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Difference in quality in products made in China?

There is a belief among many audiophiles that electronics assembled in China or Korea are not as well made as products assembled in the USA and England. This has nothing to do,(I believe) with the "technical abilities" of workers, as it has to do with standards of quality control, and the sourcing of less quality parts throughout Asia

This may be all hogwash and just biased opinion, but this question comes up to often to be quickly dismissed. From my own experience which is limited compared to other members, the products(amps. pre-amps CD players) I have owned that were made in the USA, or UK, and Canada, have been solid in terms of long term reliability. I would like to hear others opinions on this issue.
sunnyjim
akg_ca's avatar
akg_ca
2,312 posts
 
see AGON thread:

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?bhome&1324311378

Arcam partial buyback

" .... Moreover Arcam pulled production of the AVR 600 from China to England in September of 2010 due to quality control issues. Since the AVR 600 has been made in England it has been more reliable...."
kijanki's avatar
kijanki
4,432 posts
 
Samick makes Greg Bennett (Guitar Player Editor Pick Award), Gibson, Epiphone, Hohner, Wasburn, Fender. Gretsch 5120 is also Korean (Peerless). Samick Gibsons are made in Cilesungi, near Bogor, Indonesia.

Samick has factories in Korea, Indonesia, China, Japan. I've read that Chinese guitars are the best of the bunch. It is estimated that Samick currently makes about 50% of world's guitars.
csontos
1,311 posts
 
The issue with China is that everybody and his brother want to be in business making it very difficult to sort out the good guys from the bad. Their economy is growing at around 10% so lots of fly by nighters to worry about. The well established outfits turn out quality product. Give them probably another 20-30 years to sort it out but there's just too many people there to ever consider them reliable overall imo.
kijanki's avatar
kijanki
4,432 posts
 
Csontos, you're talking about Chinese companies. What about US or UK companies manufacturing in China (including Apple)?
sunnyjim OP
927 posts
 
Thanks to all who have responded so far. In a global economy, my question may actually be irrelevant. Everybody borrows( or is it steals??) from everybody else. Unfortunately, the days of economic nationalism are long gone. I say unfortunately because in the 1950's 60's and most of the 70's, American goods were in great demand because of the quality of American made products.
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