frequently indistinguishable (and in some cases even better-made) than their western-branded counterparts and, in many cases, made from exactly the same materials at the same factories.
It’s not black and white. Many US audio electronics, speakers, etc. contain parts made in China. Resistors, capacitors, batteries, etc. or they are entirely assembled in China, or elsewhere. Those products are, nevertheless, designated as Made in the USA. This is not to say China isn’t capable of making some products, including some audio products, that are very high quality.
I will source the cable specification build up, screening etc. and my favourite connection units. I will derive great satisfaction in putting it all together some wet Saturday afternoon.
With a quality specification and the fact of having made it myself I reckon I will hear that "special unidentifiable nuance " in my sound stage, something that is unique to my ear and nobody else has.. ie. an excellent audio cable specification build at less than 1/4 of the cost of the "names".
Re geoffKait. Most golf clubs these days, including all the big names are manufactured in China and only assembled in the USA. Are you guys in the USA only good assemblers? I think this whole argument is going round in circles as the Chinese mob I bought my cables from is basing their authenticity on the fact that they only assemble genuine Cardas cable and terminations in China.
Those Chinese fake cables are a complete crime. The people now gets very smart, and started channeling the sale from the *original* manufacturing countries with some minor signs of use.
I suckered into buying a few thru eBay at 75% of retail price. Found out (you can’t be that deaf to detect it). Those eBay sellers would gave you an return address that doesn’t exist. By the time you got the shipping problem sorted out, you’re already past the eBay/PayPal dispute window (p.s. that was 2 years ago ... now PayPal allows 6 months dispute window for international transaction, so you could be better off buying outside of eBay which has a much shorter window, I think?)
I also confronted some fake cable sellers. They told me their were poor saps in China trying to make some bucks to feed the family. I got that, their poverty does not justify committing crime.
Those fake cables were total junk. How can anybody claim there is quality in any scam?????
Amazingly, you’d see the same questionable stuff from many cable makers. Try slice open cables from AudioTXnX, low-end SiltXch, Anti-CablX, SilnotX, AudioquXst, BurmXster, HolXand, MYrk LXvZnson, RXd RosX, CXllo, entry-level CYrdYs, even entry-level NQrdQst (all of which were purchased from reputable local business or authorized dealers./ resellers). You would be completely blown away by what you see. Cheap material massively inflated. Not that different from the cheap Chinese metal and plastic inflated 200 times with fake Siltech, NBS or Kharma markings. But the inflated cables ain’t fakes --- there is no such thing as fake metallic conductor --- do that make you feel any better?
I am not sure if there’s any solace, but I am sure some corporate lawyers may write me soon.
@mazian ... I was not moralizing, at least I didn’t intend to do so. I was simply implying that there are degrees of quality (albeit poor quality), even in cheap knockoffs.
astelmaszek80 posts03-06-2019 8:56pm@geoffkait Can you point out a flaw in my pricing of Nordost Odin cable? Because I do not see more than $400 of raw materials in them. What do they sell for? $25K. Pretty sweet racket.
>>>>>I never said Nordost priced their cables according to raw materials. That’s a Strawman argument. Is a box of cereal priced according to its raw materials? Is a Ferrari priced according to its raw materials?
I’m fairly positive that if they can provide half of worlds 4G and 5G networks, they can craft a cable just as they can craft an iPhone. Mine looks pretty polished to me.
>>>>>Oh, please! Apple crafted the iPhone. Chinese workers simply assemble it. They are good assemblers, I’ll grant you that.
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