interesting page for lim valve

or those that know him

http://www.vincent-tac.de/home2.htm

looks very familiar, doesn't it.

 

'Hifi made by very intelligent people'

Nothing like blowing your own trumpet is there!

 

True indeed and after earwigging them yesterday, 2 different cdp's & Amps, they are very serceptable to speakers, even managing to hard & nasty, with one set, yet pretty reasonable with another, with decent i/c's in attendence.
Amazing how salesmen, really do play to the crowd on these occations though
The Avi lab intergrated, quite passable too, definately second system material, although build quality on the CDP was er humm... not too clever, worth a listen if your in the market for something of this ilk Wm

 

I believe the web page gives off the idea that they are german built and designed,when actually they are not,they come from china,with a few mods before the hit the european market,not sure if that is what you were implying about lim,guess so,quite popular here in spain,till the truth came out.

 

hmmm yes I have seen another one the same in a mag years ago...

...till the truth came out...have the sales suffered?

do you know who actually makes them in china..

I have seen icons amps somewhere, too in china...

miffs you a bit, giving the impression they are their own, when in reality an OEM product

 

In defence of lim, he's never denied he gets his amps from China.

Given that most CD players are made out of Japanese mass market bits, I don't see it as a problem. China is a source of some pretty high quality mass-produced electronics nowadays.

-- Ian

 

The spanish site is down at the moment as soon as its up i'll see who actually makes them,as the subject caused quite a stir and alot of hard feelings,the spanish guy who owns this site www.audio-nirvana.com actually e-mailed them and got conformation that they are made by a chinese company,NOT german.

 

here we are:
[ The Chinese way: I want to know ]


© Ernest Ruiz. 2003


This brief article that you're ready to read began as a post in one of the many internet forums devoted to hifi. Some days ago I visited that forum (I'm talking about the forums that are offered for free to audiophiles at the web site of Royal Audio, an spanish audio dealer) and there I found many posts that were talking about Vincent hi-fi products. It was a surprise to see such expectation about these products so I decided to get more information about this brand. In fact, I knew that firm before entering that forum (no, I haven't heard any of the Vicent components, as I have said many times) but I didn't expected to see all these comments. Many of the audiophiles in these forums talked about the great advantages of Vincent products, specially their price, their finishes and their great sound. When I talk about "their price" I mean really good prices (to be exact, cheap). Prices that are difficult to find in the audio market when you search products with the look of the Vincent range. These prices are unusual in high end market and I asked myself how it was possible. The first thing that came into my mind was that maybe the Vincent products were made in the far east, I mean China, because the production costs here in Europa are very high and it is almost impossible to build here these kind of products and to sell them with these prices.

As I said I knew the Vincent brand before entering the Royal Audio forums because it was associated some time ago in some way with Thorens and it was present in their website (maybe this link still works http://www.thorens.com/vincent/sv233/sv233_engl.htm). Also I knew the relation between Vincent and its sister brand TAC (maker of tube amplifiers) with Sintron, a german electronics importer/exporter. many people in the tube audio world has talked about the chinese origin of TAC products, a country that is increasing its presence in the audio world and that is offering excellent products to the audiophile community. So, with all this information and with the question of the Vincent products origin in mind I planned an intensive search on the net in order to find some answers. Another point that focused my attention was the fact that in many web sites, including some sites of official Vincent distributors, the equipment is referred as "Made in Germany", and that was very confusing because both countries were mentioned repeatly.

I know how to use a search engine and it was easy (in fact very easy) to find the relation between Vincent and the chinese manufacturer/brand Shengya Audio. In this site you can see that Vincent products has its origins in the Shengya range of products and that the Vincent name is used to sell them in Europe. I don't think that this is bad because as I said before and in other articles available in this page (see at articles section the article about the visit to Aufiofilo and the contact with Shanling products or the one about Consonance) I believe that chinese manufactures are doing a very good job. I understand that maybe they belive that it would be easy to sell their products in the old continent using an european name, althought I think that it would be better to use their original name for two reasons: first, to won a place with their real name in the audio world (they have to be proud of what they are doing) and second and most important, to avoid confusions. Because some users could be confused when some informations say that a given product is made in Germany and others says that it is made in China. Some of you maybe don't understand my interest in knowing the origin of all these products. Many of you probably don't care about the origin of what you buy because you're satisfied as customers with your products. But I think that is very important to know exactly what we are buying, to know exactly all the facts about the products we own and to ask for all the information if there's some confusion. That's why I have written these lines because I can't understand the reason why this kind of information is hidden, because I want to know.

But all these things never come alone. At the same time I began to search the information about Vincent-Shengya in the net I had a conversation by email with an audiophile who was interested in the "british made" Affordable Valve Company amplifiers. He told me that he was very impressed about the products and he ask me about them. I knew the products from the british magazines I read and I gave him my opinion. He also told me that he had phoned Affordable and that he was surprised to hear that the man who answered his phone call identified himself as chinese. First, I didn't care about that, but suddenly something come to my mind. Chinese? Rapidly I visited again the Affordable web site but now I opened a new internet browser window with the TAC page and oh! surprise, the amplifiers by TAC and Affordable looked the same and had identical configurations. As you can imagine my interest then was focused not only in the Vincent-TAC origin but also in knowing in depth the matter about "Made in China" audio products that come to us here in Europe with non-chinese names or european names.

So I started again my search in the net and after some days of intensive work I found all the information I'm giving to you in the links shown below. I did this work with only one objective in mind, to have information and to give it to you in order to know exactly what some manufacturers are offering and also to know what we are buying. I'm not blaming chinese products only because they come from China. In fact, as I said before, and now I repeat it to be sure that it is clear, I think that they are good products that have to be considered. But we have to know it. All the links are from chinese manufactures (also a few from other asian countries) that are selling their hi-fi products to western countries under their own brands or under OEM products. Here you are.




http://www.tubehifi.com - Antique Sound Lab products sold under the same brand.

http://www.audcom.com.cn

http://cattylink.com - A chinese hi-fi central. Here you can see many products from different manufacturers. Original and OEM versions.

http://www.cayin.com - Amplifiers made by Spark Audio sold under the Cayin name.

http://www.daredtube.com/index-e.htm

http://www.grandeast.com

http://www.in-young.com

http://www.jolida.com

http://www.korsun.com.cn - As Mr. Mark Levinson (Red Rose Music-RRM) said in some interviews some of the RRM products come are made by Korsun. Compare Korsum products with RRM products that can be found at RRM site.

http://www.aurumcantus.com - Ribbon speakers used in the RRM Rosebud II speaker

http://www.haihuang-audio.com - Aurum Cantus mother company.

http://www.haihuang-audio.com/loudspeaker/hifi/youx2/youx2.htm - Here you can see the original Aurum Cantus speakers that is sold as RRM Rosebud II.

http://www.kwangwoo.co.kr

http://www.leoinstruments.com.hk

http://www.longan.com

http://www.nelsonaudio.com.cn

http://www.operaudio.com

http://www.shanling.com

http://www.shengya-audio.com - I started this search with this brand.

http://www.silsonic.com.cn

http://www.soundking.com

http://www.sparkaudio.com/ - Spark amplifiers. They make the Cayin amps.




As you can see this is a very short list. There're many more chinese manufacturers in the net selling their OEM products to other hifi industries all around the world. My work is only a fast view into this matter. You can follow the search by yourself and so I would give you some advice. First download the chinese characters for your browser. This will allow the browser to show properly the pages written in chinese. Second, use always english to seacrh for these issues. All the chinese sites are written in chinese but also in english and it's better to seacrh using this language. Third, search using numerical names. For example if you want to know the origin of an amplifier called "Mark SP-V456", type in the search engine "sp-v456 +amplifier". Some manufacturers change the name of the amplifier from the original chinese name to an european/western name but they don't change the number of the model (the same happen to DVD players).

Finaly, before buying any product get as much information about it as you can and ask the dealers or the importers all the questions you have about that product. Doing this we'll be more secure as customers about what we buy.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


07/09/2003- While writing this article I contacted Sintron, the european importer of Shengya products, to ask them about their products and this is the answer I have received. Thanks to Sintron for this information:

Dear Mr. Ruiz,
We are pleased to notice your interest in our Hi-Fi Products and see below for your question! Production place China as like more and more brands do, of course. Shengya are different to Vincent although the housings are temporatly the same which are able to give confused but shouldn't happened as far as Shengya wouldn't and couldn't be commercialize in Europe. Enginering by co-venture as well as technical modifications/specifications are concerned and these are relevant under industrial secret. Best regards. Olivier Kasjan//SINTRON.

09/09/2003- More information about Shengya, kindly provided by the chinese company. Thanks very much to Shengya:

Dear Mr. Ruiz,
Thanks for your Email! Yes, that's true about your questions! 1. Vincent products are made by us in China and all the design is different with Shengya and Vincent produts are sale in Europe by Sintron. 2. Whats the different between them? Some of them IC/capacitor/transformer/tube/remote control etc. Of course, they will more better in Vincent and more expensive. Any questions pls don't hesitate to contact us! Thank you! BRGD Abby_Jiang.




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what a great reply!!:respect: :notworthy

http://www.shengya-audio.com/main1en.htm

sugden masterclass??

 

I love the text on the shengya audio site, for example this

or this

 

Er, no. Sugden gear is definitely all built to order in their Yorkshire factory, by a single worker. Each piece comes labelled with the name of the person who built and tested it. (None of the gear in the URL looks like the Masterclass, either.)

I still don't think anyone should get too upset about the Chinese getting involved in audio. I have no doubt that some of the products are as good as anything built in the West, and some as bad.

-- Ian

 

Hey Sideshowbob,

I agree with you there 100%. The author of that 'forum piece' must have a lot of time on his hands because there's never been any secret that Vincent is a Chinese brand, with a Western name and distributed by a German company. In fact, I think the name Vincent came about because TAC's designer is a fan of the painter Vincent van Gogh. Given the relatively lowish prices charged for Vincent products vs their performance, I don't think the author should be spending too much time on such research.
There's much bigger (and expensive) fish to catch.

Let's not forget that a lot of the so-called high-end manufacturers (many discussed and revered by ZeroGainers amongst others) were actually put together in China from start to finish, but yet the prices charged in the Western countries don't reflect the low-labour costs in China. The most obvious "high-end" example is of course Red Rose which even uses the same cases as with the Korsun equipment http://www.korsun.com.cn/index_commentary.htm A few so-called high-end cable companies also charging diabolical prices for their range fall into this category so Vincent or Affordable Valve Company are not alone. So if anyone is allergic to products made or assembled in China, then the "For Sale" section of this forum will soon be seeing regular activity i.e. if you can detect that your component was Made in China. I bet you can't as it probably says Made in the U.K or U.S.A. etc.





Enjoy the music,

Lawrie.

 

However, Vincent is also one of the most popular 'Western' names adopted by Chinese men

Michael.

 

It could well be that all these guys calling themselves 'Vincent' have some sort of admiration for works of Vincent van Gogh. No? Wasn't it the Chinese that said "a picture speaks a thousand words"?



Enjoy the music,

Lawrie.

 

Hi,

This is true but he didn't say that they were from China either. His sales booklet only has one reference to where they are made. This appears in a copy of a review. There is a picture of the back of one of his amps which has the legend "Beautifully crafted in China" on it.

I agree with Ian, that there should be no problems with it being made in China. Some stuff from China will be good & some of it will be bad.

There will always be stuff sold by companies which are not made (or fully made) by these companies. This is faily standard practice. There are a lot of companies that do OEM items for other people to rebadge.

Very few companies make everything in house. Some companies will design stuff for others to make. For example, there was a time that the plinths of Linn LP12s & cases for Linn Isobariks were made in Sheffield. Moth arms are made by Rega. Rel had their cabinets made in Sheffield by different company. (They ended up buying the company).

I think the main problem is when things are made a cheap price that sold at a very expensive price. The Red Rose example is one of the most famous ones of this. Hifi will be priced at what the market will stand. There will always be a market for high end audio so there are items that will be priced as such.

As to which other UK or US brands are made in China I don't fully know. Any sticker on a piece of kit should say where the item was put together. This, I suppose, can be open to interpretation. An item could be built in China then have some tweaks or mods applied in the UK then call it British. Most likely the companies would keep quiet about it.


SCIDB

 

This applies to foods, too.
I would like to see transparent labelling everywhere. I think some things just say...produce of E.U.
I would like to know who made it, and where, esp. with supermarket own brands...packed for xxx in the UK....great, where does it come from.

AS for hifi, designed by roksan, say, assembled in china by xxx modified in ireland by xxx

 

Hi

Transparent labelling is a good idea. But how far do you go. Very few bits of hifi have every part made in the same country. A lot of transistors & ICs are made overseas. These can be made in various countries. Some companies like Linn & Sugden do have the person who put it together on the kit but there is no gurantee where the bits come from.

Companies have to be competitive so they will look for cheaper prices for their parts. A lot of companies will shift work from different countries to keep the price down. China has the big advantage of being a developing nation with cheap & big work force & high tech machines.

Also some people are not bothered where it's made, so long as the price is right and it works.


SCIDB

 

Absolutely. How many electronic components in your "hand made in Britain" amp come from Asia? And does it matter?

Mass production of componentry is increasingly occuring in China, where labour and capital costs are low. That's the way markets work. Expect relatively cottage industry "audiophile" companies a la Shanling and the like to increasingly follow in their wake. Some of them will strike deals with European distributors and allow their goods to be rebranded to appeal to the well-heeled in the West. That's just smart marketing.

-- Ian

 

i dont see what the big deal is about products being made in china. if they are dressed up as manufactured in the uk that is misleading but really that is only going to piss off the "Must buy Britsih brigade". If it was possible to source all the parts in an amp or cd player from within the EU the price would be higher than the average consumer - that excludes most people on here -would be willing to pay. If it was within the uk the overall price would be sky high. That said the mentallity in Britain - which is reinforced qutie staggeringly by this board - is that we want all the best stuff but we must get a "deal"/ pay the lowest price, God forbid anyone should pay the price that is asked.

 

And what's wrong with that, exactly?