Back in the 90's Alan Wright (from Australia) wrote a book "The Preamp Cookbook", in that book he went over designing a then state of the art audio preamp. He explained how important the work done by Tektronix on tube circuitry in the 50's and 60's was to wide band low distortion circuitry, I worked on those Tek scopes as a young technician and I can vouch for the excellence of their designs, the circuits were spot on and the tubes seemed to last forever.. The designers of those 500 series scopes (Radiotron Designers Handbook was a great source) stood on the shoulders of designers that came before them, they took those designs and improved on them to get what they wanted out of them. Designs evolve, they do not spring forth from nowhere.
It sounded like the original question was more about rebadging existing products than making clones. This has happened a lot with OPPO Blu Ray players.
Not sure it was the case with OPPO. From what I understand OPPO sold the components to companies like Cambridge Audio as a wholesaler / manufacturer to be included in their player. While it is basically an Oppo internally it is branded differently with the full blessing of Oppo. Then you got the companies like JTLi that buy players from Oppo and do modifications and then on sell them. I have heard of issues with grey imports (imported from another region) To my knowledge there is no companies out there doing a direct counterfeit knock off.
Hi Paul. You’re probably aware of some of stuff available on eBay. Cloned Quad 405 amplifier boards are readily available and apparently quite good. In fact there is a boutique market in making copies of this brand. Also I’ve seen Naim and Linn cloned circuit boards too.
Around 1970 / 1972, my Navy ship went to Hong Kong for a week or so, twice. I purchased a Thorens turntable, SME tone arm & great Warfedale speakers. Some of the shops along the street had, in their windows, great, big reel to reel tape decks. I was told to be very careful, to NOT buy a tape deck, & I suppose a nice, big amplifier because unscrupulous people would open up the device & replace the quality components, with cheap (as possible) ones! Probably not do any realignment! Make a mess! This reminds me of Paul's video where he says how he uses expensive components, including capacitors & heavy transformer components, because this affects / improves the sound. In the mid 70s, I worked at a hospital medical media. We had, as I recall, Conrack / Conrak televisions. They were just normal, good sized but not particularly large, (only) black & white televisions. I thought, not big deal. Until I was told that they were very expensive! Perhaps $10,000, Back then! This is because their components were 'Mil - Spec' - a much tighter than usual specification for the components. I'm sure that this was for reliability. Paul's products, are a bargain!
Hi Paul... I guess what the person was asking was more to do with 'how do you feel about someone stealing your high end designs and mass producing them'... In a way the mass produced products do not affect your market, as your target customers would not buy these mass produced / copied products.... But, what happens here is that yours or other high end designs do get ripped and the general population does get to enjoy good audio (maybe 60-80% of what high end audiophiles get to enjoy buying your products).
audioquest cables were counterfeit big time in Asia but apparently according to my local dealer that's been in business for 40 years told me that they paid a lot of money to catch and bring the counterfeit company in court and shut them down , congrats Audioquest cause i use all of my cables from them. thanks for the video Paul
What I don't understand is why doesn't audioquest make serial numbers or some type of anti-counterfeit security process on their cables...it shouldn't be that hard to do.
Cosmic Wonder fakes are fakes. If someone thinks these chinese fakes are bought by Siltech and sold by originals...well You may buy them. Id rather buy original
Gibson Les Paul's are being counterfitted like mad today. Fender Guitars probably are too along with PRS and several other top of the line products. Years ago we saw it in Auto Parts, copying AC and other brands that weren't that good to begin with. It sucks. It's hard for the buyer to know what is the real deal without tons of research, and it's hard on manufacturers like yours Paul. It costs all of us dearly. If a guy buys a counterfeit product thinking it's the real deal and it doesn't perform like the real thing, he writes a bad review. Your reputation suffers and it gets hardier for manufacturers to make money. Eventually, it will drive good companies out of business.
Hi Paul, I'm not sure if you're aware, but certain products are more easily counterfeited than others. I am always looking for bargain but quality used audio equipment. In your case, I have not seen much of counterfeited PS Audio devices, but if you are not already aware, you should (or maybe shouldn't) do a quick search on Ebay for any of your current or past model power cables. In no time you will see listings, usually from foreign countries like China, with cheap and obvious (and sometimes not-so-obvious) counterfeit PS Audio cables. And even when it's not obvious or foreign, much care and research should be invested before trusting a seller of used or "new" high-end audio gear online. I'm not sure if that was the intention of today's question, but I'd be curious to know if you have any strong opinions with regard to any of the aforementioned, Paul.
I've been asked to duplicate PCB artwork many times, usually for good, legal reasons. It can be a great deal of work. Most of the time it would be easier to use the original schematic but design your own product. If you were thinking about the selling of such, you have to ask "Should I shell out $2500 bucks for this Smith&Jones computer, or should I just give my $5K to Apple?" Marketing things with no history would be rough. There's no easy road to riches, but this stuff can be the road to a lot of fun!
You said it Paul. It isn't worth the time an effort. Tear apart the circuitry, analyze the components and then go and purchase everything necessary to rebuild it. You're back at the same price as the original and have gained nothing. If you can't make it cheaper and just as good (or better), you won't sell anything.
This happens a lot in headphone world. As far as headphones go, I have no issue with counterfeits. Some of the counterfeits are better made than the originals and cost less. I have a pair of "so-called counterfeit" Beyer-dynamics cans (of course different name on them) and they blow away the originals hands down in every way. As for other components, well, I have no experience with that, but I imagine it is hit and miss. Personally, I would not purchase a counterfeit major component like an amp or something. I think in that case one is asking for trouble.
I'm sure I could easily make faithful reproductions of the PS Audio 200C power amplifier from the 80s but I don't want to build amps that are so easy to blow up. They were rather delicate.
To this day (Dec 2021) there are companies that are making components for a multitude of companies under different brand names as there has been throughout the 2000's and before. How many manufacturers of cassette mechanisms are left (???). Same with "boom boxes", radios, televisions, fridges, stoves, washing machines, dish washers, even automobiles. Take a look on the internet and see what happened to many of the different audio equipment manufacturers and see which companies own the rights to those name currently. It's shocking how few actual holding companies there actually are who control the names that thirty years ago were everyday names used in our stereo systems.
Counterfeiting has happened with HIFI, I remember a Chinese company trying to Counterfeit olive era Naim products and there are LOADS of clone PCBs out there from naim amps. There are clones of Musical Fidelity boards out there too a there are some questionable clones of older Quad amps (34/405) on eBay... they don’t claim to be the original but they do very closely resemble them aesthetically, I don’t know how close they are electrically. Quad don’t seem to be bothered by it, I suppose because those products were discontinued by the early 90s... not sure they’d be so pleased if they cloned any current products though.
I have seen Mark Levinson look-alike No. 38/380 preamps on EBay. I mean they look exactly alike with the exception of no name badge. I have no idea if they are the same on the inside.
Si1983h that's true. I've seen them several times on EBay. It looks identical except it is blank where the name should be. Very strange. For all I know it could be made out of plastic, but it looks good in the pictures.
Many of the vacuum tubes manufactured in China are low quality, so they probably don't sound to good, but as long as people think they are getting a good deal... that junk will have a market.
Pioneer and Sanyo receivers from the late '70s, early '80s were so similar in design that I wonder if there was not any imitation or collaboration of some way...
Reading these comments is a real eye opener esp after seeing how on some audio sites people simply asking for info on say headphones Not Made in China that get called racist as though none of this stuff happens and you always get replies like “I buy all my stuff from China and it’s always as good or better than US made” etc. People are so brainwashed.
HEY! I designed, and worked on, circuits that used 709 Op Amp. :-)) By the time you (completely) reverse engineered that Digital board Paul shared you'd have been better off hiring your own engineering team and designing your own competitive product.
I used to supply parts to the computer monitor repair industry. One transistor, the 2SD1739, was used in IBM monitors and not used in other applications (not as far as I ever found out). I found that there were fake non-working copies of that transistor being supplied to repair workshops. Luckily I had big stock of originals, and repairers came to me because they were sick of having dud copies. When i say 'dud', I mean it was measurably an entirely different transistor that had its markings removed and then counterfeit stencil markings were put on. I believe the fakes originated in China. So fakes can happen even at component level !
Monoprice tried this idea. They ultimately lost. They copied to the detail, Energy's Take5 speaker system. Then, sold it for $150 less.... Those that bought the Monoprice version got a great deal, as they sounded exactly the same, with the same components. Now, they sell a "changed" version that is still very similar, but keeps them out of court.
Look for Willy Pastrana speakers Brel & Hoven, and they will be scared of its rebranding and modifications, previously the brand was Bruel & Hoven but it is rumored that it had to be changed because they knew it sounds the same as a well-known European brand.I have seen photos of their products from buyers or victims as they are called, capacitors filled with cement or epoxy mass to have more size and weight, stickers affixed above the original brand, for example Edifier or YAMAHA removes the logo and places its brand, then putty on the speakers and spray-painted by hand, weatherstrip foam glued in front of the tweeters or woofers to do what he accuses diffraction, if they see his products they are going to laugh a lot, the interesting thing about this is that they comment that he is full of money doing this.
The question that has been in my mind is, what if an unscrupulous company buys lots of $300 amps (for example) and dresses up the case and puts their logo on it? And they sell it as "high end"? Sure, many people would probably pick up the difference, but there would be lots (new to the game) that would get sucked in. Does this ever happen?
In China there is no law against counterfeit. Everybody can duplicate what they want without any modification. Counter fitting a high end amplifier is very simple as long they leave remote control and some other more difficult things out. The price in China is 10 times cheaper vs high end audio and the sound is the same
Very true. There are a fair number of producers of "clones" of older tube and solid state equipment from China, that sound pretty damn good! Since the equipment they are cloning (old Jadis, CAT, Marantz tube preamps, and MBL, Levinson sold state preamps mostly), are long our of production, I actually see nothing even unscrupulous about it. The schematics for these are freely available on the internet. A friend of mine owns an MBL preamp "clone" (you can find them on ebay for about $300) and it sounds f'n amazing. Am I saying that it sounds as good as the real thing? No. But it sounds WAY better than anything close to its price.
Back in the 60's, Curtis Matthes Engineers would de-construct an RCA TV and determine how much circuitry they could remove and still have it work. Then they would produce a cheaper knock-off to compete directly with the original. They didn't last long in the industry.
If you're looking for some entertainment, Google Bob Widlar stories! He was a creative genius outside of the analog world too. He lived fast and died young.
I have seen a pair of $40.000 monoblocks with a french name. Begins with the letter C I can't spell it and spell check won't find it. They sounded strange so we opened one and there was a Peavy sound reinforcement amp inside with a 30 pound steel plate to weigh them down. My friend got screwed.
Nobody just invented a HiFi piece of electronics out of thin air. It is all based on a foundation of past designs. Just like everything in tech, someone is always trying to make an improvement
I can see where there are fundamental basics that are found in textbooks; after all, there have to be foundational designs that are common knowledge. Where the uniqueness comes through is when there are variations that are conceived and even copyrighted by the originator. I am sure that those who have been in the industry for many years have a good idea of what another manufacturer is performing; however, the idea is to be different -- not the same; otherwise, what is the purpose if everyone sounds the same . . . buy the best deal.
Yep, I’m always concerned about bootleg products. Anything that has retail value gets bootlegged. I buy directly from manufacturers and validate serial numbers.
The Nelson Pass copy I bought was a Class A amp. But what I liked better about the Nakamichi that Nelson designed the stasis circuit for. The stasis nakamichi only ran on class A, at low volumes. Therefore the Nakamichi ran much cooler than other class A amps. Why is there nobody designing an amp like that today. Carver supposedly designed a tube amp that the tubes last.
If you want a Pass-designed amp that is class-a under 10 Watts, get one of the big adcoms from mid-1990's like gfa-5800. Real hand-matched MOSFETS and giant heatsinks, in a box without so much markup as boutique items. Adcom made pretty good stuff at a midfi price.
I have seen versions of Dartzeel amplifiers marketed as "Clones" or "Studies" which are sold for 20%-30% of the original price. But I have no idea of the legal position or the quality of the products, so I am not sure whether they can be accurately described as counterfeit.
Peter Green chinese are making fakes. These dartzell amps are not 1:1. One guy from Polish forum bought IT to try and IT wasnt original dartzell for sure
In addition to Dartzeel amps, I've seen Krell, McIntosh and Quad inspired clones on Aliexpress and Taobao too. On some of them they describe how close they were able to get and that they reverse engineered the originals. I suspect that these creators are/were related in some way to the OEM manufacturers and had access to diagrams and blueprints - though they could have legitimately bought the originals. It looks likely that in order to keep their costs down they've substituted the more expensive components with cheap ones. One of the more reputable Chinese brands makes a point of mentioning that some of their own original designs are based off of electrical circuit concepts from Krell - to the point where the proprietary Krell interconnects are compatible. But I think in general, there isn't enough of a market for big-ticket counterfeit hifi equipment yet. There's also the inherent problem of it having to sound good too because if you're going to buy expensive hifi gear you're going to want to audition it first.
I heard a story that Mike Creek went to China and saw his product counterfeit. Even was branded as Creek. After that Mike Creek stopped making gear in England and got it made in China. Again I heard this so I can't say if it is true or a urban legend.
I don't understand. I can't afford to buy amplifiers so I make my own and I use a couple of 2C22s to drive a 245 directly. I am curious how early the mu follower appeared.
As soon as I saw the title I imagined this was about fake branded high end cases stuffed with cheapo components (probably a completely different circuit) being sold out of vans - there has been a rash of this with speakers and av equipment in uk, (and maybe us??) - rather than nicking ideas. huge amount of 'high end' clones on ebay (naim, musical fidelity, krell)- though they are titled as clones...
China does this with Gibson guitars. They counterfeit the brand name, and sell copies of $3000 Les Paul Standards for about $300. The quality is not the same, in fact the instruments don't even stay in tune, nonetheless, many people buy these counterfeit copies thinking they have somehow beat the system. In theory this could be done with Hi-Fi gear, but the quality of components is going to be a big problem. From and Engineering perspective, I can only imagine it would be hard to emulate a PS Audio design, for a fraction of the price.
its kinda common to "clone" amps in the guitar amp world. I have built hifi gear vbased on audio note circuits also and pretty common thing to do in the diy audio community
It's so reminiscent of writing music,. Money is the motivation. Using your imagination to make new things almost always involves a lot of copying, copying to make things valuable is different. I don't think Bach would mind if you did either but the goal should be to impress him not make him roll his eyes
I am sorry, I must deleted my previous comment. Counterfeiting is bad for business, but borrowing design is another story. Sometime I build an amp from Nelson Pass and Musical Fidelity design but for personal use only, in DIY community borrowing other design is good for education purpose.
Nelson Pass put designs out there for people to build and is active in that community. He's quoted as saying that he gets a lot back from that involvement and supports it for that reason. That's completely different.
I got a Nelson Pass amp and pre amp that Nelson Pass let people copy from a friend. My friend is now dead. I dont know much about the community that does this. It would be interesting to know more about this & Of Nelson pass. I have a several Nakamichi amps that Nelson Pass designed a circuit for. I know a little about the circuit called Stasis, but I wish I knew more about the circuit & electronics. These Nakamichis, I think are the greatest little known amp at a great price. And I am glad these amps are little known and not in high demand, where the price would go high. The circuit is class A at low volume & the amp doesnt run hot. Why is this circuit not still used.
Nelson Pass has put out a lot of designs for the DIY community. Two websites I know about are passdiy.com and firstwatt.com . There is even a site which sells some of the parts to build his designs.
I would say this is uncommon in high end audio because it's not profitable. It would cost as much to make the copy as the original . Ok you might make it cheaper in Asia but you would need to shift a lot of boxes to make it worthwhile and that ain't high end audio. You buy something like a Sprout and put it in a fancier box and multiply the price but it would still sound like a Sprout so any discerning purchaser would just buy the original product.
Lol, try building a high fidelity amplifier without using most, if not all, of the ideas that have already been proven to work! Even with patents 99.9999999% of what any good amp designer can do is based on ideas that no one owns any more.
You're correct, Paul. It's not worth the trouble. It seems audiophiles have a certain degree of brand loyalty because of the empirical quality of the brand(s). The analogy: My mom (may she rest in peace) would only buy "Kleenex" brand tissues. The store brand may come from the same mfg'r, but it was always Kleenex and nothing else. I enjoy your vlogs as I am a recent subscriber. Be well!
That is what research and development is in all electronics they need to rename from R&D to reverse engineering! It is very rare to find someone that has an original idea. The best example all of China's economy
I'd guess that making an exact copy isn't what people are going to want to do. They want to make easy money, so will go with a cheap mass produced design and rely on marketing to make people buy it. Making an exact copy of high end equipment probably isn't the best way for them to go to make the most money they can.
BGA audio. In high production volume BGA and lead-less SMD soldering there is always a percentage of the pins that don't get wet with solder, just make *mechanical* contact. This has never worked 100%. But one pin cannot be reworked without reworking all pins. So it has never been a gain overall, unless the equipment is considered disposable like a salad. But how in earth something disposable would not be cloned? It must be cloned to forgive the ripoff, or the ripoff behind must be prosecuted.
Copying and counterfeiting are two different things. Copying is commonplace in any industry, but counterfeits are a whole different animal. Counterfeits sport a brand name, but weren't made by that company. A copy may look a lot like a popular product, but isn't actually labeled with the brand it's attempting to look or operate like. The Beats Audio headphones you buy out of the back of a Corolla at the flea market for $40 is a counterfeit- it says Beats Audio on it and is attempting to convince you that is what it is. Other lousy headphones may be made to look exactly like the brand, but don't actually have the name. In most cases, the counterfeits and copies are poor quality- but in some cases they are better. The counterfeit Beats Audio headphones sound just as good, if not better than the real ones. Mainly because the "real" ones suck. An Invicta that looks like a Rolex is a copy, a watch that says it's a Rolex but was made in a shady factory in China for $25 is a counterfeit.
A design that you steal is dead meat. You don't have the path to development, didn't do the calculating, don't exactly know the why, haven't walked the path up to the final result, don't know where the weak points are, you won't get the right ideas based on total understanding the design for improvement. You can't build upon it for the future. I mean this all in the sense of being a real company.
Legit factories usually just re-brand the product and use cheaper components when possible. Then, its sold locally or on Ebay and AliExpress. There are tons of TH-camrs who analyse these electronic manufactures and their products.
It did not start out that way and it was never my intent, but now 90% of my equipment comes from china. Some is alleged to be based on some US high end mfg. The Exception being my Monitor Audio Silver RL 6 My Emotiva CD player Built in China Design US. The rest Chi -fi . I had had amp and speakers for 10 rys If I were to replace everything today it would cost 7,000 for Chi-fi and God knows how much for US. Sorry if some of it is copy but I'm just a working stiff and I want to hear the music as best I can afford.
Surely Josh realises that the market simply isn't there to justify copying genuinely high-end components ? No shortage of 'no-name' brands on shelves all over Asia, undoubtedly reverse-engineered from established designs but its usually the oldest, most basic tech they can slap in a box and sell for whatever number low-balls the competition. They'll also slap names that sound vaguely familiar on a lot of this gear - often names from companies outside mainstream audio - but its the dealers that stock this crap who really amuse me. They'll spend money on signage for companies like Sony/Yamaha/Marantz etc but good luck finding that gear inside their hideous little shopfronts. They might have genuine (usually obsolete) AV receivers but most of their gear is designed to satisfy people who are more interested in a combination of big wattage for a small price than those who want quality from name brands. I've seen both extremes in Asia, including places where they wont even let you in the door without an appointment, but the bottom end is worse than K-Mart IMO. When was the last time you saw a sign at K-Mart that boasted 'Genuine Sony Service Center' ? They'll try anything to get you through the door. Note that I'm not bagging the genuine high-end dealers - Paul uploaded a couple of videos where he visits various PS Audio dealers in Japan and that's a world away from the people I'm talking about. To the latter, a new amp or pair of speakers holds no more interest than a box of smartphones or laptops - good luck 'auditioning' anything in those bargain basement flea markets, regardless of the signage outside.
Its not as easy as it sounds, to reverse engineer a complicated design requires an expertise that only a few people can do, this is why China does it and have become proficient, there needs to be a demand for it to be worth it and after reverse engineering, you have to have the cheap labor and equipment to make these amps. This is why i cant get behind the theory when people say that this chip or that are fake chips. If a computer chip is fake, it still needs to be processed in the same type clean room, and to reverse engineer a chip can only be done with the equipment that was used to make the chip in the first place, so what im leading to is that tthe cost would be about the same since the same equipment need to be usedin the same fab with a staff as good as the original. I think that the chips are the low yeaild chips that people take to sell, it makes no sense for a company to spend the same amount to just make a chip sub par. Tou wont find a company building a factory to build a replica of a corvette since the y will spend the same as chevy did, so why not build something of their own design
Sorry to say. but. but. pcbs can be xrayed. easy .and fpga can also be reengineer and the conde extracted more hard but can be done. more easily is to get your hands on your source code. SPACIALLY if you use a factory .. you know where actually there, if the ccp ask for your complete designs the factory will give then no question, and you will never know :) But, if yo can afford spying and reverse engineering at this level you probably can afford some engineers, and don't risk infringements.
White van sales anyone? Fake hi-fi equipment doesn't bother to copy the internals of components. They are only concerned with copying the cosmetics and the name. A real Rega Osiris integrated amp will put out a clean 162 watts into 8 Ohms. A Reqa Oasis integrated amp will put out a dirty 16 watts into 8 Ohms. And both will look almost the same.
There is a deep demand for Requa Oasis in my country, especially if they look heavy and will drive some cheap awful speakers that are a copy of very expensive speakers. Middle class people no longer have surplus money for "Rega Osiris" nor time to listen to fine engineering, but need to impress neighbors and boss.
![ประสบการณ์ จ้าง Developer ที่ผมจะไม่มีวันลืม [ภาค1]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/bzivN4KDg-k/mqdefault.jpg)
Back in the 90's Alan Wright (from Australia) wrote a book "The Preamp Cookbook", in that book he went over designing a then state of the art audio preamp. He explained how important the work done by Tektronix on tube circuitry in the 50's and 60's was to wide band low distortion circuitry, I worked on those Tek scopes as a young technician and I can vouch for the excellence of their designs, the circuits were spot on and the tubes seemed to last forever..
The designers of those 500 series scopes (Radiotron Designers Handbook was a great source) stood on the shoulders of designers that came before them, they took those designs and improved on them to get what they wanted out of them. Designs evolve, they do not spring forth from nowhere.
You are absolutely right sir!
It's great to hear your reference to Bob Widlar. He was a true genius that nobody remembers today.
Love to hear you Paul, but I got to say.... If that is 6x10" you must be a giant!!! :)
It sounded like the original question was more about rebadging existing products than making clones. This has happened a lot with OPPO Blu Ray players.
Not sure it was the case with OPPO. From what I understand OPPO sold the components to companies like Cambridge Audio as a wholesaler / manufacturer to be included in their player. While it is basically an Oppo internally it is branded differently with the full blessing of Oppo. Then you got the companies like JTLi that buy players from Oppo and do modifications and then on sell them. I have heard of issues with grey imports (imported from another region)
To my knowledge there is no companies out there doing a direct counterfeit knock off.
Hi Paul. You’re probably aware of some of stuff available on eBay. Cloned Quad 405 amplifier boards are readily available and apparently quite good. In fact there is a boutique market in making copies of this brand. Also I’ve seen Naim and Linn cloned circuit boards too.
There is a difference between “copying “ and “counterfeiting”
“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.” Oscar Wilde
Around 1970 / 1972, my Navy ship went to Hong Kong for a week or so, twice. I purchased a Thorens turntable, SME tone arm & great Warfedale speakers. Some of the shops along the street had, in their windows, great, big reel to reel tape decks. I was told to be very careful, to NOT buy a tape deck, & I suppose a nice, big amplifier because unscrupulous people would open up the device & replace the quality components, with cheap (as possible) ones! Probably not do any realignment! Make a mess! This reminds me of Paul's video where he says how he uses expensive components, including capacitors & heavy transformer components, because this affects / improves the sound. In the mid 70s, I worked at a hospital medical media. We had, as I recall, Conrack / Conrak televisions. They were just normal, good sized but not particularly large, (only) black & white televisions. I thought, not big deal. Until I was told that they were very expensive! Perhaps $10,000, Back then! This is because their components were 'Mil - Spec' - a much tighter than usual specification for the components. I'm sure that this was for reliability. Paul's products, are a bargain!
Hi Paul... I guess what the person was asking was more to do with 'how do you feel about someone stealing your high end designs and mass producing them'... In a way the mass produced products do not affect your market, as your target customers would not buy these mass produced / copied products.... But, what happens here is that yours or other high end designs do get ripped and the general population does get to enjoy good audio (maybe 60-80% of what high end audiophiles get to enjoy buying your products).
Like always Paul, you are the best !!!
audioquest cables were counterfeit big time in Asia but apparently according to my local dealer that's been in business for 40 years told me that they paid a lot of money to catch and bring the counterfeit company in court and shut them down , congrats Audioquest cause i use all of my cables from them. thanks for the video Paul
Cosmic Wonder its a difference made in China under supervising of a brand and made in China by guys WHO simply doing fakes
What I don't understand is why doesn't audioquest make serial numbers or some type of anti-counterfeit security process on their cables...it shouldn't be that hard to do.
Cosmic Wonder fakes are fakes. If someone thinks these chinese fakes are bought by Siltech and sold by originals...well You may buy them. Id rather buy original
Gibson Les Paul's are being counterfitted like mad today. Fender Guitars probably are too along with PRS and several other top of the line products. Years ago we saw it in Auto Parts, copying AC and other brands that weren't that good to begin with. It sucks. It's hard for the buyer to know what is the real deal without tons of research, and it's hard on manufacturers like yours Paul. It costs all of us dearly. If a guy buys a counterfeit product thinking it's the real deal and it doesn't perform like the real thing, he writes a bad review. Your reputation suffers and it gets hardier for manufacturers to make money. Eventually, it will drive good companies out of business.
Hi Paul, I'm not sure if you're aware, but certain products are more easily counterfeited than others. I am always looking for bargain but quality used audio equipment. In your case, I have not seen much of counterfeited PS Audio devices, but if you are not already aware, you should (or maybe shouldn't) do a quick search on Ebay for any of your current or past model power cables. In no time you will see listings, usually from foreign countries like China, with cheap and obvious (and sometimes not-so-obvious) counterfeit PS Audio cables. And even when it's not obvious or foreign, much care and research should be invested before trusting a seller of used or "new" high-end audio gear online. I'm not sure if that was the intention of today's question, but I'd be curious to know if you have any strong opinions with regard to any of the aforementioned, Paul.
thank you Paul i love your videos
I've been asked to duplicate PCB artwork many times, usually for good, legal reasons. It can be a great deal of work. Most of the time it would be easier to use the original schematic but design your own product. If you were thinking about the selling of such, you have to ask "Should I shell out $2500 bucks for this Smith&Jones computer, or should I just give my $5K to Apple?" Marketing things with no history would be rough. There's no easy road to riches, but this stuff can be the road to a lot of fun!
You said it Paul. It isn't worth the time an effort. Tear apart the circuitry, analyze the components and then go and purchase everything necessary to rebuild it. You're back at the same price as the original and have gained nothing. If you can't make it cheaper and just as good (or better), you won't sell anything.
This happens a lot in headphone world. As far as headphones go, I have no issue with counterfeits. Some of the counterfeits are better made than the originals and cost less. I have a pair of "so-called counterfeit" Beyer-dynamics cans (of course different name on them) and they blow away the originals hands down in every way.
As for other components, well, I have no experience with that, but I imagine it is hit and miss. Personally, I would not purchase a counterfeit major component like an amp or something. I think in that case one is asking for trouble.
Eric Elliott copy and counterfeit are not the same. Your headphones are copies, or imitation.
Not counterfeit.
I'm sure I could easily make faithful reproductions of the PS Audio 200C power amplifier from the 80s but I don't want to build amps that are so easy to blow up. They were rather delicate.
To this day (Dec 2021) there are companies that are making components for a multitude of companies under different brand names as there has been throughout the 2000's and before. How many manufacturers of cassette mechanisms are left (???). Same with "boom boxes", radios, televisions, fridges, stoves, washing machines, dish washers, even automobiles. Take a look on the internet and see what happened to many of the different audio equipment manufacturers and see which companies own the rights to those name currently. It's shocking how few actual holding companies there actually are who control the names that thirty years ago were everyday names used in our stereo systems.
I guess this is a shot across the bow too Mark Levinson. With the rumored rebadging of Rose amps.
Counterfeiting has happened with HIFI, I remember a Chinese company trying to Counterfeit olive era Naim products and there are LOADS of clone PCBs out there from naim amps. There are clones of Musical Fidelity boards out there too a there are some questionable clones of older Quad amps (34/405) on eBay... they don’t claim to be the original but they do very closely resemble them aesthetically, I don’t know how close they are electrically. Quad don’t seem to be bothered by it, I suppose because those products were discontinued by the early 90s... not sure they’d be so pleased if they cloned any current products though.
The best tube amp in the world for a great price is an amp called Prima Luna. All Chinese amps are tubes, unlike the nutty Americans.
I have seen Mark Levinson look-alike No. 38/380 preamps on EBay. I mean they look exactly alike with the exception of no name badge. I have no idea if they are the same on the inside.
Brian Moore that’s quite an undertaking, Mark Levi cases aren’t exactly basic square boxes!
Si1983h that's true. I've seen them several times on EBay. It looks identical except it is blank where the name should be. Very strange. For all I know it could be made out of plastic, but it looks good in the pictures.
Many of the vacuum tubes manufactured in China are low quality, so they probably don't sound to good, but as long as people think they are getting a good deal... that junk will have a market.
Pioneer and Sanyo receivers from the late '70s, early '80s were so similar in design that I wonder if there was not any imitation or collaboration of some way...
Companies do it all the time. That is why there are patents, copyrights and other protections.
Reading these comments is a real eye opener esp after seeing how on some audio sites people simply asking for info on say headphones Not Made in China that get called racist as though none of this stuff happens and you always get replies like “I buy all my stuff from China and it’s always as good or better than US made” etc. People are so brainwashed.
HEY! I designed, and worked on, circuits that used 709 Op Amp. :-)) By the time you (completely) reverse engineered that Digital board Paul shared you'd have been better off hiring your own engineering team and designing your own competitive product.
All scientists and engineers stand on the shoulders of GIANTS :)
I really should try and use fewer clichés - a great company you've developed Paul, much respect.
I used to supply parts to the computer monitor repair industry. One transistor, the 2SD1739, was used in IBM monitors and not used in other applications (not as far as I ever found out).
I found that there were fake non-working copies of that transistor being supplied to repair workshops. Luckily I had big stock of originals, and repairers came to me because they were sick of having dud copies.
When i say 'dud', I mean it was measurably an entirely different transistor that had its markings removed and then counterfeit stencil markings were put on. I believe the fakes originated in China.
So fakes can happen even at component level !
Monoprice tried this idea. They ultimately lost. They copied to the detail, Energy's Take5 speaker system. Then, sold it for $150 less.... Those that bought the Monoprice version got a great deal, as they sounded exactly the same, with the same components. Now, they sell a "changed" version that is still very similar, but keeps them out of court.
Are you talking about the 'servo woofers' and the MFB of Philips? ;) :)
Look for Willy Pastrana speakers Brel & Hoven, and they will be scared of its rebranding and modifications, previously the brand was Bruel & Hoven but it is rumored that it had to be changed because they knew it sounds the same as a well-known European brand.I have seen photos of their products from buyers or victims as they are called, capacitors filled with cement or epoxy mass to have more size and weight, stickers affixed above the original brand, for example Edifier or YAMAHA removes the logo and places its brand, then putty on the speakers and spray-painted by hand, weatherstrip foam glued in front of the tweeters or woofers to do what he accuses diffraction, if they see his products they are going to laugh a lot, the interesting thing about this is that they comment that he is full of money doing this.
The question that has been in my mind is, what if an unscrupulous company buys lots of $300 amps (for example) and dresses up the case and puts their logo on it? And they sell it as "high end"? Sure, many people would probably pick up the difference, but there would be lots (new to the game) that would get sucked in. Does this ever happen?
In China there is no law against counterfeit. Everybody can duplicate what they want without any modification. Counter fitting a high end amplifier is very simple as long they leave remote control and some other more difficult things out. The price in China is 10 times cheaper vs high end audio and the sound is the same
Very true.
There are a fair number of producers of "clones" of older tube and solid state equipment from China, that sound pretty damn good!
Since the equipment they are cloning (old Jadis, CAT, Marantz tube preamps, and MBL, Levinson sold state preamps mostly), are long our of production, I actually see nothing even unscrupulous about it. The schematics for these are freely available on the internet.
A friend of mine owns an MBL preamp "clone" (you can find them on ebay for about $300) and it sounds f'n amazing. Am I saying that it sounds as good as the real thing? No. But it sounds WAY better than anything close to its price.
Counterfeit electronics is like Jazz, every note has been played now just rearranged.
Agreed upon best practices audio technology. Customizing on top of that.
Oh hey Paul have u guy's moved yet, to the new P.S Audio location. And are you going to shoot a new prom for "Ask Paul" when u do ?....
Back in the 60's, Curtis Matthes Engineers would de-construct an RCA TV and determine how much circuitry they could remove and still have it work. Then they would produce a cheaper knock-off to compete directly with the original. They didn't last long in the industry.
Josh ... what are thinking of doing ? Did you expect an "OK" to do it ?
If you're looking for some entertainment, Google Bob Widlar stories! He was a creative genius outside of the analog world too. He lived fast and died young.
I have seen a pair of $40.000 monoblocks with a french name. Begins with the letter C I can't spell it and spell check won't find it. They sounded strange so we opened one and there was a Peavy sound reinforcement amp inside with a 30 pound steel plate to weigh them down. My friend got screwed.
Nobody just invented a HiFi piece of electronics out of thin air. It is all based on a foundation of past designs. Just like everything in tech, someone is always trying to make an improvement
I can see where there are fundamental basics that are found in textbooks; after all, there have to be foundational designs that are common knowledge. Where the uniqueness comes through is when there are variations that are conceived and even copyrighted by the originator.
I am sure that those who have been in the industry for many years have a good idea of what another manufacturer is performing; however, the idea is to be different -- not the same; otherwise, what is the purpose if everyone sounds the same . . . buy the best deal.
Yep, I’m always concerned about bootleg products. Anything that has retail value gets bootlegged. I buy directly from manufacturers and validate serial numbers.
The Nelson Pass copy I bought was a Class A amp. But what I liked better about the Nakamichi that Nelson designed the stasis circuit for. The stasis nakamichi only ran on class A, at low volumes. Therefore the Nakamichi ran much cooler than other class A amps. Why is there nobody designing an amp like that today. Carver supposedly designed a tube amp that the tubes last.
If you want a Pass-designed amp that is class-a under 10 Watts, get one of the big adcoms from mid-1990's like gfa-5800. Real hand-matched MOSFETS and giant heatsinks, in a box without so much markup as boutique items. Adcom made pretty good stuff at a midfi price.
ha ha,Ive got the reciever in the thumb....!
I have seen versions of Dartzeel amplifiers marketed as "Clones" or "Studies" which are sold for 20%-30% of the original price. But I have no idea of the legal position or the quality of the products, so I am not sure whether they can be accurately described as counterfeit.
Peter Green chinese are making fakes. These dartzell amps are not 1:1. One guy from Polish forum bought IT to try and IT wasnt original dartzell for sure
In addition to Dartzeel amps, I've seen Krell, McIntosh and Quad inspired clones on Aliexpress and Taobao too. On some of them they describe how close they were able to get and that they reverse engineered the originals. I suspect that these creators are/were related in some way to the OEM manufacturers and had access to diagrams and blueprints - though they could have legitimately bought the originals. It looks likely that in order to keep their costs down they've substituted the more expensive components with cheap ones.
One of the more reputable Chinese brands makes a point of mentioning that some of their own original designs are based off of electrical circuit concepts from Krell - to the point where the proprietary Krell interconnects are compatible.
But I think in general, there isn't enough of a market for big-ticket counterfeit hifi equipment yet. There's also the inherent problem of it having to sound good too because if you're going to buy expensive hifi gear you're going to want to audition it first.
I heard a story that Mike Creek went to China and saw his product counterfeit. Even was branded as Creek. After that Mike Creek stopped making gear in England and got it made in China. Again I heard this so I can't say if it is true or a urban legend.
There is a company who puts a fancy case on the OPPO 105 and sells it for like $20k...
Curious about which company?
The onkyo portable hi res player and the pioneer portable hi-res audio player, look and seem the same with $300 between them in price
BBnose Lexicon
dublin innis i think onkyo and pioneer now belongs to a same company
What about the earlier mu follower with vacuum tubes for constant current?
I don't understand. I can't afford to buy amplifiers so I make my own and I use a couple of 2C22s to drive a 245 directly. I am curious how early the mu follower appeared.
As soon as I saw the title I imagined this was about fake branded high end cases stuffed with cheapo components (probably a completely different circuit) being sold out of vans - there has been a rash of this with speakers and av equipment in uk, (and maybe us??) - rather than nicking ideas. huge amount of 'high end' clones on ebay (naim, musical fidelity, krell)- though they are titled as clones...
China does this with Gibson guitars. They counterfeit the brand name, and sell copies of $3000 Les Paul Standards for about $300. The quality is not the same, in fact the instruments don't even stay in tune, nonetheless, many people buy these counterfeit copies thinking they have somehow beat the system. In theory this could be done with Hi-Fi gear, but the quality of components is going to be a big problem. From and Engineering perspective, I can only imagine it would be hard to emulate a PS Audio design, for a fraction of the price.
LOL Mark Vincent systems enough said
its kinda common to "clone" amps in the guitar amp world. I have built hifi gear vbased on audio note circuits also and pretty common thing to do in the diy audio community
Great amp sony guts.
I think the rule is if there is a 10% change it's yours. Scary isn't it.
Dident Vincent rip off the kavent designs or was that the other way around?
Andrew Manus - 'Didn't' not dident
There are counterfeit Pass amps made in china. The cases are for sale to anyone.
It's so reminiscent of writing music,. Money is the motivation. Using your imagination to make new things almost always involves a lot of copying, copying to make things valuable is different. I don't think Bach would mind if you did either but the goal should be to impress him not make him roll his eyes
Several years ago Lexicon took Oppo blu ray players that were selling for around $500, would put a different chassis on it and sell them for $3500.
DOYLECLEVERLOBE1 If you believe the BS at Audioholics
I thought you meant making fake (top brand) outer cases and using really cheap insides. Surely they do that, don't they?
I am sorry, I must deleted my previous comment. Counterfeiting is bad for business, but borrowing design is another story. Sometime I build an amp from Nelson Pass and Musical Fidelity design but for personal use only, in DIY community borrowing other design is good for education purpose.
Faisal. I wish you would tell me how to copy stuff. What features of the amps that you mentioned that you put together, how do they work.
Nelson Pass put designs out there for people to build and is active in that community. He's quoted as saying that he gets a lot back from that involvement and supports it for that reason. That's completely different.
I got a Nelson Pass amp and pre amp that Nelson Pass let people copy from a friend. My friend is now dead. I dont know much about the community that does this. It would be interesting to know more about this & Of Nelson pass. I have a several Nakamichi amps that Nelson Pass designed a circuit for. I know a little about the circuit called Stasis, but I wish I knew more about the circuit & electronics. These Nakamichis, I think are the greatest little known amp at a great price. And I am glad these amps are little known and not in high demand, where the price would go high. The circuit is class A at low volume & the amp doesnt run hot. Why is this circuit not still used.
Nelson Pass has put out a lot of designs for the DIY community. Two websites I know about are passdiy.com and firstwatt.com . There is even a site which sells some of the parts to build his designs.
I like evolution part. Luckily today we don’t have to pay royalties to the inventors of the wheel...
I would say this is uncommon in high end audio because it's not profitable. It would cost as much to make the copy as the original . Ok you might make it cheaper in Asia but you would need to shift a lot of boxes to make it worthwhile and that ain't high end audio. You buy something like a Sprout and put it in a fancier box and multiply the price but it would still sound like a Sprout so any discerning purchaser would just buy the original product.
Marshall and Fender
Lol, try building a high fidelity amplifier without using most, if not all, of the ideas that have already been proven to work! Even with patents 99.9999999% of what any good amp designer can do is based on ideas that no one owns any more.
What kind of mind suggests counterfeiting?
What kind of consumer buys fake junk? Ignorant, or believing that they are getting a deal by cheating curent patent holders.
It doesn't matter, if you don't have a name and a reputation you can copy all you like it will take decades to reach a company of the same stature.
You're correct, Paul. It's not worth the trouble. It seems audiophiles have a certain degree of brand loyalty because of the empirical quality of the brand(s).
The analogy: My mom (may she rest in peace) would only buy "Kleenex" brand tissues. The store brand may come from the same mfg'r, but it was always Kleenex and nothing else.
I enjoy your vlogs as I am a recent subscriber. Be well!
Broncos Super Bowl 50!
That is what research and development is in all electronics they need to rename from R&D to reverse engineering! It is very rare to find someone that has an original idea. The best example all of China's economy
True that
I'd guess that making an exact copy isn't what people are going to want to do. They want to make easy money, so will go with a cheap mass produced design and rely on marketing to make people buy it. Making an exact copy of high end equipment probably isn't the best way for them to go to make the most money they can.
Companies copy other manufacturers designs all the time especially if the patent has ran out.
The Chinese have built their whole economy on this premise.
The last comment is probably the most important. The market is too small. Not worth the effort to rip off somebody's work.
BGA audio. In high production volume BGA and lead-less SMD soldering there is always a percentage of the pins that don't get wet with solder, just make *mechanical* contact. This has never worked 100%. But one pin cannot be reworked without reworking all pins. So it has never been a gain overall, unless the equipment is considered disposable like a salad. But how in earth something disposable would not be cloned? It must be cloned to forgive the ripoff, or the ripoff behind must be prosecuted.
Copying and counterfeiting are two different things. Copying is commonplace in any industry, but counterfeits are a whole different animal. Counterfeits sport a brand name, but weren't made by that company. A copy may look a lot like a popular product, but isn't actually labeled with the brand it's attempting to look or operate like. The Beats Audio headphones you buy out of the back of a Corolla at the flea market for $40 is a counterfeit- it says Beats Audio on it and is attempting to convince you that is what it is. Other lousy headphones may be made to look exactly like the brand, but don't actually have the name. In most cases, the counterfeits and copies are poor quality- but in some cases they are better. The counterfeit Beats Audio headphones sound just as good, if not better than the real ones. Mainly because the "real" ones suck. An Invicta that looks like a Rolex is a copy, a watch that says it's a Rolex but was made in a shady factory in China for $25 is a counterfeit.
A design that you steal is dead meat. You don't have the path to development, didn't do the calculating, don't exactly know the why, haven't walked the path up to the final result, don't know where the weak points are, you won't get the right ideas based on total understanding the design for improvement. You can't build upon it for the future. I mean this all in the sense of being a real company.
Doesn’t China do this already?
Legit factories usually just re-brand the product and use cheaper components when possible. Then, its sold locally or on Ebay and AliExpress. There are tons of TH-camrs who analyse these electronic manufactures and their products.
It did not start out that way and it was never my intent, but now 90% of my equipment comes from china. Some is alleged to be based on some US high end mfg.
The Exception being my Monitor Audio Silver RL 6 My Emotiva CD player Built in China Design US. The rest Chi -fi . I had had amp and speakers for 10 rys If I were to replace everything today it would cost 7,000 for Chi-fi and God knows how much for US. Sorry if some of it is copy but I'm just a working stiff and I want to hear the music as best I can afford.
Surely Josh realises that the market simply isn't there to justify copying genuinely high-end components ? No shortage of 'no-name' brands on shelves all over Asia, undoubtedly reverse-engineered from established designs but its usually the oldest, most basic tech they can slap in a box and sell for whatever number low-balls the competition. They'll also slap names that sound vaguely familiar on a lot of this gear - often names from companies outside mainstream audio - but its the dealers that stock this crap who really amuse me. They'll spend money on signage for companies like Sony/Yamaha/Marantz etc but good luck finding that gear inside their hideous little shopfronts. They might have genuine (usually obsolete) AV receivers but most of their gear is designed to satisfy people who are more interested in a combination of big wattage for a small price than those who want quality from name brands. I've seen both extremes in Asia, including places where they wont even let you in the door without an appointment, but the bottom end is worse than K-Mart IMO. When was the last time you saw a sign at K-Mart that boasted 'Genuine Sony Service Center' ? They'll try anything to get you through the door.
Note that I'm not bagging the genuine high-end dealers - Paul uploaded a couple of videos where he visits various PS Audio dealers in Japan and that's a world away from the people I'm talking about. To the latter, a new amp or pair of speakers holds no more interest than a box of smartphones or laptops - good luck 'auditioning' anything in those bargain basement flea markets, regardless of the signage outside.
Its not as easy as it sounds, to reverse engineer a complicated design requires an expertise that only a few people can do, this is why China does it and have become proficient, there needs to be a demand for it to be worth it and after reverse engineering, you have to have the cheap labor and equipment to make these amps. This is why i cant get behind the theory when people say that this chip or that are fake chips. If a computer chip is fake, it still needs to be processed in the same type clean room, and to reverse engineer a chip can only be done with the equipment that was used to make the chip in the first place, so what im leading to is that tthe cost would be about the same since the same equipment need to be usedin the same fab with a staff as good as the original. I think that the chips are the low yeaild chips that people take to sell, it makes no sense for a company to spend the same amount to just make a chip sub par. Tou wont find a company building a factory to build a replica of a corvette since the y will spend the same as chevy did, so why not build something of their own design
Sorry to say. but. but. pcbs can be xrayed. easy .and fpga can also be reengineer and the conde extracted more hard but can be done. more easily is to get your hands on your source code. SPACIALLY if you use a factory .. you know where actually there, if the ccp ask for your complete designs the factory will give then no question, and you will never know :) But, if yo can afford spying and reverse engineering at this level you probably can afford some engineers, and don't risk infringements.
Nice self promotion Paul.
Apple copys Samsung!
White van sales anyone? Fake hi-fi equipment doesn't bother to copy the internals of components. They are only concerned with copying the cosmetics and the name.
A real Rega Osiris integrated amp will put out a clean 162 watts into 8 Ohms. A Reqa Oasis integrated amp will put out a dirty 16 watts into 8 Ohms. And both will look almost the same.
There is a deep demand for Requa Oasis in my country, especially if they look heavy and will drive some cheap awful speakers that are a copy of very expensive speakers. Middle class people no longer have surplus money for "Rega Osiris" nor time to listen to fine engineering, but need to impress neighbors and boss.