Chinese fake cables How fake, how good?

Many times China is fake equipments so best is to buy from Korea also WADIA best of all audio equipments Too.

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.

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!

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.

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!