HEGEL - Is it really made in Norway ?

This is becoming one of the goofiest threads ever.

Deception? Only if the gear is stamped �Made In Norway,� which by all accounts it is not. And please, the bit about the case aesthetic being deceptive is just plain silly. Next up we'll be hearing that Chinese-made cars should have three or five wheels to distinguish them from others.

Back-handed jibes at quality and/or reliability from those who have never owned one, save one person who had some sort of bad experience with the brand? Concerns about �value� and talk about Rolexes, when their most expensive amplifiers are $10K so not exactly in the FM Acoustics/Soulution/D'Agostino bracket? C'mon, man�

Knghifi and Sabai have owned the gear and are entitled to speak as to quality. Everything else is speculation. I'm not a fan of all Chinese manufactured products myself, but I own enough of them to know that some are very reliable and very well built, while others have been junk. I can say the same about a lot of made in U.S.A. products I've purchased too.

Seems like a lot of xenophobia/subtle racism is popping up in this thread (and I'm lily-White so not my ax to grind, just an observation). If you want to make a trade imbalance/theft of trade secrets/toleration of unequal trading conditions/global economic policy argument against the prevalence of cheap Chinese manufactured goods dominating world markets that's one thing, but no one here has managed to demonstrate that there is the slightest thing wrong with this brand. And I say this with zero personal interest in the products and no intent of ever owning them.

It is the right of the consumer to know the country of manufacture of the products to be purchased. It is one of the parameters that affects the decision to buy or not. Hegel knows this and decided to hide this information from the buyer when the same buyer knows very well the origin of the tomatoes and the t-shirts he buys.
This is a cheap trick and very bad marketing practice.

One valuable lesson to be gained from this thread is to never feed your pets electronic components made in China- especially Hegel products.

I've had products made in China. They're big in ISO9000 compliance, but you really need someone representing your company watching the product coming off the assembly line. Otherwise, substandard parts and quality problems can seap in with very little recourse if you've let inventories build up. But it's a per-customer/per-manufacturer issue, and too big to generalize.

"Deception? Only if the gear is stamped �Made In Norway,� which by all accounts it is not. And please, the bit about the case aesthetic being deceptive is just plain silly. Next up we'll be hearing that Chinese-made cars should have three or five wheels to distinguish them from others."

Maybe you have a point. To be fair, I checked some equivalent US made audio components to see if we hide our country of origin labels. Sorry, but every US made component I checked was clearly marked Made in the USA, in bold print and in a conspicuous place. Its almost like they wanted you to see it.

Also, no need to put different wheels on cars, or any drastic measures. All you need to do is look at the VIN number. If the 1st letter is L, its made in China. You won't see too many Chinese cars over here, though. They don't hold up well on the boat ride over. Its just too much of a strain. They can't take that kind on punishment.

"Seems like a lot of xenophobia/subtle racism is popping up in this thread (and I'm lily-White so not my ax to grind, just an observation)."

How do we know that you're not the racist here? People that have to go around telling everyone that they're not racist, usually turn out to be racist. Even the "lily-white ones". Regardless, I can't be one. I had real Chinese food last night for dinner, made by real Chinese people. I even used chop sticks to eat it, so you better be careful who you call racist.