Made in China?

[SunDevil]

Hi Headphone listeners,

I'm very curious how much of you care about where the headphone you're wearing is made and how much more you would spent to buy a headphone made in i.e. Germany?

Several brands have their Headphones made either in Germany, the US, Ireland or else (non-Asia). These headphone are mostly more expensive than the made in Asia Headphones like for instance a Sennheiser HD 201.

But how much is it worth to you??

Greets,
Peter

 

[squall343]

frankly i really do not care about where my headphones come from..

But so far, i do not have headphone that are from China

But my amp and dac are made in China and Hong Kong

 

[ClieOS]

I am only willing to pay as much as what I believe the quality of sound worths. Whether a headphone is made in China, Japan, U.S., E.U., Mexico, or from the Moon isn't a concern of mine.

 

[Faust2D]

Hi Peter,

How are you doing at Beyer?

Now to answer you question: Over the years I came to associate products made in Germany, USA, UK, Japan and etc. with better quality control, design and assembly. Products made is China and some other Asian countries tend to be associated with mass produced lower quality products.

I don't make a purchasing decision based on the country of origin so much as on the company that designed and manufactured the product and the quality of the product. It just happens that most of the headphones that I choose to buy are made in Japan and Germany.

With that out of the way it really depends how the products are made. There are many Chinese companies that make very good quality products and some European companies that made products that suck. I think the concern is that if let's say, I buy an AT headphone that is made in China it would be made of lower quality parts and at a cost point that will prevent it from reaching its designed potential. But if you think about it the same can be true for the product made in any country.

Traditionally European (Mb Quart, Beyer, AKG etc.) and Japanese (Stax, Fostex, Yamaha etc.) manufactured products tend be to associated with better quality and the higher-end products are made in these countries. Can they be made in China with the same quality control? Well that will depend on who is making it in China. The reason for the company to move the manufacture process to China would be to cut cost, when you cut cost you would most likely cut quality. Now, imagine, a young Chinese company designs and makes its own high end product, it's a hand made new headphone. In this scenario you would expect good quality and country of manufacture should ideally make no difference. To summarize, I would expect products of specialized companies like Stax, MB Quart etc. to be made in their countries of origin, and attempt to make it in China would be interpreted as an attempt to cut cost and ultimately something that will lead to lower quality.

Based on what I explained above, in the end, I would pay premium for a top of the line product if it's made in Japan by Stax and I would be reluctant to even buy said product if it would be made someplace else. I hope I answered your question.

 

[Singapura]

Peter,

I don't care at all where my headphones are made as long as they sound good and have decent built quality. In fact I find your suggestion that Chinese products are by definition inferior a bit offensive. Don't buy into the US and EU propaganda that everything Chinese is evil or badly made. It's not only price that makes a difference, some of the stuff made in China is actually top notch (the Spark/Cayin HA-1A comes to mind). Off course we get even more exposure to Chinese products in Singapore because it's closer.

 

[direcow]

well, almost everything is made in China these days, whether good things or bad things... just because labour costs are lower doesn't mean that the final product will be worse.

 

[steviebee]

Politically (guess I can't mention or discuss T**et under forum rules) I'd rather they weren't, but economics is economics...like I'd prefer that cowboy boots were still made wholly in the US/Mexico by local custom bootmakers, but...c'est le guerre.

edit\ thinking about it, cowboy boots is no comparison, because the quality of modern mass-made boots from whatever manufacturer is so inferior to how they used to be, and I am not implying that Chinese-made headphones are necessarily inferior.

 

[SunDevil]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Faust2D /img/forum/go_quote.gif Hi Peter, How are you doing at Beyer? ...

Hi !

thanks, I'm pretty good here now at Beyer!

Thank you for your answer, it gave me pretty good perspective!

 

[ClieOS]

I read from a news report that Foster, the major supplier of headphones' parts and OEM products (include Sony, Sharp, Audi-Technica...etc), has produced most of their product in their China factory since the 80s. Those parts or OEM headphone will be shipped back to Japan for final assembly (and marked as mad-in-Japan). I have never read anything about criticizing the quality of Foster's products, so apparently quality control and keeping a low cost isn't a problem for Foster.

The main question is, does moving a factory to China = cutting back on quality? I don't think so. Quality control and manufacturing cost control are two separate management problem, and a good management can do both well at the same time.

 

[Oya?]

For some reason I feel that products made locally in countries typically considered to have inferior manufacturing qualities, especially when they turn out to be outstanding, to have a lot of allure.

As an example, I've had my eyes on PK1s for a while now. That they're made in China, by a Chinese company, actually appeals to me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ClieOS /img/forum/go_quote.gif I am only willing to pay as much as what I believe the quality of sound worths. Whether a headphone is made in China, Japan, U.S., E.U., Mexico, or from the Moon isn't a concern of mine.

Moonphones!

 

[Cankin]

In my opinion, lower cost is not always equal to lower quality, despite there is some correlations.

 

[Faust2D]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ClieOS /img/forum/go_quote.gif I read from a news report that Foster, the major supplier of headphones' parts and OEM products (include Sony, Sharp, Audi-Technica...etc), has produced most of their product in their China factory since the 80s. Those parts or OEM headphone will be shipped back to Japan for final assembly (and marked as mad-in-Japan). I have never read anything about criticizing the quality of Foster's products, so apparently quality control and keeping a low cost isn't a problem for Foster. The main question is, does moving a factory to China = cutting back on quality? I don't think so. Quality control and manufacturing cost control are two separate management problem, and a good management can do both well at the same time.

Lots of companies manage to make products in China and maintain the quality, I agree. But for some of them moving a factory to China and going for mainstream products leads to very bad results. Take a company like Luxman; started as high-end, moved manufacturing to China, turned to mass-produced mediocrity and almost went bankrupt. Now they are back to making high-end in Japan and are doing just fine. Fostex on the other hand are doing just fine and have very good production lines in China.

 

[SunDevil]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Singapura /img/forum/go_quote.gif Peter, I don't care at all where my headphones are made as long as they sound good and have decent built quality. In fact I find your suggestion that Chinese products are by definition inferior a bit offensive. Don't buy into the US and EU propaganda that everything Chinese is evil or badly made. It's not only price that makes a difference, some of the stuff made in China is actually top notch (the Spark/Cayin HA-1A comes to mind). Off course we get even more exposure to Chinese products in Singapore because it's closer.

Please do not understand me wrong, I do not want to say that products from China (Asia) are crap or bad quality! I actually mean it more in a political sense. More and more products are being produced somewhere in Asia and you guys as an End-User might not know what really goes on at the manufacturer. More and more products are being manufactured somewhere in Asia to save cost and provide the market with lower prices. This is of course and very fine thing, but many European manufacturers get problems coming up against these "Asia Made" products. For a European manufacturer it's really not easy to get products made in Asia, the quality (or getting the product according to the specifications) is always a big issue costing a lot of time and money.

A great disadvantage to getting products produced in Asia is the so called "quality control" or basic "influence". If the product is produced in Asia, for instance a product change or product correction mostly costs a lot of time (and again with that: money). With a production within the same country (and even same building) there is much more control. BUT >> labour is more expensive here in Europe as it is in Asia. This makes most products made in Europe more expensive. More and more companies (manufactureres) suffer from this and have to shut down, people losing jobs and so on...

 

[Faust2D]

Quote:

Originally Posted by SunDevil /img/forum/go_quote.gif With a production within the same country (and even same building) there is much more control. BUT >> labour is more expensive here in Europe as it is in Asia. This makes most products made in Europe more expensive. More and more companies (manufactureres) suffer from this and have to shut down, people losing jobs and so on...

From my personal experience having everything in the same building will give you the best QC possible. The guys from design department can walk over to the assembly line and check the product right at the spot

I faced a lot of issues outsourcing my projects to India and China, in the end things worked out, but I was constantly worried about quality, since i was seeing a lot more mistakes all the time.

 

[facelvega]

Quote:

Originally Posted by SunDevil /img/forum/go_quote.gif Hi ! thanks, I'm pretty good here now at Beyer! Thank you for your answer, it gave me pretty good perspective!

For me, the real topic of this thread is that Peter moved from MB to Beyer. It's a sad thing for us members of Team MB, doubly so for me as literally just now while I am writing this message, the postman delivered my PMB500 electrostats, which means I've taken the torch from Digitalmind as the only head-fier with a pair of MB stats.

But I guess it's no longer 1980 when it would have been way cooler to work at MB, so congratulations on the new job, Peter. Now that you're there, maybe you can convince them to reissue the ET-1000.

Or if they won't go for that, maybe you can finally find out for us the origins of the famous blowup beyer, also procured by Digitalmind. So far all we've heard from Beyer is that is was made in the UK around 1965-69, which I think can't be right, jugding from the thin-profile, presumably mylar dome driver that must be from a little later. Oder?