ASSEMBLED IN CHINA

Even companies like B&W build most of their products in China.

If you watch "Shark Tank" (Friday evenings on ABC), the entrepreneurs often brow beat the people approaching them to invest for building products in the U.S., often saying that they know how to setup production in China as a "selling point" to accept their offers.

When I buy high end products, most of the time, they are built in North America, or Europe, I find we make the best quality of high end products.

Tim Cook of Apple stated that we lost our manufacturing ability long time ago:

“The U.S., over time, began to stop having as many vocational kind of skills,” Cook explained. “I mean, you can take every tool and die maker in the United States and probably put them in a room that we’re currently sitting in. In China, you would have to have multiple football fields.”

In addition many processes like, for instance, Surface Mount electronics are very repeatable and can be done in any country.  My speakers' components were manufactured in Taiwan but assembled and QCd in US.  Black piano finish would be too expensive to make it here and stay competitive.  Picture becomes blurry when you consider foreign companies manufacturing in US.  My old Toyota Avalon has 85% of parts made in US thus is more "American" than any other car.  Is Toyota a foreign company? Is Philips Dutch?  Companies (shares) belong to international investors (including US).  Is place of incorporation important?  One of the largest US companies Tyco was incorporated in Bermuda.  Isn't buying poorly or expensively made product only because it is "Made in USA" counterproductive?

Tim Cook can't have it both ways. Yes, we have less skilled labor but that can be traced back to job outsourcing at it's earliest stages. If outsourcing leads to lessening amounts of jobs that require skilled labor, why bother with the trade school side of the equation? Then people like him can turn it on it's head and say it's the reason when instead it's the cause.

The other side of the coin is the massive amounts of pollution that's turned China into an open sewer. That level has never been allowed here and I feel it's the elephant in the room that's not being discussed. The bogeyman that's highlighted is the cost of labor but it pales compared to the costs of public safety. If we were to relax our safety and pollution standards to Chinese levels, some jobs would probably return but who here in their right mind would want to work and live in a open sewer?

All the best,
Nonoise

ncum001, you would be hard pressed to find a better pair of speakers than GET T1 in today's market / technology for less than 25 grand, regardless of where it is assembled. And the GET T1s are 1/5th the cost.

All items in my system are either made in USA, EU or Japan. Nothing is made or assembled in China.

Reasons?

The products made in China are of lower quality comparing to the same product from same company if made in USA, EU countries or Japan.

Many time, the "assembled in China" implied improper use of labor, environment pollution, intellectual property...

And the money I pay to them may end up in the Chinese government budget to be used for robbing South China Sea and maltreating our fishermen.

My audio friends and me rather prefer pay a premium for audio products that are not assembled in China.

i am Vietnamese, it's easier to buy "assembled in China" here.