Chinese stereo kits - recommendations? NOT eBay!

Status
This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.
I don't need to dump on it, it dumps on itself.
Too many stolen designs reproduced badly with cheap/fake devices.

The last Chinese transistor I bought lasted 10 minutes !
I turned off my soldering iron and the transistors blew.
A small glitch on the mains was all it took.
So next time I bought genuine parts and despite trying very hard I couldn't blow them up.
Seems like the Chinese parts had a very low breakdown voltage and died at the first sign of a problem.

I bought 4 flash drives from China on ebay.
After 2 months they hadnt arrived so I got refunded.
After 3 months they did arrive but none worked !

Bought Bluetooth dongle from China, fell apart on second use.

Need I say more ?

OMG you really can Not stop. I lived in China for TEN years. Had only one defective item. I bought nearly ALL Chinese items. I did buy a genuine Bose high-end head-phones and the plastic ear cover started to split after 5 months. My genuine HP laptop's DVD drive went bust after 6 months. So much for name brand.

Maybe...in your case...it is more a matter of fault on the buyers side than the supplier? You have to know what you are doing. Hint: do not play with matches.
 
Made in China: From Scary Bad to Scary Good | Quality Digest

Made in US is no guarantee either. You can get crap from pretty much anywhere. The issue is not whether it's all bad but that historical performance generates reputation. I've experienced lots of crap products from China, but they were all dirt cheap - you get what you pay for is an old saying that still rings true at times. Give a dog a bad name and all that. It takes time to reverse your reputation. As a Brit, I recognize that our reputation for food is something we've been working on for a long time :D

There are plenty of Chinese factories that have learned better quality control, especially the foreign owned ones that were able to bring in expertise from off shore, especially Korea and Japan, who are now known for good quality despite their beginnings.

Anyhow, after having lived in China for TEN years you hardly qualify as having insight into the reputation of goods sold outside of the country but no reason to doubt your experience inside the country. My experience of doing business in China is about 20 years, can't remember when I made my first trip there, it's changed hugely since then.
 

Attachments

  • tech.png
    tech.png
    24.4 KB · Views: 295
Last edited:
The only thing I buy now from China is pcb's.
On price they blow the UK out of water by a high factor.
JLCPCB recently did a special of $2 for 10 off 100mm by 100mm pcb's.
PCBWAY do $5 for same.
The postage is about £22 so its worth getting a couple of different pcb's done at the same time.

As for Chinese quality all I can do is go by what I have bought off of ebay.
I thought at first I was unlucky but after a few bad buys I gave up.
Maybe I am being naïve in thinking I can buy cheap and get good quality ?

There is currently uproar on ebay forums concerning Chinese vendors pretending to be in the uk but still having long lead times and then stuff turns up with customs labels !
 
Low cost postage has been a boon for buying cheap DIY stuff from China. I bought a solder-sucker for 99c free delivery. Jeezus, how do you ship something from China to my door in Canada for 99c ? I can't even see how somebody could make the solder-sucker for 99c. I'm sure the postal worker who delivered it cost more than 99c for their time.

Apparently, there's an arrangement with many postal services that guarantees low cost reciprocal deliveries. I've heard rumours that Canada Post is cheesed off with this since they end up covering the cost of things like my solder-sucker. This week the POTUS has said the US will leave this 144yr postal agreement. It clearly doesn't make any business sense whatsoever. If you want cheap stuff with free postage from china, days may be numbered.
 
Disabled Account
Joined 2005
China has all good and bad product
Just meet your wallet.

I am Indonesian.
I buy some good part with cheap price from aliexpress. If the good is fake you can complain, open dispute, send picture, tell evidence, not so complicated. It is jack ma company, a good man's store. The important things is just read and learn the product you will buy carefully.
 
OMG you really can Not stop.

Maybe...in your case...it is more a matter of fault on the buyers side than the supplier? You have to know what you are doing. Hint: do not play with matches.

Mosman with your general attitude you are asking for it. Also maybe try not to be so busy stating that you know most everything. Other viewers could benefit from the info you are given but find trivial. - And no - Its not your forum
 
Haven't seen a really good dac come out of China so far. However, we do mod some of the cheaper ones to make them much better. That said, they are starting to make quite a bit better ones although they still don't seem to have figured out everything needed to produce the best sound quality, or maybe they don't think that is what matters most to optimize sales (and they would likely be right, too).

Anyway, best board right now might be this one: Q9 ES9038PRO ES9038 9038 DAC HiFi Audio Decoder-in Amplifier from Consumer Electronics on Aliexpress.com | Alibaba Group
 
Anyone know of good raw (Chinese) speakers?

I know few ones in the mainland China, they are HIVI RESEARCH in Canton, Silver flute and Feilo in Shanghai, Nanjing in Nanjing as the best local ones, and a lot of the factories produces from high to low end loudspeakers but vary in production scale but most of them are around Shanghai and Pearl river delta.
hope can help, good luck.
 
China has all good and bad product
<snip>

Thank goodness or we wouldn't be able to visit this web site on our Chinese made phones and Chinese made computers (sure, some are 'assembled' in the US but they are 'made' in China) and monitors

I have a rebranded (xtz) integrated amplifier from Tonewinner 天逸音响 Its sounds great and I have not heard of anyone having defects. They also make PA stuff.

The amps seem to be priced to match the performance.

I think much of the issue is people want it for dirt cheap and they want it to also be good. It makes sense that if you tell them you want their factory to build a world class phone and budget accordingly and supervise the process you end up with a quality product. If you tell them you want a lot of an item and you want it really cheap and aren't involved in the rest of the process you will get a really cheaply made product.
 
Last edited:
Real issue is Cheap *** Mail order 'stuff' Don't shop ebay for Sure. The other large Ese sites are often a bit better but not outstandingly so.
Curiously ; 'The Donald' is currently babbling about pulling out of the Postal Union .. which does allow/ facilitate /sunbsidise? ridiculously low cost mailings from Chine.
But not in other direction.
That should do interesting things.. finally.
 
<snip> the Postal Union .. which does allow/ facilitate /sunbsidise? ridiculously low cost mailings from Chine.
But not in other direction.
That should do interesting things.. finally.

That finally explains how it is cheaper to have something sent from China to me than for me to send it to the East Coast. I had figured China was subsidizing the postal costs; isn't it great to find out we are actually doing the subsidizing.
 
Status
This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.