Chinese cables are great. I fully recommend AT Audio (Ali) or DIY with Xangsane sterling.
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 $104.00 from Aliexpress. I received them a couple of weeks later. They appeared to be well made, and the locking fake WBT rca's were very impressive and are very tight.
First impressions after installing them were light, thin sound, lacking bass. Each couple of days brought improvements, but from the beginning I noticed that they were quieter. Now, weeks later, I can say that they are drastically better that the LAT's in every way. Detail and ambience are much better, but it's the focus and separation of instruments that is most noticeable.
I have no way of knowing if they are really a copy of the Nordost design, but I am impressed enough that I am going to try a counterfeit Nordost digital cable.
Obviously, this isn't a comparison that is useful to most, because there probably isn't anyone here using the LAT's, and everything is system dependent. I just wanted to relay my positive experience.
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@juanmanuelfangioii AHAHAHA
Come on, give me a break. You just CANNOT put fake baby food and counterfeit 15.000$ high-end audio cables in the same argument. Counterfeit cables that are built by the same Chinese companies who build their own original "brands", and probably the same companies who do an awful lot of OEM work for the rest of the world. They are not the same people who make fake baby food and fake medication. A little bit of nuance wouldn’t go amiss. I’m just an audiophile with a low budget but a big DIY (mostly) system. I’ll buy whatever sounds best that I can afford, if that means buying knockoffs then so be it. I would probably prefer if the cables were’nt fake-branded (I actually like the "Nordeast" imaginary brand some of us use to describe them, they should use it) but l won’t lose sleep over it. They use it to attract people’s curiosity, and it works. No one ever got fooled into thinking they were buying the real thing - because this is NOT baby food.
Ethics and integrity? I sure hope you’re a paragon of virtue yourself, to be so judgmental to others... but mostly I’ve noticed this type of excessive reactions towards counterfeit cables (and towards most cheap things coming from china) comes, in our hobby at least, from a mix of audio snobbery and basic racial prejudice.
"NoW Go eNjOy YoUr fAkE CablEs" >> I will, and I’m actually going to order the new "Gold" version to compare it to my Silver ones :-) . Apparently, it sounds quite different, and some find it even better. Loads of fun for us the poor! ^^ |
@rolox , Talk about a coincidence, while I was looking at the Neardost cables I decided to buy a Rolox watch! |
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