[winterslove]

http://www.ornec.com/


I came across this company selling
what seems to be high end amps for silly prices,
i did email some people who i saw bought
amps like these from a seller i came across on ebay,
selling the same cheap hi fi from china,
they were all very happy with the service they got from the
ebay seller.

I havent emailed anyone who have bought from ornec as i do
not know anyone who has,
although i did speak to the guy from ornec,
he told me that the reason they are cheaper is because
they only act as a buying agent
meaning all they do is buy it for whoever orders it,
they do not keep stock or face import tax
as they have the item sent direct to whoever buys it,
also, because they have big sales with the companies
they get cheaper prices
so i thought i would ask you guys what you think about this

I still plan to buy my aspen as i like the thought of
making my own but i wonder if some people are put
off making their own when these prices are so cheap,
i may though buy a cd player from a maker in china
as most stuff is made in china anyway
unless i bought a naim or rega or creek that is,
but i do find it hard to believe they really can sound as good as
they look,
not only that but some of the items look just like
icon audio and union research and other high end makers gear.

here is the link for one of the ebay sellers i found who sells hi fi from china
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5811066826&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&rd=1

and here is the seller who i emailed the people who bought from him
this is the link for the cd player i was going to buy
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7522784674&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&rd=1
i do not intend to buy the amp,
just a cd player so if anyone can provide advice
i would be thankful as i do worry it may be too good to be true.

[Bill Baker]

My only recommendation is BE CAREFULL. I have been working with many consumers who have ordered directfrom China with most highly regretting getting involved. While I am not familiar with the particualr products you mentioned, there does seem to be an onslaught of products making their way into the country that do not match up to their description.
 I have written a page on this on my website warning people against the dangers of buying direct.
 Many of these products do not have transformers and/or power supplies that are meant to run on US voltages and often burn out within weeks. I receive several calls a month to service these products or inquiries as to how to repair them or get parts.
 While it seems to be a great deal, it often ends up costing more in the end.

 I recommend buying from a reputable US importer as there are a few around but many of them will even now tell you it is to risky and they stopped importing particular lines due to major inconsistencies in quality control lately.
 Do your research first and don't be fooled by companies that are "based" in the US but have shipping direct from China or Hong Kong. These are usually just a front.

 Good luck and be careful!

[jswallac]

I echo Bill's warning.  Buyer be VERY aware.  I recently bought a Sheng Ya CD player from a fellow AC member.  I am not sure how it happened (I suspect FedEx), but the transport would not spin the disk when I went to use it.  I took it apart and identified the problem part.  It was the Philips transport.  I called Philips with the part number to get a replacement.  They claimed no knowledge of the part and refered me to their authorized repair facilities in Southern Cal.  Only one was even willing to look at it.  The others wanted nothing to do with an imported Chinese player.  The shop I took it to tried all their sources, but was unable to find any place to get the part.  I did locate one place myself from a web search, but it was a European business that only sold this part in quantities of 6000!  A few more than I planned to use.  The shop did call a few other places to see if they could do the repair.  Again, nobody wanted anything to do with it.  Luckily the AC member I purchased it from took it back.  If this had been bought from ebay or some other place I may have been stuck with a beautiful door stop.

Sheng Ya is a major player in China and certainly has great reviews.  Imagine what these lesser known brands are like.  My advice, buy from a dealer that can do the repairs if they are needed or buy a product widely servicable in the U.S. (or your particular home country).

[AKSA]

The big issue with Chinese imports is communication.

I have tried Chinese pcb manufacturers.  On the whole, they did a good job;  nice quality, well made.  But in almost every case there was a major flaw;  component designations not compliant with the original file, overlay missing, no silk screen, whatever.  If they bothered to reply to my complaint, here was never any admission that it was their problem, and sometimes it was clear they did not understand my written complaint, or perhaps chose not to understand.

In the end, I gave up, and have them again made locally.  The work is just the same, the cost is much more, but if there is a problem, they fix it, and I can actually talk to the operators to be 100% sure.  There's no point having 500 pcbs at rock bottom prices if your customers can't actually use them......

Cheers,

Hugh

[Bill Baker]

Hello Hugh,
  I agree. The communication barrier is very difficult. Especially when dealing with OEM. I was originally going to have a Chinese factory OEM some base amplifiers and couldn't even get past the prototypes blowing up. Several attempts to resolve the issue led to dropping the whole project and designing and manufacturing the products in house. It may cost a bit more but in the end, I feel much better knowing my customers will be getting a high quality product and feel more comfortable standing behind it.
 I honestly think things are going to swing back towards US manufacturing vs going abroad. Just too many obsticles anymore.
 Welcome back "Made in the USA"!!!!!!!

[SuperMart]

Hi Bill,

Good post, thank you!

You make the very good point that much business will come back to the good 'ol USA.  I agree.  I believe the best option would be to have it made in the US, but work hard at what the US has traditionally done, and that is design it in such a way that production is very inexpensive without in any way sacrificing material quality.

This skill, perhaps even more than Japan, is what has, in my mind, distinguished US production technology from the crowd in the past, and will so again in the future........

My thanks to Marty, whom I am visiting at present, for the use of his PC!

Cheers,

Hugh

[winterslove]

I have learned alot from all your posts regarding this matter
the fact that  some of you who work in the audio business
decided to not go the china root has really helped me make my
mind up,

i happen to be from the uk,
we do have a number of hi-fi makers
like naim/ rega/ mf/ croft(my family name as well,lol)
and creek amoung others
creek was going to have their stuff made in china
but it seemed that their customers objected to it
although we have hi-fi makers like icon audio who do have
their amps made in china

but after reading the posts, i will scrap the idea

saving money is the reason i decided to build my own amplifier

i am at the moment reading though a book called
Eletronics for dummies  which is a really good book
i have learned so much so far from it
and in the long term doing study into the area
will save me money from mistakes
as i plan to place my order for a aska 100 in the new year(jan/feb)
and i do not want to blow it up so research first i think is best
its just the cd player i can not build of cause
and that is why i was going to buy one from china but not now

thanks for the replies
they have been a great help
and im sure money saver
jason

[EchiDna]

I know I'm in the ridiculously small minority who can speak some Chinese languages, however I'm totally with Hugh in the communication thing...

Think about it - China has been open to business with the "west" for only a few short years, and yet for the past 50 years we have seen a plethora of chinese made toys and hardware items available in the west... so how was this possible? by paying a middleman who spoke the lingo of course...
that's the economy of Hong Kong - allowing Westerm companies to deal with China, without actually ever speaking to them! soo.... either learn the lingo, or do what the West has done for the last few generations, go through HK, Singapore, Taiwan or some other multilingual trading company... but to honest even though I speak basic conversational Mandarin and can swear readily in Hokkien, Teochew and Cantonese   I still do not like my chances of getting good stuff first time around from the mailand.
YMMV of course, but I think the "dealer" in the West is at least half the problem...

Buy local and get guaranteed results! buy an AKSA from Hugh and know that you are backed by (IMHO) exceptional service. Yeah, I'm an AKSA owner, but I'm not affiliated - I haven't even been bribed with one of Hugh's local cafe machiatos yet!  

[enzedone]

After having had the dissatisfaction of bying cheap parts from China, I would suggest to anyone thinking about it; be very carefull.
I actually went to China and bought a whole lot of electronic parts to build a gainclone amp, but after putting the power supply together and seeing all those parts fail, would never buy from that country again. And my brother in-law is Chinese. We went to a very large electronic market place to purchase them, but I would say that 90% of them failled........Be carefull.

[Bill Baker]

I think China has the potential to compete in the US audio market but not anytime soon. In all honesty, the last few years have proven to me that it will be some time before they meet the US consumers' standards and more so before they meet US dealers' standards.

 There are many of us in the industry that looked abroad for inexpensive manufacturing to save money and try to offer good valued products to our customers and I can only say "sorry". Hey, we live and learn and I feel there are many more starting to feel the same way.

 Just yesterday I met with a machine shop manager located only a mile from my store to start manufacturing the chassis for our Musica Bella 300B amplifiers. This manager is one of the other coaches on a football team that my twins play on. Him and I have been coaching this team for a few years now. Now we can sit andtalk about the amplifier chassis and then switch over to stragety for the next game. I might pay a little more jingle for them (the amp chassis) but if any problems arise, I can be speaking face to face with the one in charge within 10 minutes. Maybe have lunch and discuss things. Not waiting 3 months for a return email. The best thing of all...... it puts capital back into my own community.

[andyr]

http://www.ornec.com/

I came across this company selling
what seems to be high end amps for silly prices,
...

winterslove (or Croft, I think you said your surname was),

I'm perplexed as to why you would make this post on the AKSA Forum.  Strange as it may appear, the AKSA Forum is but one of many Forums on AudioCircle and there are what I would've thought are much more appropriate ones for a post like yours - eg:
*  The Starting Block
*  Audio Central
*  Two Channel Audio
*  The Lab.

Then there's also Audio Asylum which has its own unique collection of Forums (not to say inmates!), several of which would suit your Qu.

What we are concerned about on the AKSA Forum is issues concerned with AKSA gear.  Yes, this discussion often strays into wire used with AKSA gear or what speakers sound great with AKSA gear or great recordings listened to on AKSA gear ... or many other topics associated with AKSA gear.  However, requests for advice on whether a CD player from a Chinese supplier which is very cheap is any good are, to my way of thinking at least, way OT!

If you really want a wide spectrum of responses, so you can make up your mind about this extremely complex matter ... can I suggest your Qu is more appropriately directed at some of these other Forums?

Regards,

Andy

[winterslove]

i accept your valid point
athough as i plan to use any player i bought with an aspen amp
i thought it would have been ok to post it
as for all i knew
someone who owes an apsen may have bought a cheap cd player from china to use with it
as the reason one builds their own amp is to save money
and unless you ask
you never know
but i could have just asked
that in a more simle and shorter way
although from posting it
the comments from hugh and the other hi-fi maker reponse audio
really has help me make up my mind to not buy from china
if i had not posted it
i would not have learned what they shared
and would have most likly bought from china
i did not post such a question on audio asylum
as i remember sometime back reading a number of posts on the topic
but none of those really helped me make my mind up
as no one who replied were in the hi-fi business
and i did not want to post the same question twice on that forum
the comments i read in the reply to my post
for me have been very helpful
but in  future i will keep my posts directed at aspen amps themselfs

[Bill Baker]

as i plan to place my order for a aska 100 in the new year(jan/feb)
and i do not want to blow it up so research first i think is best
its just the cd player i can not build of cause
and that is why i was going to buy one from china but not now

 Hi Andyr,
  Judging from the quote above, I think he had the aska gear on his mind when he posted this one looking for a good CD player to match up with his future ASKA system.  I agree that another Circle would be more at home for this thread but can see how it originated here. The title should bring about the proper responses.

[andyr]

as i plan to place my order for a aska 100 in the new year(jan/feb)
and i do not want to blow it up so research first i think is best
its just the cd player i can not build of cause
and that is why i was going to buy one from china but not now

 Hi Andyr,
  Judging from the quote above, I think he had the aska gear on his mind when he posted this one looking for a good CD player to match up with his future ASKA system.  I agree that another Circle would be more at home for this thre ...

Hi Bill,

Yes, I guess he did (have the idea of buying a CDP which sounds good with an AKSA - and, like most of us, he wants good bang for his buck!) ... but that idea makes just as little sense to me!  I would've thought either a CDP sounds good - which it will do with AKSA, Krell, AN, WAVAC or any other fine amp - or it sounds bad ... in which case it will sound bad with an AKSA!

IE. amplifiers are not "tone controls" for CDPs!  

Regards,

Andy

[Bill Baker]

but that idea makes just as little sense to me! I would've thought either a CDP sounds good - which it will do with AKSA, Krell, AN, WAVAC or any other fine amp - or it sounds bad ... in which case it will sound bad with an AKSA!

 I agree Andy. A good CD player is good and  bad one is bad. For the most part anyway. Sometime synergy does play a role but in this case, I don't think it applies.
 I am sure he meant no harm and is just looking to get some feedback. You will notice he is quite new to the circle joining just last month and we don't want to scare him away just yet.

winterslove.....welcome to the circle. I hope your experience here is pleasant and you hang around a bit.

[ginger]

Yes - Gingers experience,
If you are buying from China or China sourced equipment then you have to be comfortable/knowledgable enough to fix problems yourself. I bought a Chinese "Music Angel" EL34 Push Pull Tube Amp recently. Sounded very ordinary so I got the "representative" schematic and dove in. Those of you who know about cathode coupled phase splitters would know that they can be balanced by using unequal load resistors on the tube anodes. The schematic showed these load resistors in what I was cetain to be the wrong way round as far as which section had the larger load resistor. So I took the amp apart to check. One channel followed the WRONG schematic, the other channel had a component loading error which in fact resulted in in it being correct (two wrongs DID make a RIGHT). Fixing that problem made it sound far less ordinary BUT still not great. Redesigning the phase splitter section and rebuilding it resulted in a very respectable amplifier. BUT you see the drift and the point I'm making. If I had any less design and build experience, my money would have been entirely wasted. As it was about 8 hours effort gave me a quite respectable amp.

This is a worry since they had obviously gone to some effort to use high grade components, Dale MF resistors, WIMA polypropylene capacitors and very good output transformer etc. All let down by a inadequate design and  assembly errors. OH - and the Chinese Tubes were'nt great either. Substituting "Winged C" Svetlana Russian Tubes gave it a huge lift.

BUYER BEWARE INDEED.

Cheers,
Ginger

[winterslove]

My post was not so much as i wanted a full review on any cdp from china
or that i exected any cdp to be like tone controls,
though maybe somehow i give that idea in my post?
i do believe that different cdp do have a different sound,
which does'nt make it bad,jus different
i do not believe it is as simple as saying a cdp is bad or good
as my brother has a cdp that i do not like the sound of,
my brother loves the sound
does that make it good or bad
to me it is bad,to him it is good.

i was after knowing if hi-fi from china was good,
in the sense of was it made as well as they claimed,
as i did not want to buy a cdp from china,
to use with my aspen which i intend to buy next year,
only for it to be not as good as in build or specs as it was sold to me as,
so i thought it would be best to post here, as maybe someone
who owned an aspen amplifier may have bought a cdp from china,
if i had posted elsewere,
and i mentioned i wanted to use it with an aspen amp
im sure someone may have replied,
why dont you try posting on the apsen board,
as maybe someone on that board has bought a cdp from china
to use with their apsen amp
so i thought i would just post here
and from the replies i got
im glad i did,
maybe i would have got the same replies
from the same people if i had,
but im still glad i posted here
hope this clears up any misunderstanding my post caused.
as i said before,
i could have explained my point better
as when i mention hi fi and icon audio ect
i may have given the idea that i was posting an
not as aspen direct posting
Sorry.

[DeanSheen]

Are your writing poetry?  If want answers make coherent points in ENGLISH.

[andyr]

Are your writing poetry?  If want answers make coherent points in ENGLISH.

Tut tut, Dean, old chap,

"People who live in glass houses shouldn't ..."!!

English is nice ... grammar is nice ... proper punctuation important for "getting the message across" ... but so is spelling ... and not leaving out words!  (Read your sentences slowly and carefully to yourself!)

Regards,

Andy
(Grumpy Old Man! )  )

[DeanSheen]

BS.  Tut tut yourself.  It's badly written and difficult to read.

So right back at you Fosters boy.