Has anybody bought or heard a Chinese knock off amplifier?

I bought a Chinese amp years ago that from the company that in fact made Mark Levinson amps. It was a great piece.

@glupson "...buy American so your home don’t burn down.” I am guilty, :-), I am buying “made in China” Apple iphones, computers and many other things.. as of HiFi related cables, typically China’s brands require some additional work to do to make them good! I have personal Audio Lab with all tools/test to make sure everything I use is up to spec.

@webking185 +1 I have one Accuphase A-70 “inspired” Chinese amp, A class, it’s very good, measured and sounds! But.. it took me two months discussing with them what need to be done in details..

@davetheoilguy +1 Chinas power is built by “stupid and greedy” US/.. companies!

There is a tube, class a/b with dac I am trying to get my hands on to review. USD $1900. Should be interesting…

I was the owner of a company that made work over rigs (like a mini oil derrick on wheels for fixing wells).  We had a supplier in China who manufactured certain parts for us.  Had QC problems that we helped them through.

Ton”reward us”, they would make 100 parts for us (a part they was largely consumable) and 100 parts for them they would sell with our name on it.  Identical stuff.  Realized there is zero way to stop the theft.  They straight up thought it was fine to do.  No concept of personal property rights.

So we stopped using them and changed our specs arbitrarily so their part wouldn’t fit.  They went broke.

This is 100% true of anything made in China.  

 

 

Let sleeping dog lie. Why resurrect this thread? Who care buy what you want from who you want. Free market. 

sorry to revive an old thread - i found it because i was investigate a chinese clone amp.

but all this china bashing is really a bit absurd and misplaced, imo.  the FACT is that you can thank all the western mega-corporations for helping to create what is china today.  they're the ones who, in search of ever more profits to pad their and their rich stockholder profits, decided to offshore their manufacturing to take advantage of cheap labor, and non-existent safety and environmental regs to rip off western consumers, selling the goods at the same prices as if they cost the same to produce.  and decimating the working class in their own countries.

you reap what you sow...

I got one clone like the Acuphase A60 and it will blow your mind away once you listen to it (4 massive caps, 2 large toridial transformer).  Remember many high end amps, turntables, and speakers are made in China.  Brands like Emotiva, Schiit, Outlaw have used parts from China to put together their preamps and amplifiers.  High End brand name Yamaha is built in China with many of their parts  made there.  Those Aluminum knobs are definately from a a Chinese plant in Guangzhou.

My problem with Cina-Hifi was not the product but the dishonesty of showing items in stock and then finding out they are on backorder and waiting two months to finally get it.

I do not trust Chinese dealers....sorry but that is my opinion. The product was actually very good for the price. Willsenton R-300B integrated tube amp.

Long thread at AK about this:
https://audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/recieved-my-dartzeel-nhb-108-copy-from-china.825905/

The OP, Matt, of that thread sold it on. He gets really enamoured with some of his purchases but eventually moves on. Nothing different than alot of audiophiles who are always swapping out their gear.His comments about his purchases are legit though.

I'm living in the Far East at present and wanted to try a valve amp, my room has a tiled floor and is lightly furnished, so thought this would be a good option. I ended up buying from ChinaHiFi previously mentioned in this thread and would say they are an excellent seller, good advice and help if needed, and pressed the button on this amp  RFTLYS A2 KT88 Tube integrated amplifier with headphone amp with Bluetooth input : China-hifi-Audio online store, and I have to say it is excellent for the money I paid, in fact I would say it would be good vfm for just the headphone amp that comes with it. Other Chinese amps that get good reviews and previously mentioned, Muzishare, Line Magnetic, Cayin  are now becoming well known names in the hifi community. When China is building these quality products why would their copies of well known amps not be good too? I did read on another forum, when purchasing some of these amps it is a good idea to budget for new capacitors which maybe not the best, although most of the reviews of clone amps I've read (there's not many of them) have been positive.

Jungson (Zhongshen) is a spectacular sounding homegrown Chinese hifi brand that delivers some great class A amplification at very affordable prices. I have it in two of my secondary setups now. It is only getting beat by my reference Luxman gear that costs an arm and a leg.

Nothing wrong w a cloned Rolex as long as its doesn't say "Rolex" on it. Some folks are very happy w their Roleks watches. And I have no problem if the Chinese contract manufacturer make a "Roleks" amp at a fraction of the price of a "Rolex". If the manufacturing is farmed out overseas, why shouldn't the manufacturer get in on the action? A consumer can always buy the brand name version if that is important to them - there are considerable marketing & promotion budgets devoted to making consumers do that very thing.

Is this the same as a cloned Rolex?

The seller will service it. These are actual audio dealers in China, not just some guy selling stuff online. I bought a CD transport from the Queenway Store which was claimed to be a clone of a Wadia circuit. I broke an internal cable trying to open the chassis. I contacted the seller via the built-in AliExpress messaging system and they quickly responded and after a week or so they sent me a replacement cable for 1$. If you have to ship items back for service I believe the standard is that you have to pay the shipping, and they ship it back to you on their expense. At least one store I saw said they have a 30 day free shipping both ways in case of a defect.

Shipping from China can take a LONG time, and very expensive, especially if you have to use sea / train freight. Definitely something that should be considered.

Where does one go for service once pos dies ??? 

The Audioquest FireBird speaker cables and WEL Signature interconnects I got from AliExpress seem to be legit products. The quality level is too high, and the DBS units appear to be wired up correctly. Also, would they honestly copy the DBS units exactly to spec with logos embossing, battery test button, etc. and going through the trouble to actually wire it up -- just for the sake of selling the Audioquest appearance? I believe they're grey market units sold out the back door of the factory. Audioquest doesn't actually make their cables, they just assemble / terminate them in the US, that's something that can be done in China easily. Audio quality does seem very good, but I still need to test them vs my old speaker cables to validate that.

musicbox78

To whom are you addressing your post?

@glupson  "...buy American so your home don't burn down."

Are there really that many fires in China?

Do you think they would tell us the truth if there was ?

Smarten TFU ..... damn man!! This is what Chinese audio does best ... so they think. Cheap knock-offs of anything they sell is just that, fake, cheap, or full of lead. THEY could give a SH*& less either, never trust them bastards period!! Chop-Chop.

I love it when the amp claims to have 200wpc and it has a wall wart power supply putting out 12v @ 1.5 amps

I don't see problems of buying items being sold as clones. People know what they are buying: clones, expecting they are as good as originals, but they should not believe that those clones always work the same as the genuine. They are poor (or cheap) man's choice.
Counterfeit is a different story. People buy stuff believing they are genuine, but actually counterfeit. In this case, I see problems are on both sides: the counterfeit manufacturer and the buyers who buy those at fractions of cost, believing they are buying genuine. They hope those items are genuine overstock items (or genuine stolen goods?).
I haven't bought any clones or counterfeit yet, but I've bought a few Chines products under Chinese brands: Yaqin, Jungson, and Douk audio. They were all very good for their price, even though some had a bit of reliability issues. For Chinese products, it is a relatively safe bet if you purchase products from established companies.

Long thread at AK about this:
https://audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/recieved-my-dartzeel-nhb-108-copy-from-china.825905/

😊😁😊

"...buy American so your home don't burn down."

Are there really that many fires in China?

I was invited to dinner at a friends home some years back, while we was sitting in the family room eating  we looked over and seen a red glow in the room, then we started to smell plastic burning, the amps was on fire!
he had purchased the amp form a web site based out of china, baking soda should be stationed near EVERY CHINESE POWER AMP, and what he found out was the amps had NO UL -Underwriters Laboratories on the amps. buy American so your home don't burn down.

The best amp I ever owned was Chinese, from a company that makes ML's stuff.

Can someone please post links to these Chinese knockoffs. I have owned Xindak DAC 8 and their CD player. Both were okay, not great but okay for the price. I have also tried some Xindak cables. Same response. Japan started out making cheap, plastic goods and look at them now.

@mofojo    
No,  I don't think blatant copying is Okay,  but that isn't what is going on.  Look at the Dartzeel above.  Yes, it looks alot like a Dart,  but with or without volume control.  no balanced,  different boards (Chinese design).  Components inside are different,  However,  I bet it does sound quite good.  The others are the same.  The case on the Mark Levinson copies is a tiny thing,  could never be mistaken for the original.  
According to your post right above this one, Not sure we should be worried about a $300 copy of a $10,000 amplifier.  

Mahgister: Although I am amazed with the in-depth knowledge of some of Audiogoners in engineering, physics and acoustics, reading what you have done for SQ as well as your possession of vast knowledge about history, math and science reminds me of one of the unique aspects of human mentality.  We at this point of time, living in USA/Canada as a middle class citizen, is already enjoying our life standard better than 80% of the rest of people in other parts of the world. In further reflecting human history, aren’t we now enjoying the benefit from so many great inventors who passed along to us,e.g. from light bulb, to electricity to cell phone to internet etc that will make any past emperor envy. If you, Mahgister, can produce SQ from $300 equal to that of $10,000, may be you have an idea how to further improve humanism, so each human being can pursue and enjoy his/her life in a self-satisfying way, instead of jealous, control, and destruction of others like what had happen so often in the history of mankind. Moses189

I guess there's a place to discuss anything and everything.

I wonder how the Chinese knock offs compare.....

"Christian Louboutin was soooo last year..."

Wait until you see what he will exhibit at Shoesstar. The rumour is that for Fall/Winter 2021/2022 he will be back with vengeance.

2021-2022 shoe exhibition calendar, all shoe exhibitions in Russia and abroad (shoes-report.com)

Ugh!
Christian Louboutin is soooo last year...

nonoise and thecarpathian,

Enjoy...

Christian Louboutin sequined loubitag print pumps | PurseForum (purseblog.com)

This forum is an eternal spring of knowledge. I just learned what sequined pumps are.

👍😄👍

Do NOT get me started on sequined pumps...!

Probably, if they're on the internet.

I wonder if shoe forums have this much acrimony over who did what first.

Very good post glupson....

i concur with this post ....

My best to all....

mikeydred,

Hard to "wrap" my head around your repeated attempts to draw moral equivalence.

I understand that. How about Japanese? Any sentiment about Germans? Italians? French? Spaniards? Portugese? Turkish? Some of them make well-respected audio products, too.

Not to pound on moral equivalence, but another food for thought while being clear about China...

A brief history of the Indigenous peoples who lived here before us - Pipe Dream (bupipedream.com)

McIntosh - Contact Us (mcintoshlabs.com)

Somebody broke into my house and replaced everything with exact replicas (Steven Wright joke).

Glupson - " While you are at stealing inventions, be ashamed of using some of the China’s."....... Actually, most adults realize that many nations have been "appropriating" technology from others since Adam. I sense that the real issue for the aversion to Chinese products has to do with their government’s current slave labor camps in its western provinces and the overnight "liquidation" of pro-democracy forces in Hong Kong these past months. And I’m ignoring the 10’s of millions who were silenced during the Cultural Revolution within our lifetimes. Call me a sentimentalist......Hard to "wrap" my head around your repeated attempts to draw moral equivalence.

glupson, "I am not defending piracy of any kind,"
That's my position. 


madavid0 " They chose to charge absurd, wild markups and content themselves with super high profit"
There must be several threads where OOB/consolidated manufacturers are listed. With "super high profits" they would not have closed. Not one person in my family has a stereo. In school everyone had a system, today only one friend does and that because I practically gave it to him. Sales volumes are down and large sales may be the only way to stay in business. I don't think it's working.
Raul

I have a pair of Meixing Ming Da MC 3000A mono blocks with a Audio Experience A2-SE preamp and they sound outstanding.