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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
boxer12
8,656 posts
 
+1 ovinewar
reubent
6,982 posts
 
+2 @ovinewar
shawnwes's avatar
shawnwes
35 posts
 
I don't own any counterfeit gear.& don't agree that anyone should support counterfeit goods that are trying to be passed off as the real thing.

However, I also don't have any issue with someone reverse engineering a cable and offering their version of it as long as they aren't treading on anyone's patent, logo, etc. I wouldn't hesitate to purchase a quality copy of a once well regarded item as long as it wasn't counterfeited and sold as legitimate. Nothing illegal or unethical in that.

At the same time I don't believe for a minute the argument that someone purchasing a $200 Odin copy on Aliexpress is somehow taking away a legitimate sale of a real Nordost Odin cable. Anyone looking to hook up their $100k speakers to their DarTzeel amps isn't going to balk at another $25k in cabling and would most likely not even consider it. I don't see anything on Aliexpress these days that says to me I can't tell the difference by just comparing the two visually. Many of the copies on offer there are of earlier technology as well or, more often, permutations of that technology & no longer being offered for sale by the original manufacturer. You aren't really fooled by that little piece of wood that says Odin on that IC are you? 

And how about all the dubious gear & claims that the Belts & other shamans have been peddling for ages? Expensive little stick on dots or $4k record clamps made from some dark exotic wood anyone?
I'll bet the OP is correct in that many of those cables probably do sound very good. They can be sold inexpensively because they don't have that same infrastructure, dealer and advertising budget to support. Just don't try to pass it off as the real thing and don't steal IP.

shawnwes's avatar
shawnwes
35 posts
 
BTW I don't support the out the back door overrun idea either (as much as I'd like to have a full loom of some expensive cabling at 10% of retail).
213runnin
914 posts
 
China has been infiltrating just about every single industry and manufacturing sector out there, including audio.  Rather than get their brilliant people to R&D products that they refine over the course of decades, they steal technologies, designs, inventions and methods.  

It's disgusting.  Every company that has a factory in China is getting ripped off.  Then they flood a marketplace with cheaper alternatives to put the legitimate manufacturers out of business.  They've done this already with clothing, electronics and medications, for instance.  

And this OP wants to ignore all that, and say, yeah, maybe it's stealing, but hey, this one fake cable sounds better than the other one.  You can go get bent, fella.
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