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In Reply to: RE: Why all the Chinese bashing? I recall (okay, not a few years, now…) posted by tinear on October 27, 2014 at 12:26:01
The Chinese bashing comes from the frustration that a Chinese product CAN BE (although not always) better than an American companies product for 1/2 or less the price. They can make the same thing for far lest money - less labour, no environmental or human rights or health care for employees etc to worry about. And most of the suppliers are near by as well so shipping is dirt cheap.
So as a defense mechanism people will point the disastrous products that come out of China and paint them all with the same brush stroke - the entire country makes bad products because they found 8 companies that made bad products out of 8 million.
And no one then looks at the history of the US where gee class action lawsuits against US companies are abound from health and environmental disaster caused by companies who skirt such things for profits to companies taking out insurance policies on employees so if they die young the company can make even more profit. Ahem Walmart.
American companies like Krell has had recalls on amps that could catch fire - ARC sounds okay when they actually work which is rarely ever. Theta Data bought $399 Philips (Japan) Laser disc players put the ENTIRE machine, casework and all, added a $50 SPDIF connector and charged $5,000 and found some tone deaf hack reviewer to give it class A best CD player in the world ranking kind of thing. Everyone wins I suppose - reviewer has his own publication called TAS. Philips does 99.99999% of the design work and sells it for $399 while TD adds a connector and charged more than 10 times the amount! And Ford alone you could go on about their history from supplying Nazis in WW2 to deciding that lawsuits were cheaper than lives.
Now the Chinese business has huge advantages - no environmental issues to pay for or to be taxed. No unions or health care concerns or for that matter any safety standards - die on the factory floor and they broom you to the curb and replace you an hour later if that. 200 million Chinese workers live on less than $1.25 A DAY not an hour. 80 million live on less than $1.00 a day.
That is a staggering workforce to compete with. You can't hardly blame many Western companies building in China. Having lived in China and Hong Kong and Korea though the concern is that the middle class will take the beating. Companies want money - it is the sole engine. Which is fine I suppose - survival of the fittest and pick yourself up by the bootstraps and everything. But spend 6 months in Shanghai or Wenzhou and putting your money aside do you take the Honda Civic hatchback and a modest watch and stereo with fresh air - or do you decide to live in a toilet bowl after 6 sumo wrestlers finished with it without flushing and drive 2 Mercs, own 8 Rolex watches and have a $500k stereo. Hey you can always stay inside and buy an air purifier. Breathing and drinking fresh water is overrated anyway right.
The society has to decide what ultimately holds value. The highest income versus the highest quality of life. A town of 100 people where 1 person has all the money and the 99 are scavenging for scraps means the town will look like a big dump which is what many of the Chinese cities are. I fear places like Wenzhou and Shanghai will be viewed as Capitalist juggernaut examples of what SHOULD become of all cities. Uggh.
Follow Ups:
just curious - did you personally have an ARC amp that rarely ever worked or do you have information from the majority of ARC amp owners that they rarely ever work or both?
Another bullshit statement about ARC. I have owned 4 pieces of ARC gear since 2001. That's 13 years and I have not had one breakdown. Sure they have been retubed several times but that is about it.
I suppose I should not be flip but I've read it a lot on AA here that they were "problematic" and from two ARC dealers in BC. Even ARC fans like E-Stat note their power amp issues.
I will back track and defend ARC a little bit in that when you sell more amplifiers you will have more failures and so it may only SEEM like ARC fails more when as a percentage of sales they may not. I found a Chinese amp maker that IMO is built better, costs considerably less, and sounds better. Time will tell on the reliability front but...
I never had any trouble with my VT-100 MKII. I have *heard* of others where a failed output tube took out the plate resistors. That never happened to me. I moved to the VTL amps because I preferred their sound (and added power).
I've been using ARC preamps for over thirty years and haven't experienced much difficulty at all. Ok, so the warm up timer op amp needed to be replaced once in the SP9. :)
Yes I should note that I have only read and heard issues with power amps not preamps.
I once saw a photo of a VT100 series amp with wide PCB trace totally burned open and charred. The repair consisted of jumpering the open trace with wire and soldering each end. It was on one of the two PCBs on each side of the amp that contains four 6550 output tubes.
I have personally never had a problem with ARC gear but I haven't owned that many:
ARC LS16
ARC LS16mkII
ARC LS25mkII
ARC VT-50
ARC VT-100mkII
ARC VSI-60
I had a bad batch of EL34s in a pair Manley Neo-Classic mono amps that literally burned and smoked open the 10 Ohm cathode resistor for a few EL34 tubes.
I didn't have to send each 70 pound amp back to China since Manley's service and repair operations were in Arizona. I just picked up the phone, received free parts, and got some English speaking tech support over the phone from Paul while I fixed my amps. ;-)
Arizona, I thought it was in Chino, California.
Well you thought wrong but that is understandable. Manley is based in Chino, CA but repairs are done out of Arizona.
And BTW, EveAnna Manley's last name is not Manley as of a few years ago. But most people don't know that. ;-)
Thank Abe Collins for trying to understand where I was coming from. Others here are not that tolerant.
I think she married a recording engineer. I don't know his last name.
MANLEY REPAIR DEPOT
ATT: PAUL FARGO
799 W. Calle Medico
Oracle, AZ 85623 USA
Is this actually owned by Manley or an independent? I would think they would do factory repairs at their facility in Chino.
Remember, just do the opposite of what you think.
Edits: 10/29/14
I was just using common sense Dill. We all can't be perfect like you and Sox.
You make heap good points there RG!
Des
The one that makes sense is Jea 48. Read what he wrote and that will give you a feel of what China is really about.
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