What current China import sounds like a CJ??

Quality control in the global economy is vital to success, and ISO certification is the way to assure it. When I was working for General Dynamics we went through several stages of ISO certification, and at the time we thought it was a bit of a joke because the requirements were all things that we had been doing for years, but with a mountain of new documention and procedures. However, I now realize that these formal process controls really do have a role in assuring the quality of products made by small companies around the world.

Mr Wong, and his company, would not last long in today's world, although we westerners like to think that what he does is typical in China. First, one must realize that quality control is no longer about inspecting the final product. It is about making the design of the product and its manufacturing process so well controlled that no final inspection of the product is necessary. (Actually, a few items of final products are inspected, but only to keep a check on the manufacturing process. If a fault is found you fix the process, not the particular item of product).

Modern quality control was developed in the East, Japan, where engineers like Tagushi took concepts put forward by an American, Demming, and used them to dominate the market for electronics and autos.

Zaikesman I saw a number (not sure how many of them exactly) while walking through CES last year, 2005, not 2006. I doubt that there were any less this year. I didn't write down names or model numbers as I had no intention of ever looking at them again, much less buying them.

Eldartford, poor attempt at trying to CYA, I understood exactly what you were asking, but you must not have!

Cwlondon:

Jungson would be a name he should add to his list.

Nrchy...Lighten up!!

Quality control is a separate -- and less important from a global and moral standpoint -- issue than such things as labor, trade, and environmental practices, and violations of intellectual property rights. As Eldartford suggests, ultimately the market will enforce QC, at least in the area of entertainment electronics, regardless of governmental rules. That's not necessarily true for the more weighty issues.

On my questions above about who exactly is ripping off what, I'm still waiting. By my count, at least 4 guys have charged that here, all without a single specific example, or telling how they 'know' this, other than Tommy saying that Cayin and Prima Luna are guilty of this without saying whom they copied, and Nrchy mentioning the outward appearance of some stuff -- no brands mentioned -- he's seen at trade shows. So maybe the styling is deliberately derivative on some of this stuff -- nothing we haven't seen before in electronics, or cars, or shavers, or pots and pans... I seriously doubt that any audiophiles anywhere are confused about what is Cary gear and what is Chinese (the cable counterfeiters, of course, are another topic). But as for the charges that circuits are being rampantly copied in violation of any suppposed intellectual property rights, apparently the crowd has suddenly gone hazy, so I must assume no one's really got any hard evidence for this.

Which I realize isn't surprising, and doesn't prove that it isn't happening, but neither does simply asserting that it's happening prove that it is. And neither does it refute what Eldartford said about the vast majority of tube circuit design. (Interesting, isn't it -- but not at all surprising, given the audiphilic worldview -- that no one seems to be up in arms about solid-state design in this regard?)