Revisiting Chinese Knockoff Cables

@evank

sound “good” is a highly subjective, and biased relative term . If they stir your drink, carry on,

BUT until you actually personally audition the OEM ODINs on a high-end system, then you will witness how much the OEM ODINs totally smoke the fakes .

the fakes performance wise can fully live up to their listed $$ pricepoint. ….but they ain’t close to the ODINs or any other NORDOST model line above their very bottom entry level

The Comrades hiding from intellectual property counterfeit prosecutions in their Far East repressive proletariat have an active, and dare I say successful; illegal market capitalization on an illusion of quality on the cheap. It’s an online selling of uber-cheap build fakes ergo grossly inferior cheap quality build cables, BUT with an appearance and similarity to OEM models with a purposeful fraudulent counterfeit branding.

There’s two complimentary components to this Chinese counterfeit fake cables thread:

(1) The well travelled obvious ethics issue, or rather a minority cohort’s agnosticism to it, that fuels their run on buying illegal, cheap build inferior fakes from a repressive regime based solely on price , …. that … ultra politely… is not a good look at best …full stop

(2) The equally well travelled and Uber-obvious accepted audio philosophy is that quality build and audio performance cable requires a high quality materials / components factor along with labour . These Chinese fakes are not alone. If you go to the OEM website comments on counterfeit fakes, it highlights crap,units from Romania, Bulgaria , amd other locations in Europe too. These Chinese Ali-express fakes and all their peer fakes with cheap prices requires a matched race-to-the-bottom build quality ( and price) that is obviously an anathema to this principle.

TAKEAWAY :

(A) Let’s just rebrand and recast the counterfeit fakes to what they actually are : a very inferior mass build with cheap bottom quality components (connectors, cable, and no shielding) that are full fair audio performance value limited to their listed ad price-points.
(B) And with reference to the vast majority of audio prior posts herein on all of CAM, AGON et al, the fakes were designed, made, and sold as illegally branded units limited to legit OEM comparisons solely in appearance similarity only.

Build quality matters in audio performance. If cheap Chinese fakes sounded anywhere near OEM performance levels, why don’t the speaker and the audio equipment presenters just use the cheap fakes instead at the audio expos ? It would be a helluva marketing tool …if they actually worked well of course ,,,(oh … that pesky detail…)

OEM NORDOST ODINS EXPLAINED AND REVIEWED

http://www.theaudiobeat.com/equipment/nordost_odin.htm
http://www.stevehuffphoto.com/nordost-v ... end-audio/
http://www.soundandvision.com/content/n ... din-cables


The key points extracted from the above

(1) THEY PERFORM IN A SENSATIONAL MANNER, BUT THEY ARE NOT FOR EVERYBODY AND THE REST OF THE SYSTEM IS PRESUMED TO BE IN LINE WITH THE ULTRA-HIGH-END STRATA OF THE CABLE .

You could easily spend six figures to connect all your gear with these cables, so the big question is how much improvement do they realistically provide? They’ve garnered glowing reviews in the audiophile press, but I contend that any improvements are most noticeable when the rest of the system is similarly ultra-high-end—anything less will drown the effect of the cables in other problems. But if you’ve got the audiophile itch—and the scratch to match—I’m willing to bet you can’t do better than Odin.

(2) THEIR HISTORY IS UNIQUE.

Nordost came to the field of audio cabling in a rather odd way. The company was founded in hard science -- developing and manufacturing cabling for ultra-high-precision aerospace, aviation and medical applications. Hint: think NASA Space shuttle.

Somewhere along the line a clever Jack decided that the same technology just might be the proverbial cat’s meow when applied to high-end audio. Whoever he was, he was right, and the company now makes cables for every wallet -- from the bargain-basement Best Buy shopper to the enthusiast who owns a penthouse overlooking Central Park or Malibu Beach.

(3) YES THEY ARE EXPENSIVE TO MAKE AND THUS EXPENSIVE TO BUY THEM

There are reasons for Odin’s extreme cost.
- There is a lot of very high-purity metal in these surprisingly heavy wires, and a lot of it is silver. At $50 a cable in a fake, there is zippo = nada, and likely just scrap silver coloured tin sheath over the cheapest non-OCC hardware store Cu you can find core , to deceive a buyer.
- Odin is also very hard to make. The micron-level precision tolerances necessitated by the design result in a crazy-high scrap rate. There are also nearly ten years of research and development in this product, and that investment of man hours has to be recouped.
- there is a high percentage of culls to weed out in OEM production.

TAKEAWAY :
I’m not a NORDOST cables user much less their ka-Ching $$$$ reference class NORDOST cables guy so I don’t have a horse in this race

BUT..l there is a best of breed performance reason why NORDOST VALHALLA, and especially ODIN …along with CARDAS CLEAR BEYOND , and it’s CARDAS CLEAR models , together form the largest share of the exhibitors cables choices to showcase at the audio expos….full stop.

After replacing the ~ $40 PC to my Audio Alchemy PS 5 (optional outboard power supply) yesterday, but still using the Pangea, the sound improved quite a bit BUT...

The sound was "over there". Thinking the Pangea just needed some hours to round out its sound I let the music play and play and play. Finally I realized it wasn't getting any closer, so I swapped it out for the fau Nordost Odin 2 S/PIDF. This was a huge leap forward in 3D and warmth, but it needed a couple hours to settle in. This morning  spun KD Lang Drag and am blown away. The music is very tube-like now.YIPPEE! The lesson learned is sometimes when swapping cables in/out one can go backwards. In this case swapping out JUST the Tekline PC between PS 5 and Core Power 1800 MkII for the $40 PC was the fly in the ointment that took me far to long to figure out

HTH

Well, seems like my curiosity wasn't quite satisfied after trying the Cardas ic.I ordered an Odin Gold II ic from the Pureffair store on AliExpress. It's been in the system playing all afternoon and I'm very very impressed already. What has changed is there's a pleasant bit of warmth without rolling off the highs or turning the bass to mush.The leading edges are softened just the slightest bit.It's a great match with the other Voodoo (silver) ics which lean towards the cool side and are wonderfully detailed. I'm already getting curious about the speaker cables.How would they fare against Voodoo scs and my current ZenWaves.I don't like that the name Odin is being used.At least they could spell it differently,Oodin or something. Maybe I can engrave made in China on the wood blocks.

In comparison to higher end gear, the China cables are very, very average.  I have the China Valhalla cables and they are  OK - nowhere near the quality of the Audience cables that are my standard.