Chinese fake cables How fake, how good?


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.
128x128mazian
China (ebay, aliexpress...) merchants audio products are full of false specifications. If you want to check yourself, buy stuff declared as copper (RCA sockets, power plugs...), then check yourself whether it's really copper - piece of metal saw will reveal what's underneath the gold plating (or rhodium, silver, possibly even copper plating). Copper is read and it's pretty soft, too. I checked myself some RCA sockets and power plugs and I found brass underneath, judging by the colour and hardness. And that's true not only for brands (brand fakes) but also for non-branded stuff. 

So it's not quality when they don't even make using a copper conductor just because alloy like brass is cheaper to make. We're not even talking about purity of metal or its processing (like declared cryo treatment lol). 

I'm not entering into all brand faking aspects, because, frankly, cheating on brand is not my concern. However cheating on common people like me certainly is. whether it's about faking a brand or not. 
@zalive, sadly I found your words to be all too true. I still remember all the hassle of trying to source genuine high purity OFC copper speaker cables on eBay.

After trying to trawl through the maze of varying prices and some non too convincing pictures and fine print descriptions I gave up went to Amazon UK and read through the reviews there which eventually led me to some transparent sleeved BasicLine15 metre 2x2 5mm set from Germany (DCSk) claiming to be 99.99% saueurstoffreie.

I have no real way of knowing whether they are the genuine article but they are reassuringly heavy and do have that reddish copper colour.




A lot of the the wire and connectors sold today by US cable manufacturers come from China. US retailers assemble them and mark the price up by up to 1000%.
Keep buying USA cables!
Korea has counterfeit products too.  Fake products are made in the the US, and many other countries.  Counterfeit products have been produced for thousands of years all over the world.  Demand is what causes supply.