SM7db Fake Chinese

[CoolCat]

I was in a small group , in a large company, but our groups product went to Taiwan foundry. The parts QC was "cheated"
so the foundry got more parts out the door= money. QC failures hurt them, so they "de-calibrated" testers and PASSED!
problem was SAMSUNG was sticking the parts in tv's and the TV assembly line had QC and failed so many.
Failure Team tracked it to our foundry part and well in 2yrs or so, the group I was in had a 70% layoff and SAMSUNG no longer a customer. lol

agree, "constant battle to keep on top of the buggers!"
if you don't its the end.

 

[CoolCat]

I remember talking with some of our company folks who worked at our chemical manufacturing plant in China. He told me that once someone gets the process information to make something, someone else in their "family" will set up a business and start making the same product, at least as best they can.

Sometimes chemical processes need very specific controls for things like temperature, timing and agitation which can be expensive to set up. So while the materials and formulas might be exactly the same, the consistency of the product would vary a lot. They might not monitor incoming raw materials which added more variation, but they would generally get something which they could sell at a profit.

Once they start selling the product and make some money they would begin adding equipment to improved controls and the product would get more consistent. What they rarely spent money on was the environmental controls that large companies would have to follow, which meant lower cost. Within a year or two, they would have a thriving business, undercutting the company that actually developed the product.

I'm sure it's the same with everything else in China. With the way that things can be measured so accurately, it would be fairly simple matter to disassemble a mic capsule, laser scan the mechanical parts and program them into a CNC, measure the tension of the diaphragm and the electrical parameters. Making a circuit board is childs play. Reverse engineering is a quick and easy way to design a product.

this seems to be what happened to Shure China.
I've heard of this before too, the CN immediately go to work to make the best copy they can and sell it 75% off!!
SM7db is a great example!

 

[ecc83]

Not a rip off but very cheap at £11 the "SoundLab G158MB" is an all metal dynamic mic* with an XLR connector. Chunky in the hand it weighs about 120grams. Advertised "with XLR-XLR cable" it's not, the cable is XLR to unbalanced TS jack but the XLR is wired properly, pin 3 to pin 1 so it should work in a guitar amp (will try that!) The cable is about 4mm and decent quality so I shall chop off the "bent tin" XLR and turn it into a guitar cable. I shall tell Amazon off when they ask for a review!
The dynamic is in the RH channel and Behringer C2 capacitor in the left. I used the C2 because son has two and knows their sound.

"Why bother with such cheap mics?" you say? I had run out of cheapos for my garden recording but in truth I reckon these mics could be handy spares for a band or anywhere where mics are liable to get trashed or nicked!

*The capsule is identical to the one in the Behringer 8500 and that is about twice the price and quite a decent performer.

 

[rob aylestone]

I got an offer today from China - virtually all Allen and Heath mixers are available - I just have to say which model I want? They must be taken off the production line in the middle of the night in a truck. It has to be something like this. I've asked for a price on the small 18 input touch screen mixer.

 

[CoolCat]

QC fails? might be a thought....but if there's nothing wrong with them, then taken out the back door at midnight and not logged in the accounting tax books is highly likely.

if the production line bootlegging makes enough to "grease" everyone's hands , insiders and outsiders, then who is to call the cops?

there's probably no Tariffs on stuff that doesn't really exist...wink wink...say no more!

 

[rob aylestone]

I'm suspecting a con on this one - for logostics reasons, they have to arrange it via whatsapp with an IBAN transfer, cutting out alibaba's protection. I smell a scam on this one - I told them I'd need tp do the first order via alibaba's system and they said they can't.

 

[Papanate]

Or do they knock on the back door of the plant making the individual parts for the real manufacturer and buy 1000 grills, and another factories back door who make the perforated tubes?

That’s very common in China - they’ll run 12000 real mic parts and sell 2000 of them to their ‘friends'.

I sell radios - marine ones, and I have been selling one Chinese brand for years now, and recently I discovered they sell one product (one I have had success with) to a Japanese manufacturer, with the exception of the rear case. The Japanese firm add the rear case in Japan, and sell it as their own for three times the cost! The firm claim the product as Japanese, but all the electronics is Chinese. In this case, is it the Japanese one that is the fake?

Neither is fake - this kind of manufacturing has been going on forever but more so since China moved into the marketplace - tons of products are rebranded but there all the same product but different styles on the outside.

In the SM7dB - the tube of the mic capsule is very unusual and very long. It seems far too close to the Shure one. The actual end part though is different. I wonder if they just get the parts made by people who make them for Shure? Chinese manufacture is frequently not done in one big factory. The cardboard Shure packaging for example. Is it feasible that once every so often, the packaging machine gets run overnight with slightly different material = as in whiter cardboard? Bleached pulp rather than the virgin brown? I just find it difficult to imagine setting up to turn a few thousand identical knurled knobs, or the odd bracket with attached XLR socket?

It’s nothing when you are doing a 10,000 run to add 2000 more on - especially when it mean the production manager gets a great bonus from selling the extra 2000.

 

[rob aylestone]

One of my suppliers reps moved to start her new firm - basically an office. She took her customers and once free of the old company gave me her list of available items. She told me that it changes when the big name companies put in orders for restocking. The plant change the tooling and shift to making another 10,000 of model and make G. Once production is underway, she can simply buy what I need. I've been selling one 'Japanese' product with new firmware that changes the display for about 6 months. The brand leader has just started selling the upgraded model here. So I beat them to a launch by having it early? I suspect this happens all of the time. I note Behringer P16 personal IEM mixers are now on the list, and even a few very expensive video cameras.

 

[CoolCat]

Her inventory changes due to what brand name factorys are running?

 

[rob aylestone]

Yes, exactly that. They tool up for a product and produce far more than the order is for, and then warehouse the rest and sell them direct. I suspect lots of what we talk about as really good counterfeits probably are not counterfeit at all. Some of the 'knockoff' chinese mics come in with fairly hefty price tags. Cheaper than buying from the US or Europe, but only a bit. Got offered Sennheiser 421's this week, but they are £250 (UKP) - which is cheaper than a German original, but too expensive for me to buy and risk it being a look alike with a cheap 57 style cartridge in a posh casing.