What current China import sounds like a CJ??


Does anyone have any experience with the inexpensive China imports, integrated or stereo amps that have a CJ type sound. Looking to put together a second system and liked the old CJ11A and CJ14 combo but even at used prices you can buy the Chinese stuff for less money. Any ideas??
tommy

Showing 4 responses by zaikesman

Thank you Eldartford for the voice of reason...

Thank you Viridian for the uncomfortable yet sardonic laughter...

Thank you Bkonig for the just plain old laughter...

And thank you in advance China, for continuing to grant us audio toys and dollar stores in exchange for our rights and freedoms after you take over the earth, just before we all die of your industrial pollution...
This is very interesting. Can anybody actually name specific pieces of Chinese gear that are "exact copies" of specific pieces of US or European gear? If so, how is this alleged fact known? And how is any of it any different from the perception that there's really not much fundamentally new under the sun in terms of basic tube circuit design over, say, the past 50+ years? And that many 'classic' pieces of 'high end' tube gear since the dawn of the 'high end' have regurgitated basic circuit designs of even more 'classic' provenence? Since when did anybody in this industry have to come up with something 'new' in order to manufacture tube gear, or any gear for that matter? What, other than primarily the labor market there, is so unique about China that they deserve to be singled out in this regard? Making counterfeits of brand name products or committing intellectual property theft of copyrighted works is one thing (and bad labor, trade, and environmental practices another), but using common 'textbook' technology to make a product that's been made hundreds of times before by hundreds of different firms worldwide doesn't seem like something to get too excited about the propriety of. Should all US companies that ever made pocket transistor radios be villified for 'ripping off' Sony? Should Marshall amplifiers be villified for 'ripping off' Fender? And anyway, I was under the impression that a lot of the Chinese gear is designed elsewhere and only manufactured there. I could easily be wrong about any or all of this, since I have no particular knowledge of the whole arena (and have heard zero of the products alluded to in this thread, other than Conrad-Johnson), but if so, please someone spell out for me exactly why and how, because I've seen enough accusations without examples or evidence here.
Fatparrot, was that supposed to be a reply to my specific questions? Cause it's not. We all know how bad the Chinese government is. But I don't think mass production plant managers anywhere else are any more free to flout their quotas and keep their jobs, for whatever that's worth. And how is it "unfortunate" that, as you say, "there are legitimate and VERY dedicated Chinese manufacturers who turn out quality equipment at a very reasonable price"? Personally, I have a tough time putting the blame for exploitive overseas manufacturing and exporting practices on the domestic firms and consumers who take advantage of the cheaper prices -- as long as our goverment policies permit and even encourage this behavior, market forces will dictate that consumers and manufacturers follow this path. The whole process probably *could* be managed so that pros outweigh cons long-term all the way around, but I very much doubt that this is the situation today -- I assume the benefits flowing from the arrangement are imbalanced and shorter-term, and don't necessarily outweigh the cons. So it's up to individual consumers if they want to boycott products they think could hurt the interests of labor (in both countries), or the environment, etc.
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?)