IS NOTHING MADE IN THE WEST ANYMORE

[Gil Boyd]

Blimey ordered a number of SENNHEISER headphones which arrived today from a UK company. I bought them initially because they were German!!!
I'll let the boxes do the talking..........even Australia gets a mention.
Happy St Patricks Day

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[Aragorn243]

It's really scary. What would happen if we went to war today? But then maybe it's a good thing that it makes it so difficult. Two ways of looking at it I guess.

I will not buy Chinese manufactured items if I can avoid it. The stuff is junk. Substandard steel, questionable paint, just bad news all around. I work in construction and some products like a door for instance may include a bit/saw to cut out the door knob hole and the quality is so poor it will get through the first outside layer of steel but won't be sharp enough to cut the inside layer of steel. Sawzall blades in bulk for good reason, takes six to cut through what one good blade goes through like butter.

[Gil Boyd]

All the rhetoric Angela Mirkel spouts about how independent Germany is, it shows even a great German company like Sennheiser have succumbed to having their great products made cheaper in China.
Don't think I would be to happy as the Sales Director of that company broadcasting to all insundry who does what on the boxes. Fritz Sennheiser must be turning in his grave!!
Lets hope they last in the hands of practitioners who know what they want from audio!!!

[Flying10uk]

There have been all sorts of quality problems with "cheap" imported metals in recent years but the person at the end of the queue/line who has actually purchased the metal may not actually see any price reduction, only quality reduction. I have personally experienced continuous welded steel tube that has been such poor quality that the simple act of clamping it in a saw vice is enough to split the weld and it even cracked with the very bare minimum of vice pressure. Other defects may include poor surface finish and variations in thickness which may cause problems depending on usage.

[Eaglelord17]

You also have the other side of things as well now. Made in China is starting to not always mean a crappy product. The Chinese are gaining the ability to make high end products which are comparable with most the west has to offer (at the same time most the west is losing the ability to make high end products, you stop using the skills you lose them).

Maybe in 20 years Made in China will be like Made in Japan, once it meant crap, now not so much.

[JimF4M1s (Deceased)]

China labor costs are rising. Now you are seeing made in Vietnam

[Flying10uk]

Yep, the printer which I purchased about a year ago that is made by a very well known brand is manufactured in 'nam. I thought that they had produced a top quality, high tech product until about 2 weeks ago when it decided to start chewing up paper then "ingesting" it.

[HOOKED ON HISTORY]

My two cents. Two words. Harbor Freight.

[cipherk98]

Chinese can make good stuff when it is specified as such. I have a Fiio MP3 player that uses the same DAC as the high end stuff and cost a fraction of the price. High quality product despite some issues at time with the firmware, though I don't use it much anymore as since I went back to unlimited data, streaming SiriusXM and Apple Music is easier when on the go, plus my playlists and everything auto sync now. Only example I can think of really.

Problem is companies double down on the cost savings by ordering stuff to be made cheap of cheap parts. I suspect a big issue over there is vetting of suppliers, or lack thereof... I know Chinese steel in particular makes me very nervous. I also think that while Walmart may check a run the first time it comes in, I don't know if they keep an eye on it each time the boat comes in because they don't care as long as they keep coming. Bootleg stuff is a real issue too, or remarketing of rejected products, sometimes used/reman sold as new, whatever. And if they have to make stuff with the same Chinese machine tools I've seen over here, well no wonder so much of it is out of spec junk.

Thing is though, if I buy a premium brand at a premium price, I except it to be made in their home country. And while this argument has been made before with cameras, someone like Zeiss had Yashica making their lenses because Yashica proved themselves as top notch, not because they could build it the cheapest. Those optics and cameras stood the test of time, and I will bet the current Cosina made products will as well. Now if some big name goes to China it's going to be a battle of the lowest bidder, not the best builder. I don't think China will ever be like Japan - a lot of the "Japanese crap" talk came about entirely for reasons other than the product's merits. Guitars were another example, they did make cheap department stuff to a price point, but their real products were so good and at such a great price American companies finally sued them to stop in the late 70s... then promptly licensed out their designs to the same factories. Cars were generally good too, just underpowered, undersized, and not versatile enough for the American market... but they got there. The QC and manufacturing control was always there due to guys like Deming, along with the business sense. I don't see it in Chinese products.

[Flying10uk]

To be fair to China I think that China sometimes gets the blame for a poor quality product or material when in actual fact the item has come from another Far Eastern country. Another country that can have issues with quality/quality control is India but, no doubt, they are also capable of making good quality products as is China.