[pabbi1]

With all the great new gear being developed in China, are there any Chinese developed world class (dynamic or electrostatic) headphones, that could compete in the far upper end? With the success in amps and sources, one would think headphones would be close behind.

 

[jagorev]

Well, I can't think of a Chinese brand, but most of the good headphones are probably made in China.

 

[nsjong]

Dunno about those Chinese brands, but all the Korean brands are excellent.
Korean brands are mostly really cheap and sound great.

 

[augustwest]

"With all the great new gear being developed in China, are there any Chinese developed world class (dynamic or electrostatic) headphones, that could compete in the far upper end? With the success in amps and sources, one would think headphones would be close behind."

I can hardly wait until they reverse engineer the Grado line. Sell them at half the price with better build quality.

- augustwest

 

[digitalmind]

Quote:

Originally Posted by augustwest "With all the great new gear being developed in China, are there any Chinese developed world class (dynamic or electrostatic) headphones, that could compete in the far upper end? With the success in amps and sources, one would think headphones would be close behind." I can hardly wait until they reverse engineer the Grado line. Sell them at half the price with better build quality. - augustwest

Reverse engineering is bad, mmkay?

 

[blueice]

I think it will be a matter of time before grado, sony, akg, senn clones show up. They certainly have the mass production capability and the technology to do it. Afterall, they can get people into space after the American and the Russian. Just whether or not they believe it is worth the effort of cloning since the market is so small. I think cloned speaker will probably showed up first before the headphone. The profit margin in speaker is certainly larger than headphone.

 

[pabbi1]

I had hoped to avoid the 'RE' discussion, but so be it.

The plethora of quality consumer electronics being manufactured (and designed) in China is impressive, in total, and it just seems that headphone technology would be a coming product offering.

My interests lie more in the Sennheiser and Stax competition, and, hopefully, not just re-engineered product (read: pale imitation with an exacting physical resemblance).

At the right price, a (quality) re-engineered R-10, HE90 / HE60 or L3000, especially if they are of no current / future interest to their creators, should be a viable audio product. Having enjoyed my Eastsound E5, I'd be very interested in it's headphone equivalent.

 

[fjf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by pabbi1 My interests lie more in the Sennheiser and Stax competition, and, hopefully, not just re-engineered product (read: pale imitation with an exacting physical resemblance). At the right price, a (quality) re-engineered R-10, HE90 / HE60 or L3000, especially if they are of no current / future interest to their creators, should be a viable audio product. Having enjoyed my Eastsound E5, I'd be very interested in it's headphone equivalent.

Agreed!

 

[flecom]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jagorev Well, I can't think of a Chinese brand, but most of the good headphones are probably made in China.

well, BeyerDynamic's are made in Germany, AKG's are made in Austra, Grado's are made in the USA... dunno about any of the other ones...

 

[Medikit]

Quote:

Originally Posted by augustwest "With all the great new gear being developed in China, are there any Chinese developed world class (dynamic or electrostatic) headphones, that could compete in the far upper end? With the success in amps and sources, one would think headphones would be close behind." I can hardly wait until they reverse engineer the Grado line. Sell them at half the price with better build quality. - augustwest

Usually when the chinese reverse engineer foreign goods the quality is decreased not increased.

 

[needmoretoys]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Medikit Usually when the chinese reverse engineer foreign goods the quality is decreased not increased.

That is certainly true of the telescopes and telescope eyepieces from China. They are not up to the quality of the USA or Japanese optics, but they are probably 80% of the optical quality at less than 50% of the price. It's hard to know if that would also be true of audio equipment.

 

[slinger1182]

Chinese build quality is good? Now that's a first!

 

[Skrying]

Quote:

Originally Posted by slinger1182 Chinese build quality is good? Now that's a first!

Yes, the high end products made in China can be of very high quality. Just these days most of the products we use from China are those that are massed produced and sold to make the largest profit possible and pay workers the least.

 

[slinger1182]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skrying Yes, the high end products made in China can be of very high quality. Just these days most of the products we use from China are those that are massed produced and sold to make the largest profit possible and pay workers the least.

Hehe, and China is a communist country!

 

[jvbb2005]

I ain't gonna to talk about politics here.
There are quite a few chinese brands I have tried. They have good price/ performance ratio but in terms of quality they are still no AKG / Senn.
And yes, lots of reserved engineering but mostly on AT cans but so far haven't seen any Grado/Senn clones yet.
Still takes a long time before Chinese headphone makers can do something meaningful to the headphone community, IMO.

You know I have read from an industrial report that 90% of the headphones are made in China now, of course, this figure include those cheap buds too.


As for quality....china can produce some high quality products too eg. Apple computers are now all made in the Shanghai factory, Dell in Xieman.