Hi all,
My name is James Young, and I'm one of the owners of sE Electronics International and the Shanghai facility which makes our products.
One of the Gearslutz regulars was kind enough to alert me to this thread, and another on the Gearlslutz forum involving a new brand called Karma Audio.
I'm posting just to set the record straight, and will be very happy to personally answer any questions this post raises. I'll aso be posting on Gearslutz later today on the same subject. Jules temporarily shut down the thread when I first alerted him to what was being said, because what was being said was highly inflammatory, and untrue, but we both thought it better to get it up and running again as soon as I'd had chance to construct a proper response...
We are contacting the people at Karma Audio privately to pursue some of the incredible claims they have been making on Gearslutz forum, and we are now looking for other incidences of such claims on other forums. In the meantime I have been speaking with Jules of Gearslutz about setting the record straight, since many of the claims being made are quite simply untrue.
As you all know, sE is not a huge company, but we are growing fast and making a lot of good noise in the market because of our products, and the man behind them, Siwei Zou. We've spent a huge amount blood, sweat, tears and personal money over the last 4 years really establishing the line as a bigger player, and have brought some real innovations, including products like the Gemini, the Titan and the new Reflexion Filter? i.e. we are not an OEM or copy company.
sE Electronics and the facility we run in Shanghai do not make products for anyone else. There is no link with Karma Audio and sE, other than Waylon, who names himself as co-owner of Karma on the Karma Audio web site. He used to be involved in distributing sE in the USA when it was an OEM brand.
Neither Karma Audio, nor any of their representatives have ownership of sE in any way. Their products are categorically not made in the same facility. Neither is their facility the same one that SOS visited. I refer to comments made by Karma101 in this thread:
"We are made in the factory in china that sound on sound wrote about and gave its review on. Meaning we are made in the same factory that produces sE Electronics.
Actually our business partner owns the factory. So in essence I guess you could say that we build the mics for sE."
This is untrue.
We are inviting representatives from Karma Audio to review their comments, and retract any false statements of origin and marketing. I hope they see fit to do this on this public forum.
What Karma101 has done is weave a number of completely false statements, with some elements of truth, in order it would appear, to capitalise on the success of Siwei's products.
So, again to set the record straight, here is the actual history of sE's relationship with OEM manufacturing:
Siwei Zou started his career as a classical musician with the Shanghai Opera. He has, in his time, been conductor of the Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra, a highly successful Classical Composer, visiting scholar at the University of California, and is currently a professor of the Shanghai Conservatory. In short, a true 'golden ears'. In his role as one of the top Classical Musicians in China, he was often sent microphones by the likes of Feilo, to test and evaluate, and this led (in a very roundabout way) to his eventual involvement with Feilo. Siwei was an advisor, helping Feilo to improve the quality of their many OEM lines. In turn, he had an arrangement for them to manufacture his own, sE, designs.
This relationship ended a few years ago now when, for various reasons, Siwei decided to start his own manufacturing facility in Shanghai, called Heavenly Sound. Heavenly Sound is owned by sE Electronics. Siwei Zou and his family, myself and two other UK partners own sE Electronics International. No-one else is involved in any way in ownership of the company.
In the first year of manufacturing our new sE product line, Siwei continued two old relationships with Thomann (T-Bone mics), and Cascade, both to allow for a smoother transition for those brands in finding new production partners (as they are old friends of Siwei's), and to allow for a growth period of our own brand so the facility was able to support itself as we grew business. Those relationships are the only ones, and neither company has had product manufactured at Heavenly Sound for some time now.
Today, as was always our dream, we have the only western owned mic facility in China. We do not make products for other companies. We do not re-badge products for the sE line made elsewhere. We only make our own products and we are very proud of what we've achieved in a ridiculously short time.
We have taken not only SOS to the factory, but also two German Magazines, the French KR magazine, Audio Media, Resolution and Music Tech Magazine, as well as several large European dealers. We've done this in order to help spread the story of what we are doing, and to genuinely be open about what we are doing, why and how.
Everything about what we have achieved is based on hard work, innovation and a lot, a LOT of personal belief in what we are doing. Our workers are employed on long term, and in some cases life-long contracts, something unheard of in OEM facilities. They are paid very well, have transport laid on to and from work, free lunches etc. We even run a further education program for those manual workers who don't have a proper education. In other words, we are investing in people, not using them.
Our products are all made in-house, even flight cases are made by us and not sub-contracted. We will shortly be putting a virtual factory tour on the sE web site so you can all see the entire manufacturing process from start (raw materials like brass rods for chassis) all the way to capsule assembly and completed products. All our machinery is brand new, all electronics are assembled in clean rooms, as are the capsules (again unheard of in microphone OEM) We have recently even invested in building a full anechoic testing chamber at our facility. Again, we are not about making as much money as possible and running after two years. We really believe in what we are doing, and we are re-investing every cent we make into the facility, and making better and better products.
I am very happy to personally answer any questions my posting may throw up (I'm sure there will be questions!!), either on the Forum itself, or at my personal email address, which is james AT seelectronics.com
Thanks to you all for reading this post,
James
www.seelectronics.com
T: +44 (0) 1582 470 260
C: +44 (0) 7967 60 11 74
...would that be a 3000 or a Sprite?... 
) and personally believe that KARMA is way "out of integrity" in it's initial advertising ploy but they have been "called on their shit" and need to deal with it.