klipsch made in china

[hmrdwn18]

saw this on the best buy stuff and on the new ref series

entry bookshelf. What's up with that? More and more hi-end

brands are doing this. I want what I pay for. Any thoughts

on this or I'am I just over reacting?

[KiNNi C P]

same here, i totally agree with ya. I am chinese myself, but when i buy high end electronic equipment, i do not want it to be made in china.

for brands like APEX and even the klipsch ultras (i believe they are made in malaysia), i would not mind, but once the price goes higher then 6-700++ dollars, i start to get real picky.

[hmrdwn18]

I glad you took my post for the point I was hoping to make

I'm looking forward to finally getting my 1st Klipsch after

all these years and I want them to be the real deal.

[Pistol Pete]

There is nothing wrong with stuff made in China, if Klipsch were made in the USA the quality would be the same and the cost would go up.

[JewishAMerPrince]

While I disagree with the whole thing in concept of sending American Jobs overseas, the Chinese have proven to be very good at producing quality products at low prices. The Chinese produce some of the best low-cost musical instruments nowadays. I have a Chinese iteration of a very famous brand name "European" baby grand piano with an equally famous american brand name on it. The build quality and sound are both superb. While it cost me about half of what an equivalent Japanese baby grand would have, the piano was designed in Germany, is made from parts manufactured in Germany, the USA, Canada, Japan and of course China. Everything is assembled in Dongbey china then shipped to Conneticut for testing, tuning and labeling. Before moving it's operations to China that "European" company's products were 3 times as costly as the chinese product today and contained parts made in Germany, USA, Canada, Japan, and (surprise!) China. The designs are identical.

My electronics are Rotel Separates. Rotel is a Japanese company that has it's own extremely high quality manufacturing plant in China. Besides Rotel branded products, they manufacture items for B&K, Aragon (Klipsch) Thiel, and Musical Fidelity. Nuff said?

Jerry Rappaport

[sheltie dave]

Jerry,

your equipment tag line gets the honor of being the largest one on the forum I have recently seen. Do you want it to take up an entire screen?

[HDBRbuilder]

Go into a high-end Klipsch dealer, look at where the top of the line stuff Klipsch sells is made...good ole USA...Hope, Arkansas. If you are looking at entry-level stuff or computer speakers for the masses, then you will see "made in China"...or "...Singapore"...or Wherever on any major manufacturer's products today. Ever wonder why you see so many "convoys" of recent-make damaged cars headed for Mexico? It is because the castings and many of the metal stampings are made there for them, thereby allowing mechanics and body people in Mexicao a chance to buy up damaged vehicles here, take them to Mexico where they can get NEW parts cheaply, repair the vehicles, then re-introduce them into the mainstream either here or in Mexico. Wake up folks, manufacturing consumer products in this country has become unprofitable for most large corporations. You see manufacturing plants everywhere closing down so that they can move the operation overseas and take advantage of cheap labor there. Contrary to what many say, it is NOT the cost of labor here that drives production overseas, it is simply competition and bottom-line thinking of corporate honchos. In the last decade and a half, the minimum wage in this country only increased by a dollar or so...IOW around 20%, but the average white collar income for corporate honchos has increased by well over 1,000% during the same time frame. It is NOT this country's blue collar workers' wages and benefits that are the REAL culprit...it is greedy corporate management..."the less I have to pay for labor in my products, the faster I can afford my new business jet"...etc...pretty simple. Klipsch COULD be building ALL of their products overseas...but they don't. At least give them credit for that much!

For years, the economists have been warning the American public that we are rapidly becoming a nation of service industries and information brokering. Those who have a blue-collar mindset and blue-collar skills need to heed these warnings and either find a niche for themselves where they can utilize their labor skills to THEIR greatest advantage, OR become a part of this economic trend by re-training and re-educating themselves to enter into service industries or become part of the information industry. Personally, I don't like seeing our metal casting, steel making, arms making and such going overseas for production, but that is what is happening. Look at what our military is outfitted with, trucks made primarily out of country but often assembled here, cannons and mortars made by British companies, handguns made by an Italian company, castings and such being made for tanks and other vehicles outside of this country, and even some of the armored vehicles, themselves being assembled across the border! This is reality...face it!

[Soundthought]

Great post, HDBR Builder.

You hit the nail right on the head.

[Istari]

Right on the money Andy...

I have a brtother in law who won't or maybe can't see what is happening, probally because he is more concerned with his executive perks and paycheck than to worry about the "Little Guy" who helped him get to where he is at.

If things keep up at the pace they are running now, who in America (except the upper executive levels) will be able to afford the products that corporate America wants to sell in this country?

It's all about the bottom line, If execs can increase their corporations bottom line by going off shore they will continue to do it, so they can increase their own bottom line.

[hmrdwn18]

It's not a quality issue so much. As for cost, the prices are in line with what they were in the past. The one who benefits from this is the manufacturer As a consumer we should all start paying attention to point of

origin. This world economy stuff is not what it's about, its money.

[KiNNi C P]

Though china do make some quality product, cheap labor may sometimes turn into bad craftmanship. The people there may or may not have the certified skill lever to produce a certain product. This is due to the labor wages. Also, with low wages, the workers would care less for the product they are making, leading to defective merchendise. This is why the quality of the product is altered once the manufaturing takes place in china.

I'm not trying to bash my own country here, but if you look at a company's high end products, most of them are made in the main origin. When i bought my Sony, the 333-555ES were made in Malaysia, but my 777ES was made in Japan. If i am not wrong, it RF-7 should be made in USA whereas the Synergy series should be made in China.

[BBB]

Face it ladies and gentleman. This nations and world economy is such that it no longer encourages the existence of the type of people, like HDBRbuilder, who take pride in workmanship. Having the ability of a fine craftsman no longer puts someone in the category of artisan but within the realm of artist (Definition: a person whose creative work shows sensitivity and imagination). Get it? The most prolific artists in our economy these days are the people who are manufacturing stories about products that will supposedly satisfy the consumer with their amazing quality and durability just to end up on a repair bench tomorrow IF you bought the extended warranty with it. I know gifted cabinet makers and wood workers who are no longer honing their abilities because they are stuck in jobs that they will never take pride in because they need to pay their bills. How many people do you know put their signature on their work before the product they created ends up in someones home? Heres another lost art. Teaching children to strive for perfection. Whats wrong with shooting for perfection even if it is never attained? BUT, you say, Nothing is perfect. O.K. fine. So I suppose thats an excuse to let the machines and computers get all the lines straight and the numbers correct. Why dont we just put our brains on stand-by for the next millennium? Work that craftsmen did to earn a living have now become Hobbies. Like brewing beer, rebuilding an engine or playing a musical instrument. I know people who grew up in families that had mothers AND fathers who were fantastic cooks that cant even boil an egg. What a waste. So what do we do about it instead of just complaining? How about passing on to the young people whatever you know about any craft you might have learned while walking on this earth before it becomes knowledge that can only be found in the archives of a public library. That is if the libraries are still in existence once they have been removed to make room for the next Walmart Metropolis. Maybe we should teach our children to be printers so they can crank out enough counterfeit money for them to be totally satisfied in a world of the never-ending, 24 hour a day, door busting Super Sale. Never mind. Theyll only be doing their shopping on the Internet anyway after the moon is renamed the planet MALLS. Moon Donalds anyone? Freedom Fries with that? Ill pick you up some on my way back from Mars. Vroooooooooooom

[Soundthought]

So true......so true.

What a great post, BBB.

[IndyKlipschFan]

While I am not a corporate big guy in one of our family businesses, nor making "hundreds of millions of dollars" by switching where we make products, or holding down the little guy, I will have to say the unions did destroy their chances of us continuing with them in the USA. Good economy or not, Some products have a certain cost to be made, and after marketing and shipping must have a profit to keep the company alive.

The fact is, in our senario the products today are made by people who take pride in their work. And yes, in China! They are hard workers, and are happy to meet any goal we set with them. They take huge pride in working for an American company yes for some at 2 dollars a day,..,(that should piss off the pro union people in here..sorry but true...) but in an economy where 50 cents a day is the start, we do get some of the cream of the crop workers with a huge waiting list to join us. And they also police themselves to keep the non productive ones with bad attitudes out of our business.

Face it, we have always done this in even our own economy. Detroit would have made all the parts in a centralised place if that was wize and healthy. The fact is, making them elsewhere de centralised the process, workers, costs, than they could in Detroit.

I know we read about corporate big wiggs making bookoo bucks and yes some get very jealous at this too. They had the idea, they put sweat and work to get it going, with the drive also to make it succeed. My hat off to anyone that can work, build something, and have it be a huge success in life. Shame on the would of, could have, should have, generation that didn't do it themselves. (This excludes the ones that steal money from the company or investors...those can rot in hell. LOL)

[dtel]

when did this start ? I bought a pair of sb3 sc1 ss1 about in feb of 03 all came from hope AR ?

[kenratboy]

Hey, my new Canon Digital Rebel cost $1000 and it is made in Taiwan, why not Japan? because it might have added $100 or so to the price.

Truthfully, anything I buy, I expect to be made in China, Taiwan, Malaysia, S. Korea, etc. If it is made in the USA, Japan, Germany, etc., it is a pleasant surprise. All I know is there is a great economic balance of wages vs. labor costs vs. production costs, etc. and I have no clue what the answer is.

[marksdad]

i can see you dont have a clue pete

[marksdad]

since we have begun shipping our jobs overseas i have seen more and more people go unemployed, as a few have said craftsmanship used to mean something, but now it is about profit. a craftsman used to come to work every day, work hard to build or design, and at the end of the day or job stand back and take pride in his work, nowadays they hire a dozen unskilled persons to assemble preconstructed materials, and these people dont know or care what they are doing, they dont pass inspections, or the end product looks like hell, but it is still passed on to the customer, the same is true of essembly workers in other countries, i dont know how many of you have actually seen conditions in some of these plants, but it is obvious how they can be made cheaper, and quality, as reflected in my problems with rotels new gear it is very lax. i always feel saddened when i hear this debate, because there are people like me who live in the trenches, who see all of the industries, and quality going down hill, as opposed to the general public who buy into the cheaper concept, you have to remember that cheaper means it come at someones elses discomfort, and someone elses profit margin, do you think someone like rotel cares that 100 out of 1000 need repair, as opposed to thier previous 5 out of 1000? no, not as long as they sold 1000

[m00n]

Me? Personally I think we are slowly destroying this countries economy. We will be like old Europe someday. The VERY rich and the VERY poor. And then someday those very rich will become the very poor too. I fully believe this.

[dgb]

Interesting thread.

First and foremost, when you buy from China you are supporting a repressive, violent dictatorship. They police their own by tossing "bad" workers (read independent thinkers) in to prison. They imprison and execute their students who are working for a democracy. You support paying workers a substanance wage and also support slavery. Chinese workers are as good as any, but remember who is really benefitting.

The unions are somewhat responsible for their own demise. The pay rates and benefits to a certain extent are responsible, but good auto workers or steel workers earn their pay. The unions (very generally) made management's job almost impossible by protecting poor workers, forcing promotion on seniority rather than merit, and quelling worker motivation by discarding merit raises. They union wanted to get their pound of flesh from the days when workers were truly treated like draft animals, but they didn't seem to realize that the owners could just take their ball and go elsewhere. The labor-owner realationship was so poisoned that repprochament was almost impossible. The managers were in the worst spot, hanging in the middle. It's not like they kept their jobs when the plants closed either.