When did Musical Fidelity start making stuff in...

Quite frankly it is irrelevant the Chinese sourced gear is just as good as products made elsewhere.

Try to explain that to young mothers and those with pets. Plastic should be used to make speakers and toys - not food!

As for me, I like my European built cabinets and European built drivers and European built electronics...

I thought all of the Cary Audio gear was still made in North Carolina?? Is that not the case?

Agree with Shadorne, you don't hear Taiwan food mixing toxic chemical like Chinese, neither will you hear Taiwan electronic products failing prematurely due to corner cutting.

I will not buy Chinese audio gears. In fact, I will not buy any "hign-end" products that are made in china. I will be happy to hand my credit card number to high-end Taiwan product though, they have world class R&D with QC to boot too.

Everyone associates Intel as the most advance semiconductor company on earth. I work for AMD, the competitor. Guess who is right behind Intel? TSMC, that stands for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacture Company, and unlike Chartered, AMD, Samsung, or Toshiba who relies on IBM for R&D, TSMC & UMC (another Taiwan semiconductor foundry) completely develop on their own. There are many more stories about Taiwan work ethic and QC, same can not be applied to China.

I just bought a Giant TCR Advance 2 road bike which is again made with pride in Taiwan. In fact, 90%+ of world class carbon road bike are made there, do you hear Lance Armstrong complaining his Taiwan bike? But you can bet if he was riding a China bike, he would never make it to finish line.

Technology "creep" is the industry term. It does happen, but the reputable companies either open up shop over there, ie; Rotel, or they keep QC staff, or they maintain the quality utilizing other methods. Asia is Asia if you ask me... I've seen good and bad from the entire region. Musical Fidelity, especially, has been able to maintain retails as well as quality.

As if a lot of western audiophile brands are the pinnacle of reliability and quality.....

The Chinese have nuclear weapons and have put humans in space. I'm sure they can figure out how to make audio equipment. Once they get their heads around this "capitalism" thing and realize what the market wants in terms of quality or market needs, life will become increasingly uncomfortable for competitors.

There was a Japanese motorcycle manufacturer (I don't remember who, but possibly Honda)that wanted to enter the Chinese market. A Chinese comptetitor then built a similar product. The Japanese bought a couple and took them home to take them apart and analyze them. They then withdrew from the particular market segment. They decided they couldn't build a product of that quality for the price the Chinese were selling it for and make a profit.

People in North America (i.e. GM, Ford and Chrysler) were equally dismissive of Japanese car manufacturers in the '70's when they entered the North American market because of their lack of quality and reliability. Well, what's the situation now in car manufacturing?

Guess what? Three or four Chinese car manufacturers are talking about coming to North America in the next couple of years. The American car manufacturers are as equally dismissive of the Chinese cars as they were of the Japanese and the Koreans. They still haven't learned their lesson which maybe explains in part why they are in the predicament they are now in. The Chinese cars may be crap for a model generation or two. And then what do you think will happen?

I don't know what the quality is with respect to Chinese audio equipment. But if they want it to be good, it will be....at half the cost. Even now, Chinese companies are buying western brands. You'd be surpised at who they own.

Anyway, it's fun to watch it all from a business analytical perspective. We'll see what happens.