Chinese knock off cabinets?

Marsellus Fariss

Marsellus Fariss

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Oct 25, 2011
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I apologize if this is not an appropriate topic for these forums. Please delete if that's the case. Didn't see anything in the rules about it.

So I'm wandering round the ole' internets reading up on wedges and and I keep stumbling on products of Chinese origin that either purport to be EAW and JBL products or are counterfeit versions of such. Some don't claim to be either brand but are named with similar model numbers and such. For instance, you can google 12XT coaxial stage monitor and find what look like clones of L'Acoustics wedges for sale from abroad.

Of course you would be a fool to think that a knock off product would be as good as the real McCoy and there's all the trappings and moral arguments that would make one avoid buying such products but that having been said...

What's the deal with all this?

Has anybody had any experience with such products?


I've had a couple of low budget lighting rigs come through my venue with lots of small movers that where bought through similar channels and while they did perform well and the price was very low there was all the quality control issues you'd expect. Short life spans and products arriving broken from the supplier.
 
Re: Chinese knock off cabinets?

Pretty amazing to see just how much stuff has been knocked off, even products which are not very mainstream. I would love to be a fly on the wall of some place with some of that stuff just to see and hear just how many corners have been cut.

One site I saw claims that they produce 9000 boxes/year of JBL VT4889 knockoffs, not to mention that they knock off pretty well every other JBL product. If there is any truth to that, they are cranking out quite a bit of "product". I wonder how much of this stuff actually leaves China?
 
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Theyer knocking off Nexo, L'Acoustics, EAW, JBL.. Makes me real curious. No way those actually sound like Nexo's but I gotta wonder how are they?
 
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It seems to me that they are putting all of their "engineering" in matching the outward appearance of the product, while mimicing the functionality, with no possible chance that the functionality matches the original that was copied.

For a lower cost product, personally, I would rather see a product that put whatever engineering they did actually into the performance of the product, even if that level of performance doesn't match what was expected. In other words i would rather see a propriatary, a custom, or a one off prototype, than a bootleg copy.

And I am not sure how I should take the rave reviews for the amps from a bunch of home theater folks whose idea of great is comparing it with an EPwhatever.
 
Jay Barracato said:
For a lower cost product, personally, I would rather see a product that put whatever engineering they did actually into the performance of the product.
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Definitely. Why is someone buying a knockoff cabinet? To fool their clients? Perhaps even to fool themselves, that that cachet of that brand name can be created just by routing it into the wood on another continent?

There are lots of good, cheap boxes. For the price of an active crossover these can often be made great cheap boxes. But not by writing another manufacturer's brand name on them.
 
Re: Chinese knock off cabinets?

Bennett Prescott said:
Definitely. Why is someone buying a knockoff cabinet? To fool their clients? Perhaps even to fool themselves, that that cachet of that brand name can be created just by routing it into the wood on another continent?

There are lots of good, cheap boxes. For the price of an active crossover these can often be made great cheap boxes. But not by writing another manufacturer's brand name on them.
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The whole knockoff thing (especially in loudspeakers) is kinda interesting.

When we were getting started we talked to a number of people in the industry about knockoffs. Basically they all said the same thing. Once a product gets popular enough it WILL be knocked off. But often that does not really hurt the real products sales.

For the guys who want the real thing-they will realize the difference and will not expect the knockoffs to be the same and will buy the real thing. For the guys who actually buy the knockoffs, they don't have the money to buy the real thing-so no sales lost there.

The only real problem is that a bystander may hear a knockoff and not think highly of it. But then again, how many times do you hear a real system and not think it sounds good, Of course the people who understand what is going on realize that it is not always the loudspeakers fault, but often how it is deployed or aligned or the mix or the bands sources. Then again-sometimes it is the loudspeaker.

Where the knockoffs do damage is in the lower end of the market, where somebody may buy a knockoff (because they think they are getting a good deal) and a legit deal with another lower end product is lost.

like the guys who are buying the Lab Gruppen knock off amps for home usage. If they didn't buy the knock offs, they would buy a Behringer product and be happy with it. In no case would they have purchased a real Lab Gruppen amp. It would be sooo much more expensive and out of their budget. Of course they "hope" they are getting a good copy and that it will perform "just like" the real thing.

There are reasons the knockoffs are so much less expensive.

So no sales are lost there-only possibly a bad reputation if the amp is sold and the next guy has a problem and thinks it is Labs fault.
 
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I've thought it would be interesting to buy some of those lab gruppen amps, but I didn't for two reasons:

1) I've built a reputation on the reliability and high performance of my systems, and I can't risk that by buying products with questionable quality control and support.

2) I don't buy Chinese made products if possible. The quality of most of their stuff these days has just gone to shit, it's not even worth it. I also do not like contributing even the smallest amount to their economy.
 
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Tom Manchester said:
I've thought it would be interesting to buy some of those lab gruppen amps, but I didn't for two reasons:

1) I've built a reputation on the reliability and high performance of my systems, and I can't risk that by buying products with questionable quality control and support.

2) I don't buy Chinese made products if possible. The quality of most of their stuff these days has just gone to shit, it's not even worth it. I also do not like contributing even the smallest amount to their economy.
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Tom, I almost wrote "+1" but I hate that cliche as much as I hate Chinese knock-offs, so I'll just give you a "right on"!

Talk about knock-offs, how about Tobi Keith with his big hit "Made in America" which he plays on a "Made in China" guitar?
 
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I would like to see a video of one hooked up to Langston's "Water Barrel of Doom".

It amazes me that many of the first responses in the AV boards thread to "Here is a cheap amp" was "How does it perform at 2 ohms, because I can't afford to buy more than one"
 
Re: Chinese knock off cabinets?

Jay Barracato said:
I would like to see a video of one hooked up to Langston's "Water Barrel of Doom".

It amazes me that many of the first responses in the AV boards thread to "Here is a cheap amp" was "How does it perform at 2 ohms, because I can't afford to buy more than one"
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Remember that many of those guys think highly of the Behringer amps and consider them to be "pro" amps.

They have never heard or used a real amp.
 
Re: Chinese knock off cabinets?

Tom Manchester said:
...2) I don't buy Chinese made products if possible. The quality of most of their stuff these days has just gone to shit, it's not even worth it. I also do not like contributing even the smallest amount to their economy.
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Same here so +1. I try to buy Made in USA products as much as possible. If it's not USA, then Germany, Italy or at least a manufacturer who stresses quality in their product (ie: Apple even though their stuff is made in China... there's no other option).
 
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Re: Chinese knock off cabinets?

I bought one of the Fp14000's to see what it can do. Will be testing it out in the coming months. Ill report my findings here. Wont be as destructive as Langston's Amp test but we shall see how far it lasts before it blows up..
 
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