Chinese wall of sound.

[Ravey Gravey Davy]

chinese cooking than conventional Sunday dinner what?roast pork,lamb, turkey,chicken with gravy ,mint sauce,yorkshire puds,from pubs to restaurants.Sorry n fish n chips all year every friday in n/homes?HELP!

Is there a sentence in there somewhere?

10 years in Rampton.

 

[Charlie Jefferson]

chinese cooking than conventional Sunday dinner what?roast pork,lamb, turkey,chicken with gravy ,mint sauce,yorkshire puds,from pubs to restaurants.Sorry n fish n chips all year every friday in n/homes?HELP!

Must be a Fall fan.

 

[Lee H]

chinese cooking than conventional Sunday dinner what?roast pork,lamb, turkey,chicken with gravy ,mint sauce,yorkshire puds,from pubs to restaurants.Sorry n fish n chips all year every friday in n/homes?HELP!

Husband entombed in ice you see.... BADGER..... I'm afraid that I was very drunk

 

[Lee H]

Bamboo is not wood, it is a grass.

Yeah! Put that in your pipe and smoke it...

 

[Anonymous]

Bamboo is not wood, it is a grass.

Yeah! Put that in your pipe and smoke it...

I think you have all been in the chinese opium den the way this thread has manifested its self.

 

[professorhat]

But is it better than British opium?

 

[hammill]

But is it better than British opium?

 

[tonky]

Chinese Rolexes! All mine fell apart in a year or less! A 5 year old can tell the difference never mind a dealer!

 

[Cpt.Issues]

What do you think they actually do in China, make the stuff from bamboo and chopsticks? The factories out there would put most facilities in the UK to shame, the only thing that's cheap is the labour and that won't last forever.

Myth or fact? Idiotic prejudice.

There are a lot of quality issues arising from Chinese manufacture in other industries, ranging from poor quality castings/forgings to pet food tainted with prohibited chemicals and lets not forgot the lead paint on childrens toys instance.

As with most things, you usually get what you pay for, in the hyperlink is a crash video of a Chinese car of similar age and aimed at a similar market to some european cars which were achieving five star NCAP ratings at the time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5SRyG6UR2A

Although outsourcing to the Far East is often cheaper many firms are pulling back from China due to quality issues, shipping, geographical distance and cost increases due to higher wage expectations and shipping costs. Quality requires close control “its in the Chinese nature to take shortcuts” - Hibbert, L. (2009). Back from China. Professional Engineering , March, 20.

Law is also an issue, copyright rules can be completely different and many legal terms do not translate from English to Chinese and carry the same meaning. Business laws are also rarely documented or publically known.

Obviously this doesn't apply to all Chinese products and undoubtedly there will be facilities that would put some UK facilities to shame. Consumer electronics is a different kettle of fish to the industry I work in but please examine both sides of the coin before accusing someone of "Idiotic prejudice" when there may be genuine reasoning behind certain stigmas.

 

[chebby]

Nice to see all that didn't prevent you from buying the excellent MA RX1s.

 

[Cpt.Issues]

Why would it prevent me from buying speakers? I haven't read anywhere Monitor Audio pulling out of China because their units spontaneously combust. British engineering then made at their manufacturing facility in China and sound fine to me!

The point I was trying to get across is don't be biased but likewise its not fair to make sweeping generalisations about Chinese manufacturing being superior to British manufacturing. Having said that I certainly wouldn't fly on a Chinese plane just yet :/

Low skill manufacturing will continue to move to low-cost economies, in terms of engineering, designing and high skill niche manufacture the Brits are still ahead.

I heard someone say once Being British is about driving in a German car to an Irish pub for a Belgian beer, then travelling home, grabbing an Indian curry or a Turkish kebab on the way, to sit on Swedish furniture and watch American shows on a Japanese TV. I guess we can add "then listening to Chinese hifi" on the end of that too

 

[The_Lhc]

The OP was referring specifically to hi-fi products (speakers to be precise) therefore my reply was solely aimed at those products and manufacturers and no inference was made or intended for any other industry, of which I'm well aware there are problems.
But then you knew that already.

 

[Cpt.Issues]

Surely one would need to hear the end result from a design brief given to both Chinese and British engineers? Without being able to objectively assess two speakers, one Chinese and one British I don't see how you came up with "idiotic prejudice".

I guess at the end of the day we don't know a British build / British design wouldn't sound better and vice versa.

 

[The_Lhc]

Because, as I said in the first place, if they were that badly made and sounded as bad as is being suggested they'd never get through the quality control. As Chebby pointed out, you don't appear to have a problem with your Chinese made speakers, which would have designed to sound a particular way. If the subsequent prototypes and production models didn't sound the way the designer intended they'd have been rejected. Trying to suggest anything else is prejudice, idiotic or otherwise.

 

[Cpt.Issues]

I'd suggest cost would have been a bigger factor than Quality Assurance to initiate moving to a low cost economy in the first place. Though I do see your thinking in the assumption they used a prototype reference/master etc as a benchmark but neither of us know if that is the quality control method used and who would have made said master. The argument is invalid either way without an objective assessment.

But anyway, getting back on topic, the OP simply asked if the new speakers sounded different. To which the answer would be yes. It was not implied the Chinese made ones would sound any worse.

 

[Ravey Gravey Davy]

I'd suggest cost would have been a bigger factor than Quality Assurance to initiate moving to a low cost economy in the first place.

for the short sighted businesses yes.

 

[Cpt.Issues]

Hopefully speaker manufacture in China won't fall prey to "Quality Fade" which has happened before in other industries in China. Just for the record this isn't just a Chinese phenomenon but quite an interesting factor nonetheless.

 

[Frank Harvey]

A British designed loudspeaker was set up to be made over in China, and initially some samples were made. Listening to them, the British designers were a little wary, and in comparison to their original design, things sounded different. Cracking them open, they found the Chinese ones had had some corners cut in order to save time...

True story.

 

[Andrew Everard]

A British designed loudspeaker was set up to be made over in China, and initially some samples were made. Listening to them, the British designers were a little wary, and in comparison to their original design, things sounded different. Cracking them open, they found the Chinese ones had had some corners cut in order to save time... True story.

Sure it is, and it's a big risk ordering products just on the basis of samples and trusting a third party many thousands of miles away to keep on making them unsupervised for a long production run.

But then there are also companies making product with British brandnames in China with British engineering, production control and QA staff on-site permanently.

 

[the record spot]

Having said that I certainly wouldn't fly on a Chinese plane just yet :/

No idea why not Cap'n. Rolls-Royce have had a base in China for years and manufacture engines for, amongst many others, China Eastern Airlines. They did when I worked for R-R over twenty years ago and that relationship continues today.

 

[Cpt.Issues]

Ah, by Chinese planes I was refering to commercial jet liners designed and built entirely in China e.g. the Comac C919 (due to enter service 2016 after flight trials). I'm well aware China is already a big player in the aerospace supply chain.

I dare say China will eventually go down the same path as Japan did and become synonymous with high quality goods.

Just out of interest, did you have any insight or feeling of how supplier scorecards rated in general against UK firms etc?

 

[The_Lhc]

But anyway, getting back on topic, the OP simply asked if the new speakers sounded different. To which the answer would be yes.

That's a hell of a blanket statement to make! Beyond the fact that every new design of speaker will sound different from the previous model do you actually have any evidence to support that?

It was not implied the Chinese made ones would sound any worse.

I think that's EXACTLY what was implied.

 

[Cpt.Issues]

But anyway, getting back on topic, the OP simply asked if the new speakers sounded different. To which the answer would be yes.

That's a hell of a blanket statement to make! Beyond the fact that every new design of speaker will sound different from the previous model do you actually have any evidence to support that?

Yes that is exactly what I meant and you would find it is true the models will sound different but not neccesarily better or worse. As previously mentioned neither you nor I can objectively assess the merits of either one. Earlier I did point out some recent instances where Chinese manufacturing culture has led to a couple of defective products in the wider industry, along the lines of the grass isn't always greener on the other side etc.

Do you have any example of these Chinese facilities that would put British manufacturing to shame? No I'm not trying to cause any more unintentional offence I would be genuinley interested to get more of an insight into Chinese manufacturing.

There is never any use entering a debate if you are not willing to accept the other persons views. Therefore turning this around, is there anything to suggest the Chinese product is superior to the Britsh made one?

 

[The_Lhc]

But anyway, getting back on topic, the OP simply asked if the new speakers sounded different. To which the answer would be yes.

That's a hell of a blanket statement to make! Beyond the fact that every new design of speaker will sound different from the previous model do you actually have any evidence to support that?

Yes that is exactly what I meant and you would find it is true the models will sound different but not neccesarily better or worse.

Yes, that's because they're new models, it's not specifically because they're made in China.

Earlier I did point out some recent instances where Chinese manufacturing culture has led to a couple of defective products in the wider industry, along the lines of the grass isn't always greener on the other side etc.

You made some vague allusions about issues but not anything related to hi-fi, which is specifically what the OP was talking about.

Do you have any example of these Chinese facilities that would put British manufacturing to shame?

Check the blogs on the HF site from last year, pretty sure there's some showing some of the recent facilities built in China.

There is never any use entering a debate if you are not willing to accept the other persons views. Therefore turning this around, is there anything to suggest the Chinese product is superior to the Britsh made one?

I never said they were superior, I said they weren't any worse. Either way, it's not like there's any manufacturers making the same product in China and the UK in order to make a comparison.

You seem to have missed Andrew's point about British engineers and QA staff being located in the factories directly overseeing the manufacturering process.

 

[Cpt.Issues]

Perhaps you have missed the point good companies need British Engineers and QA staff on site to strictly govern over each and every aspect in order to assure product quality? Though thats not much different to over here where you also need QA and QC staff. Seems my "vague allusions about issues but not anything related to hi-fi" are infact very relevant. Perhaps its even necessary to learn from these examples to prevent reoccurance of similar issues elsewhere?

There has been issues with Chinese product quality in the past. And many of these issues have widely been acknowledged as stemming from cultural issues. What makes you think HiFi is somehow immune?

If the Chinese firms were simply producing product conforming to specification without issues then why is there a need for British Engineers to go over there an oversee manufacturing? Surely the work could be subcontracted out with the occasional audit and the supplier left to get on with it?

Anyway, I feel this has gone off topic a bit now. The final answer to the OP I believe is that yes each model will sound different but we don't know whether it would be better or worse than if the speaker was made in the UK. I haven't come across any bad press recently to suggest the speakers from China should be any worse than than if made in the UK.