Which is better, Jolida or Cayin?

I don't know where you've heard "lots of negative quality reports on Kavent...in the past couple of years."

I don't own any Kavent, but did some correspondence with them earlier this year, so I am familiar with the company.

I Checked for the validity of your claim by doing a word search on AA and here at Audiogon of Kavent. There are no posts before March of 2004. There are no negative posts period. Fact is Kavent, which sells modified Shengya's, didn' exist before 2004.

I have a Chinese made Jungson amp, Chinese made Eastsound CDP and Chinese made Meibao stands. Needless to say I have few reservations about dealing with products from Chinese manufacturers. My reservation is be careful buying equipment from American and European manufacturers who are simply outsourcing to China. They do this to keep cost low and sometimes a cut in quality as well.

I've perty much eliminated American and European made amps and CDP's from consideration. You simply way overpay. Europeans are buying Chinese audio by the boat load because you pay 3-4X more for similar domestic equipment. We still haven't gotten over this bias here in the States.

I'm using a Chinese made Xindak SACD2 CDP and love it. No bias here. I don't even hold the people in Bangalore India responsible for the poor customer and tech support you get these days. I hold the US companies that train them to read a script responsible. Why not give them some technical training with the product and let them think on their own.

I have owned both a stock and fully modified 2b (Bizzy Bee) modified Cayin TA-30. They sound great and have excellent build quality. Paul (Bizzy Bee) is excellent!

BTW, TAS (The Absolute Sound Magazine) had nothing but praise for the TAD Cayin TA-30.

I've owned a lot of SS and tube integrated amps including some from Antique Sound Labs (Chinese), Anthem (Canadian) and a custom built unit from a highly praised American designer/builder. The Cayin was easily my favorite and had the best build quality (IMHO).

Enjoy,

TIC

Maxxc, you may not be aware that Audiogon does not archive all threads that go on here. I searched for a keyword other than Kavent that I know occurred in a thread here that included members' bad experiences with Kavent equipment. The search did not produce anything, so that thread is not archived. Given that you've been around here a while, I'm surprised you didn't realize that before you tried to discredit my comments in that way.

I have a Chinese made Antique Sound Labs amp that I like very well, although I admit it is not perfect. I chose it over the similar Jolida and the Cayin offerings based in part on the very limited amount of information I found here and elsewhere on the Internet about amps in that price range and in part because I had a dealer nearby who sold ASL and I got to hear it. You may consider them as an alternative?