A Question of Quality

We hear it all the time, “I heard that Chinese equipment, in particular those tube amps, are a piece of junk – they are built like krap” or “Ha, buy one now, and buy one three years later” or how about someone trying to be polite, “Chinese equipment is of dubious quality and origin” But my all time favorite is, “The equipment is not made for 110v even though you can plug it straight into 110v” What??

Let me set the record straight: The origin of Chinese equipment is not dubious, its from China. As far as its quality goes, lets take a stroll down memory lane, shall we?

• The Dayton Wright electrostatics arc’d themselves to smithereens given any good crescendo.
• The Sonus Blue cartridge was held together with peanut butter and in the middle of a good Sheffield labs would self destruct with the cartridge body spinning around like it was on the mad tea cup ride at Disney.
• Connect a solid state amplifier to an ARC SP-3A AC jack and you will smoke the SP-3's Scott transformer
• You will need a good stiff beverage when your $8000 Beveridge amp smokes the main lens and cylinder
• Once you arc your Quad ESL 57, its rip, rip, rip all the way home
• Turning on your Audio Research D-90B was always a celebratory event: smoke and flames flying everywhere – better have Leonard on speed dial.
• Ever wonder why there is not an Audio Research SP-6D? By the way, I am NOT picking on Audio Research here. I love them
• “You mean to tell me that you still have a Magnepan tone arm that is still working”?
• Or, “Oh yes, after a couple a years or so the Mylar glue weakens and you will have to send it back to us”
• Clean your KLH 9s lately?
• Who can forget the bass of the "flames" Linear 700, 700B or 400? Once you blew an output transistor, you were dead in the water until you replaced all of them
• Any G.A.S. Ampzilla Meter.
  

And so on……

You see, high end equipment, like Jaguars, that push the state of the art are not the most quality driven things. All I can say is that my Dayton Wrights, Quads, Magenepans, Sonus Blue, Beveridges and ARC amps gave me years of pleasure. I hope your high end experience does the same for you. The truth of the matter, Chinese equipment is not any more or less quality oriented that some US made equipment. Owners who stock both Chinese and American gear will tell you that.

On another note, most of the quality opinions come from audiophile boards. Those authors are of dubious origin. Perhaps its fear, fear that a $4000 amp and $3000 CD player do not sound any better than a Ming Da $699 amp and a $499 Bada CD player. Hmmm. This industry is due for a good house cleaning and shake out.

All the best,

Vic