Three Chinese audio interfaces under £25 inc shipping - worth even looking at?

[rob aylestone]

Three interfaces arrived -£16, £17 and £22 including getting to me from china.

If you saw the cheap U87 topic and the dreadful results, you won't be too expectant in the quality stakes.

One of them was simply crazy - an interface designed for podcasting, with built in sound effects and buttons labelled male, female and baby! Clearly it does it by changing the sample rate so the DAW or streaming device gets a new pitch. The trouble is that the sample rate seems to be extremely variable and goes up and down on it's own. I tried to edit my usual way - drag in the video and the audio and simply align a clap I usually use for sync. This worked but within a single sentence, it was a second adrift - At first I figured a sample rate mismatch? Had it recorded at 44.1 then gone to 48 etc? No - it went up and down up to nearly a whole note away. In the end after trying everything - even stretching and shrinking in Cubase, I just chopped it into sentences and synced manually the first bit of every sentence. What a process!

Two of the interfaces had 48V and two XLRs with combo connection for guitars. Sadly the best one had a dodgy socket.

I'm going back to proper products now - I've had my fun with the cheap rubbish I managed to find.

 

[Smithers XKR]

Three interfaces arrived -£16, £17 and £22 including getting to me from china.

If you saw the cheap U87 topic and the dreadful results, you won't be too expectant in the quality stakes.

One of them was simply crazy - an interface designed for podcasting, with built in sound effects and buttons labelled male, female and baby! Clearly it does it by changing the sample rate so the DAW or streaming device gets a new pitch. The trouble is that the sample rate seems to be extremely variable and goes up and down on it's own. I tried to edit my usual way - drag in the video and the audio and simply align a clap I usually use for sync. This worked but within a single sentence, it was a second adrift - At first I figured a sample rate mismatch? Had it recorded at 44.1 then gone to 48 etc? No - it went up and down up to nearly a whole note away. In the end after trying everything - even stretching and shrinking in Cubase, I just chopped it into sentences and synced manually the first bit of every sentence. What a process!

Two of the interfaces had 48V and two XLRs with combo connection for guitars. Sadly the best one had a dodgy socket.

I'm going back to proper products now - I've had my fun with the cheap rubbish I managed to find.

There are some things worth buying from China like some of the guitars they do as replicas but I think that the general opinion of anything electrical will not be up to scratch. So yes you are right Rob. I bought a replacement phone battery once and it ran down quicker than the old worn out one ?

In respect of guitar builds, then the Chinese copies are very good if you replace the pickups. But anything like the audio interfaces....
So yes ... good post for people to be aware and beware

 

[TalismanRich]

There are some things worth buying from China like some of the guitars they do as replicas but I think that the general opinion of anything electrical will not be up to scratch. So yes you are right Rob. I bought a replacement phone battery once and it ran down quicker than the old worn out one ?

In respect of guitar builds, then the Chinese copies are very good if you replace the pickups. But anything like the audio interfaces....
So yes ... good post for people to be aware and beware

As said in another thread, you simply can't generalize like that. My Tascam interface was made in China. This Lenovo laptop that I'm typing on was made in China. Your I-phone and flat screen TVs were most likely made there. I'll bet your original phone battery was made in China.

If you buy the absolute cheapest thing you can find (and £16, £17 and £22 is scraping the bottom) then you can expect that it's not going to be top of the line. If you test 10 and 1 or 2 are usable, then you can figure that's a win. It's a gold nugget in a box of rocks.

I've seen a couple of the replica guitars and they weren't anything close to the real article. Bad fretwork, fancy wood grain that is actually printed, bad tuners and a finish that was thicker than a credit card. With a $75 setup, it would make a decent student guitar, but it's not a professional instrument. It comes up to the level of a Chinese built Squier guitar. But find a Chinese built Eastman, and you've got a pro guitar, on the same level as a Breedlove, Taylor or Takamine.

 

[rob aylestone]

I just spent a couple of hours looking for interesting products. I suppose the key feature if any production system is that if you want it cheaper what are you throwing away? Quality control, material quality, mechanical construction quality, technical standards, innovative new designs? All this stuff costs so if you want quality products the Chinese will happily build them and many well known brands take advantage. But if you really want an audio interface for the price of a happy meal then they will make them too. Guitars are a strange one. Playability and cost rarely go together. It could be a dog to play. Or it could be simply amazing. Dirty Harry science. Do you feel lucky?

 

[CoolCat]

Foundries get paid by parts out the door, in general, so they can reduce or lie on QC.
The bad parts ship and the Foundry gets paid for Passed/Shipped parts. Conflict of Interest?

A foundry of a group I was in were caught doing this "cheating" so the home company created their own QC to monitor the Foundry. It was an ugly incident because the chips were bad, but the foundry Passed them =$$ for foundry, but then the 3rd party HDTV company had thousands of TV's built with bad chips in them. Strange but the Foundry was in Tawain ROC, but owned by a American / Korea joint venture company.

For Audio Interfaces QC...consumer tested.
..I had a few jobs and did some Military tested parts., extreme temperatures, built to withstand shocks and vibrations and altitudes etc...best built, top quality.
Home usage consumer stuff doesnt need much testing. An audio interface wont be in the North Pole or at 30,000 ft and shaking or in a dusty windy environment etc..
Somewhere in the middle price is probably a solid buy for HR environment. On the road? maybe Military grade cables, jacks, ...I think of Shure level. They have a brutal design of dropping and more extreme better built designed stuff.

 

[Smithers XKR]

As said in another thread, you simply can't generalize like that. My Tascam interface was made in China. This Lenovo laptop that I'm typing on was made in China. Your I-phone and flat screen TVs were most likely made there. I'll bet your original phone battery was made in China.

If you buy the absolute cheapest thing you can find (and £16, £17 and £22 is scraping the bottom) then you can expect that it's not going to be top of the line. If you test 10 and 1 or 2 are usable, then you can figure that's a win. It's a gold nugget in a box of rocks.

I've seen a couple of the replica guitars and they weren't anything close to the real article. Bad fretwork, fancy wood grain that is actually printed, bad tuners and a finish that was thicker than a credit card. With a $75 setup, it would make a decent student guitar, but it's not a professional instrument. It comes up to the level of a Chinese built Squier guitar. But find a Chinese built Eastman, and you've got a pro guitar, on the same level as a Breedlove, Taylor or Takamine.

Thanks Rich, I just speak as I find. The Ricky 335 12 string has as good a finish and fit as any original I played. The bridge needed milling on the bottom and the pickups were crap and needed replacing but once done I have a great replica at one tenth of the cost. I would never try to pass it off or sell it on, but it is a great guitar for my own use.
Horses for courses, you always take a chance buying from the far east. Personally I would not risk buying anything electronic from there like replica mikes etc, but that is just me ?

Best regards ??

 

[Smithers XKR]

As said in another thread, you simply can't generalize like that. My Tascam interface was made in China. This Lenovo laptop that I'm typing on was made in China. Your I-phone and flat screen TVs were most likely made there. I'll bet your original phone battery was made in China.

If you buy the absolute cheapest thing you can find (and £16, £17 and £22 is scraping the bottom) then you can expect that it's not going to be top of the line. If you test 10 and 1 or 2 are usable, then you can figure that's a win. It's a gold nugget in a box of rocks.

I've seen a couple of the replica guitars and they weren't anything close to the real article. Bad fretwork, fancy wood grain that is actually printed, bad tuners and a finish that was thicker than a credit card. With a $75 setup, it would make a decent student guitar, but it's not a professional instrument. It comes up to the level of a Chinese built Squier guitar. But find a Chinese built Eastman, and you've got a pro guitar, on the same level as a Breedlove, Taylor or Takamine.

Sorry Rich I think I am getting a bit confused here. You were referring to genuine far East companies like Lenovo that make great products... agreed. I was just refering to the fake makers with inferior electronic components and poorer quality control that I would not take a chance with. Apology for my confusion.
Cheers mate ?

 

[DM60]

Sorry Rich I think I am getting a bit confused here. You were referring to genuine far East companies like Lenovo that make great products... agreed. I was just refering to the fake makers with inferior electronic components and poorer quality control that I would not take a chance with. Apology for my confusion.
Cheers mate ?

Lenovo is a Chinese company. They purchased IBMs PC division about 10+ years ago. Chinese company building in China. I think that is somewhat different than foreign national building in China. Just clarifying.

 

[spantini]

That's interesting. I hadn't been following the industry. Lenovo is ok in my book. My Dell desktop and Lenovo laptop are the best PCs I've ever owned.

 

[TalismanRich]

Lenovo was building the IBM laptops for years. They were our company's standard issue. IBM divested their PC business to Lenovo. The company moved to Dell laptops about 4 years before I retired. They were always the higher range laptops because they need the ones that took docking stations.