Please relax or you’ll do yourself in. No one is advocating the purchase of fake cables. I certainly do not do it. Academically it might be an interesting study, that is all. Please don’t be so fast to condemn people.
Chinese "Odin" cables
- Thread starter marty
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Please relax or you’ll do yourself in. No one is advocating the purchase of fake cables. I certainly do not do it. Academically it might be an interesting study, that is all. Please don’t be so fast to condemn people.
Just for sharing my experience. I was curious about the world of chinese reproductions of high end cables and I purchased a midlevel cable (Taralabs "The one" AC cable) in a well-known website.
A friend of mine has the original model and I'm surprised about how good and fine is the level of external look of the chinese fake. Cable, connectors and details very very well executed, and also the packaging is finely reproduced.
Only the weight reveals a difference in the two cables. My friend refuse to make a direct listening A/B evaluation neverthless I made only some comparisons in my home with my almost decent system.
Despite being inferior to some other valued cables (Taralabs The gold and Cobalt, Fabercables Fifth element, Silcable Star Lisa and Kuro cable) the overall sound is quite good, listenable with pleasaure without great limitations or defects. For the price (from 5 to 10% of the named cables) undoubtly a bargain.
But on the ethical aspect I would not repeat this experiment since it's an unfair attack to the cable brands which suffer this kind of competition.
We all must look with great attention to many cables which comes on the second-hand market and sold as genuine ones from sellers who knows or not the matter. This cause a bad uncertain situation.
A friend of mine has the original model and I'm surprised about how good and fine is the level of external look of the chinese fake. Cable, connectors and details very very well executed, and also the packaging is finely reproduced.
Only the weight reveals a difference in the two cables. My friend refuse to make a direct listening A/B evaluation neverthless I made only some comparisons in my home with my almost decent system.
Despite being inferior to some other valued cables (Taralabs The gold and Cobalt, Fabercables Fifth element, Silcable Star Lisa and Kuro cable) the overall sound is quite good, listenable with pleasaure without great limitations or defects. For the price (from 5 to 10% of the named cables) undoubtly a bargain.
But on the ethical aspect I would not repeat this experiment since it's an unfair attack to the cable brands which suffer this kind of competition.
We all must look with great attention to many cables which comes on the second-hand market and sold as genuine ones from sellers who knows or not the matter. This cause a bad uncertain situation.
Elliot G.
Industry Expert
a study is validating the fake you just dont get it. I wonder how you would feel if people came and stole stuff from whatever it is you do
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Elliot G.
Industry Expert
It is a bit of a let he who is without the sin of the fathers scenario.
Everyone who eats pasta or ice cream is dining on stolen IP.
Dominant cultures in every age have historically stolen the physical and technological treasures of the previous great cultures that they either defeated or arose to overthrow. The Romans did it, Alexander the Great, the Assyrians, Egyptians, the Spanish, etc. truth is we are all fairly much equally standing on the shoulders of all previous great cultures and not all of it was won freely.
You can trace the thread of civilisation back through to the rise of the first early great river cultures along the Ganges, the Tigris and Euphrates, the Nile, the Yangtze and the Yellow River where much of early development of civilisation arose from and included is plenty of raiding and sacking of other cultures as an unfortunate right of passage for some.
There was a fascinating program last night on how it was a race for Russia and the Allied forces to get the greatest German scientists immediately post world war 2 with Werner Von Braun and his V2 rocket program being the one of the absolute jewels in the technological crown and so then launched the international space race.
Doesn’t make any of it right of course but taking stuff from others via espionage and stealth, by seduction or just by force (winning) is traditionally also a part of the shadow of how many great cultures ultimately arise to dominance.
The England cricket team last night stole the cup from New Zealand by concocting some silly rule
Australia couldn't have beaten England in the semis even if they cheated.....
Lol. We of Oz live in less than auspicious times cricket wise... but we ebb and then occasionally we flowAustralia couldn't have beaten England in the semis even if they cheated.....
such is the plight of a small sporting nation.
Lol. We of Oz live in less than auspicious times cricket wise... but we ebb and then occasionally we flow
Just don't mention the rugby...
Australia couldn't have beaten England in the semis even if they cheated.....
Hey, our sandpaper was out for cleaning.
Counterfeit products rarely have negative effect on the original. The original benefits most of the time from the imitation market.
No Rolex, Odin, Mercedes customer actually buys the fake product. Only people who can not and will not afford the original buys the counterfeit.
Surprisingly counterfeit watches even help sales for original brands. They bring future customers to the game. You get used to Swiss watches when you are young and poor with counterfeits and when you start making money you buy the original since you are deep into Swiss watch saga.
So probably zero Odin customers actually bought the fake Odin. Thus Nordost is not harmed. So I am cool with counterfeits most of the time. I never buy counterfeits but they provide jobs and money to families without actually hurting anybody.
I am generalizing here and I am sure there may be some instances where the fake hurts the original.
Love and respect,
Cagdas
No Rolex, Odin, Mercedes customer actually buys the fake product. Only people who can not and will not afford the original buys the counterfeit.
Surprisingly counterfeit watches even help sales for original brands. They bring future customers to the game. You get used to Swiss watches when you are young and poor with counterfeits and when you start making money you buy the original since you are deep into Swiss watch saga.
So probably zero Odin customers actually bought the fake Odin. Thus Nordost is not harmed. So I am cool with counterfeits most of the time. I never buy counterfeits but they provide jobs and money to families without actually hurting anybody.
I am generalizing here and I am sure there may be some instances where the fake hurts the original.
Love and respect,
Cagdas
There are A LOT of scenarios where that's not true. You need to take off your rose-colored counterfeit sunglasses!
People buy fakes without realizing it all the time. It's not just for luxury goods, it's for things like resistors, capacitors, etc. (since we're on an audio site), lithium batteries, both standardized and brand specific. Items people generally don't think about. The fake batteries can be dangerous and are always much lower capacity and lower lifespan vs the real ones. Ebay and Amazon are filled up with fakes of many products that are purchased by unsuspecting victims everyday. The enabler? Mostly Alibaba. They have fakes of nearly everything and some make it a business to buy them and resell them here. I've seen fakes that are difficult if not impossible to tell apart from originals anymore, like sunglasses... but the issue is, are the lenses any good or will they damage your eyes if used as intended? My Dad bought a jacket in China and of course it was a fake, but it was a fake of a North Face rain jacket that wasn't waterproof and didn't perform near the original, which is also dangerous.
Also there are imitations and then there are counterfeits, IMO both are wrong. However, lots of audio manufacturers use imitation products instead of the real thing and very few get it:
An example: Valab plugs. Here's a general search on ebay:
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=valab+plug&_sacat=0
How about the 4th one down, $28 instead of $350 for the real version? I've seen these plugs on my competitor's cables and it pisses me off!
Steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
I don't know what you're smoking today but IMO you are woefully misguided
I cannot agree with one single comment you posted.
Can you not see how counterfeit product serves only to destroy the original?
surely you don't believe what you just posted
I think we will disagree on "most of the time" . If we put "just a few times" in your sentence I will happily agree.
The high-end market is particularly sensitive to forgeries, as it is not a "transparent" market - manufacturers hide the more relevant details of their products, showing just the cosmetics - and products can not be easily evaluated and compared by consumers. The only thing that manufacturers can objectively protect is the trademark.
Only a few cable manufacturers openly gives us the electrical characteristics (C and L) of their cables. More than once I asked them about it to evaluate technical compatibility with electronics and I just got an irate answer telling me it is a secret ... I later understood why when I measured it from a sample I borrowed - the cable was a real technical disaster ...
Yes, I actually believe what I posted. And no, this is not a theory of mine. This issue came up in a Tag Heuer Q&A with a company representative. It was his own words that counterfeit helped them reach younger generations because having a watch on a wrist is not a necessesity in 21st century but a habit that must be formed. And people get their habits when they are young and there are very very few young people who can afford a Swiss watch in their teens. So he said that they never lost a real customer to a counterfeit Tag Heuer watch but gained by keeping the community young and large. “A counterfeit can never replace the real thing and every young guy wearing a counterfeit dreams to have the real thing as soon as he can. Young people losing interest in watches is the biggest problem.” he said.
Sorry if I offended anyone. These are my genuine thoughts. Counterfeits are big part of fashion world and big brands never really try to stop it for a reason. Sometimes they are even produced in the same factory as the original. A 15 year old girl in a mid income family having a counterfeit Hermes bag is always better for Hermes than if she does not have it at all. It will embed the brand in teens brain in all her teenhood and lust for the real thing until she has the means to buy it. Its just free advertisement. It creates brand loyalty even before they are potential customers today.
There might be some companies that went out of business because of counterfeit products. I don’t know one but there might be. But I know hundreds of them actually enjoying it.
By the way, I would never buy a counterfeit product if it the real thing is out of my pay grade. Not because it hurts someone but because it is simply stupid. Its just stupid to wear a fake Rolex or carry a fake Gucci bag.
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