Wow, really dislike the personal attacks on this post. Actually, some are quite funny. I personally don’t have a problem with products made in china or any other third world country. That being said I choose to support products made in the USA whenever possible. For example , I won’t purchase Nike shoes for myself. My son however loves the product. His choice, not mine.
here is the truth, if you can hear a difference, buy and use them . I purchased all USA made cables ( ic, power, speaker, etc) and love them. I was shopping for a headphone amp recently and I could have purchased a well known and regarded Chinese companies product. In the end I bought a schiit product because it was made in the USA!!! It’s probably not the best, that’s ok with me. I’ll live with it for now.
Thanks for the entertainment. Perhaps we should all go back to comparing zip cord to our fancy cables. ( a little humor here).
Counterfeit Chinese Cables
I thought that I would write this for those who are curious about one of the many counterfeit Chinese interconnect cables that are available these days. I know that there have been threads about the subject before, and I was always curious because they seem to be such a bargain. I don't really recall much about what any members actually said about the performance of these counterfeit cables, and I didn't look back and do any research, but a couple of months ago there was a thread that came around to discussing the quality of Chinese made components, and oldhvymec said something that made sense to me.
He said that people that say that what they are making is junk should consider that much of what is in our gear, and a lot of our American brands are actually manufactured there. I decided shortly after that that I would take the chance on a set of interconnects, because I suspected that the interconnects going from my pre to my amp were the weak link and needed upgrading. The interconnects going from my DAC to my pre were Kimber Select which are very good, but the other set were LAT International (now defunct) which had cost $500.00 when new, but I had reason to believe they were lacking because I have one of their digital cables that turned out to be very poor sounding in comparison to others I own.
I decided on a one meter pair of counterfeit Nordost Odin interconnects for a total of $104.00 from Aliexpress. I received them a couple of weeks later. They appeared to be well made, and the locking fake WBT rca's were very impressive and are very tight.
First impressions after installing them were light, thin sound, lacking bass. Each couple of days brought improvements, but from the beginning I noticed that they were quieter. Now, weeks later, I can say that they are drastically better that the LAT's in every way. Detail and ambience are much better, but it's the focus and separation of instruments that is most noticeable.
I have no way of knowing if they are really a copy of the Nordost design, but I am impressed enough that I am going to try a counterfeit Nordost digital cable.
Obviously, this isn't a comparison that is useful to most, because there probably isn't anyone here using the LAT's, and everything is system dependent. I just wanted to relay my positive experience.
- ...
- 920 posts total
Roxy54, It was very nice of you that you shared the information. I never tried any expensive cables in my system but you ignited my interest so I ordered several interconnects and a speaker cable. You probably expected some strong responses as there are people in these forums who think they need to be negative about the other countries, China in particular, in an attempt to prove their patriotism, but I am glad you took a risk. All the best, Lectronjh50 |
@juanmanuelfangioii I'd rather buy fake than start calling people names. I've replaced 100% of the cables in my system with fake Odin from AliExpress and couldn't be happier. Build quality is far ahead of anything that could be purchased for the same price or even 10X the price, and sound quality is simply stupendous. I'v put all my genuine VanDenHul Integration and various others to rest. There really isn't any comparison. They are the best cables I've ever tried in 25 years being in this hobby, by a (very) large margin. The price that high end companies are asking these days for mere pieces of wires has gone completely over the edge. I won't feel sorry for them. Besides, I strongly doubt anybody who has the means to buy the genuine Odin cables would ever buy anything from AliE, and I strongly doubt the fakes are hurting Nordost. Thank goodness there are still enough morons who believe anything has to cost 4 or 5 or 6 figures to sound half decent. A pair of fake Odin RCA cables costs between 50 and 150$ depending on length. A pair of the genuine is what... 15.000? 18.000? more? we aren't even comparing the same thing here. |
- 920 posts total