chinese counterfeitng

Like everything else; caveat emptor.  In the case of Chinese goods, one has to be very careful.  Many non Chinese companies now put people on the ground in China to oversea manufacturing, and to ensure that what is produced is what was contracted for, rather than what the manufacturer thinks the buyer will accept.   There is lots of product going out the back door, or made in a shadow factory just down the road, owned by the manufacturer, and dedicated to making knock off versions of the official product.  Many times the local party officials will demand to become partners in a successful enterprise, and then start to direct production to other facilities outside the purview of the customer.   Would it surprise anyone to know that much of the counterfeit activity is done with either overt Govt consent, or tacit approval ?   Recall that when Apple was negotiating protection of IP within China, the leaders of Apple were shown an Apple store in Bejing.....it seemed to be doing very well, and all products appeared to be "Apple"   Only one problem- the store and all products- were FAKE.  It was later determined that the store (and others like it for other products/vendors) were opened with approval of the Govt.  Allowing Apple leaders to visit the store was a direct warning to them....Apple soon reached an accommodation with the Chinese Govt allowing the later to access to user data, and to censor content within China.

There are fakes and there are clones. The best clones can be very good however they do not have the same level of transistor matching that the high end products have and usually cut corners with inferior capacitors and other passive parts. The circuit boards for the Dart seem to be exact copies but the above mentioned issues still are there. Some Chinese clones have very good transistor matching though. Another issue is fake transistors and in the DZ clones they are probably fake.

Unless you are a diy guy and plan to correct these things you will not get the same level of performance although it can be very good. I have a pair  Telos clones from Kinki Studios that is incredible with teflon circuit boards, matched fets and all the good stuff but it was not a cheap clone by any means. Aside from the power it is much more realistic and involving  than my ML #333.

Having traveled to China many times relative to manufacturing, you do need the stay on top of quality more so than in Korea and other countries. It is somewhat country specific as you don’t make quality product overnight. It took Japan many years to reach their high level of quality! I would put most Korean branded products well ahead of Chinese products. Given time, China will no doubt reach the quality level of South Korea as their population become more educated. Yes, there are quality products coming out of China but the question centered on fake products.

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