Re: Chinese knock off cabinets?
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.
