NEED RESEARCH HELP FOR AN EXPERIMENT! (got stuck)

[GeorgeToledo]

It's utterly interesting analyzing that you seem to value your opinion really high and above everyone else, narrowing just all the possible points of view to just your own, considering all the others as "garbage".

An Heliocentric view of the world just harms who practices it, so no big deal, but being continually disrespectful towards other members here is not nice an it's actually the opposite of what this community represents.

I was not disrespectful to you in any way, neither I will be.

From time to time a new members shows up, where his ratio between number of posts and offending posts/fights started is quite high.
Some people are remarkably good at it, an in your case for the small number of posts you have and the amount of fights you start I have to admit that you are extremely good at it.
So you won the Trophy, congrats you're number 1

View attachment 115719

Your response again has nothing to do with the topic.

 

[GeorgeToledo]

You showed a great example of the Godwin's Law

"Godwin's law, short for Godwin's law (or rule) of Nazi analogies,[1] is an Internet adage asserting that as an online discussion grows longer (regardless of topic or scope), the probability of a comparison to Nazis or Adolf Hitler approaches"

"many newsgroups and other Internet discussion forums have a tradition that, when a Hitler comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever made the comparison loses whatever debate is in progress."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law


Many people expressed important things in this thread, and different points of view which is great.

Some posts were very technical, other's were historic and in the case of Thor's he explained from an economics point of view, and although it's generalized and simplified, because of course this is not an economics degree but just one post, what he said is true and explains very well the Cut Costing trend in products worldwide and the reasons why we live in an age of Low quality products that don't last.

I have nothing against China or the Chinese, I'm actually also a user of economic Chinese mics,
but Thor is mostly correct in is post.
There's of course exceptions both in China and in the West, there's many quality products from China and there's many crap products in the West, but what Thor said happened and it's happening.

Nothing wrong with his post, and it was quite relevant like many others in this thread.
It was just a different point of view of the same subject, and although it doesn't explain all of it, neither it can be applied to all brands, it explains a lot.
There was nothing racist of what we wrote, and I can find factual examples of companies and products for each of his sentences.

You should respect more other's peoples opinions, points of view and knowledge.

For me you were disrespectful and lost the "debate", which should just be a conversation

Bad mics from China aren’t bad because they’re from China or made by Chinese. They’re bad because of technical issues that the original poster is inquiring about.

The Godwin’s law thing is kind of funny, you really missed at least two points with my posting that.

There is a private messaging system here. If you want to keep sending me messages, use that.

 

[JohnRoberts]

any thoughts about signal to noise around here?

JR

 

[abbey road d enfer]

You showed a great example of the Godwin's Law

Well, I would invite you to check this article:
https://www.radiofrance.fr/francecu...le/pour-en-finir-avec-le-point-godwin-1024357It's in french, but it's easy to translate with Google.
Using the term "Godwin point or Godwin's law" has been used to disqualify otherwise valid points of view.
If Godwin's "law" was right, any discussion of Hitler, nazis and the Shoah would be impossible.
It is undeniable that a number of technical progress in microphones, louspeakers, electronics, radio and tape recording have been funded by the Ministry of People's Education and Propaganda under Josepf Goebbels.
Does using a Neumann mic or a Telefunken recorder make one a nazi supporter? Or on the contrary, a person whose opinion can't be taken into account? If it was the case, what about all the people who own a Volkswagen?

 

[abbey road d enfer]

First off, there’s no “debate”.

A "controversy", perhaps...

Secondly, I think you’re wrong for all of the reasons I have already written in response to Thor.

You expressed your opinions, they are not undebatable, so please, let others express their own.

Your response if fully useless meta garbage...

This is not terribly different than resorting to Godwin, disqualifying someone's opinions as meta-garbage. It's insulting and not constructive, because it is not supported by evidence or reasoning.

...of no value to the original poster’s question,

Not all posts in a thread are answering the original question; it's a double-edged sword, it can result in very interesting offshoots, or in useless cockfights.
Mods are fed up with dick contests.

 

[abbey road d enfer]

I have nothing against China or the Chinese, I'm actually also a user of economic Chinese mics,
but Thor is mostly correct in is post.

Except that his bombastic targetting at China just resulted in one of the stupidest controversies in the history of this group.
Equally guilty are the "branders" that badge-engineer OEM's, the big retail chains that inundate the market with crappy mics, the scavengers that acquire the rights to a renown brand and stamp it on commodity items.
Chinese are just guilty of offering their production facilities to the rest of the world; the rest of the world is guilty of taking this opportunity to deceive naive customers.

 

[cyrano]

Exactly, Abbey!

That's why I like brands like MXL and despise brands like Telefunken.

MXL takes Chinese products, adds a little quality control and branding and sells at reasonable prices. Telefunken sells a hyped up idea at an extreme price without investing in any research.

I think we also have to realise that we are also guilty for looking up to these expensive mics. Either vintage or new. There's no way a 50 years old mic is worth thousands.

I don't know if Neumann or Sennheiser still conduct essential research, but at least they did so in the past. But isn't it a bit silly to expect to make the best recordings because you spent thousands on a mic, while other famous recordings have been made with a 100$ mic?

Compare with the car market. We all know a Ferrari isn't the best choice if your aim is to transport four people economically and comfortably.

 

[abbey road d enfer]

That's why I like brands like MXL and despise brands like Telefunken.

Let's not start another flame war!

There's no way a 50 years old mic is worth thousands.

Value is in the eyes (or ears) of the beholder (and its wallet).

isn't it a bit silly to expect to make the best recordings because you spent thousands on a mic, while other famous recordings have been made with a 100$ mic?

Some people are content just owning a $30k mic. Others are content making $1million record wit a $100 mic. Others find contentment in attracting customers with a $30k mic.
All are right in their own way.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contentment

Compare with the car market. We all know a Ferrari isn't the best choice if your aim is to transport four people economically and comfortably.

There's not only utilitarianism in choosing a car (or a mic).

 

[thor.zmt]

Bad mics from China aren’t bad because they’re from China or made by Chinese. They’re bad because of technical issues that the original poster is inquiring about.

Yes and no. Specific features of both the chinese economic system and of post communist chinese culture (as found on the mainland, but not on Taiwan) contribute poor products all across the board, not just microphones.

Sitting at the "Old China Hand" Pub in Hong Kong we old china hands had many conversations on this topic, all the way to guys crying into their beer because they just had lost a thick wedge in a business deal involving chinese products.

Yes, each incidence is a single isolated incident, but when the sample side grows large, this changes to a statistically significant sample size.

So I will argue that the "cheap products" from China (and they only come from China at this price, nobody else can compete) are of actually much poorer quality than necessary even at the price, precisely because they are from China, as opposed to for example Japan or Taiwan or even Philippines and Thailand and that the technical and/or manufacturing flaws are a consequence of how many mainland china factories at the lower end of the price spectrum operate. Some related reading:

Explaining China's Quality Control Problems

Microphones are just a specific example of something that impacts a huge range of products.

It is absolutely possible to make high quality products in China that are designed well and offer excellent specification. But they usually come out of actually foreign run (often Japanese run - over time all our subcontractors in China shifted to Japanese run factories) operations, include close cooperation between the export customer and the chinese factory, foreign QA & QC professionals and often foreign engineering and imported critical supplies.

At that point these high quality products can no longer be cheap. Often they can even no longer be "low price".

In fact the combination of the rising costs to have foreign professionals work in China and rising wages have made it reasonable and even necessary to reshore to control costs. Some companies I have passing familiarity with (e.g. an Italian company operating in security systems electronic devices - my ex is married to the boss) found that after nearshoring production in the intermarium region their quality was massively improved, production did not oversight from Italy, shipping was less expensive and much faster and they could work much more on "just in time" production, so they found that overall they had better products, less capital in stock and lower prices.

This observation is not an attack on china or chinese people. It does not mean that all products out of China are automatically bad. But most really low cost products from China are problematic in ways that Japanese, Taiwanese or from Hong Kong were not, back in the 1950's - 1980's when "MIC" instead read MIJ & MIROC, MIHK.

It is an observation on the business environment in Mainland China and the unfortunate effects shifting production there has had, worldwide on the general quality of products, due to high prevalence of making things in China and the loss of industry and skills elsewhere. Guangdong Province north of what used to be Hong Kong is not called "the world's factory" for nothing. If you have time, look at the products you are using and buying and where they originate.

The World’s Factory, On Film

Thor

 

[thor.zmt]

Except that his bombastic targetting at China just resulted in one of the stupidest controversies in the history of this group.

That doesn't mean anything I wrote is wrong.

Equally guilty are the "branders" that badge-engineer OEM's, the big retail chains that inundate the market with crappy mics, the scavengers that acquire the rights to a renown brand and stamp it on commodity items.
Chinese are just guilty of offering their production facilities to the rest of the world; the rest of the world is guilty of taking this opportunity to deceive naive customers.

There is a lot of truth to what you write, but I was not apportioning guilt.

I was merely looking on how we got from Point A (most microphones sold are reasonably high quality, even relatively low priced items intended for the home recording enthusiast, prices are relatively high compared to day when inflation adjusted) to point B (Most microphones sold are of dreadful quality, but prices are relatively low for the lowest priced options, yet very similar branded products costing much more are just as bad).

Yes, "brands" in the west that put a badge of low cost and low quality chinese products and immediately quadruple the price are bad.

MANY of the "scavengers" you mention are chinese, or de facto Chinese.

What do you call a Company that has a Head office with minimal staff in Europe, owns many prestigious brands after it drove them out of business either cheap copies and make everything in a huge 70 acre vertically integrated plant known as xxxxx-City with 10,000 employees in Zongshan and has large chinese investors chaired by white guy?

No, I'm not looking for someone to mention B name, I call such a company chinese.

And among chinese factories you do encounter routinely a wide ranging set of questionable practices you would not find anywhere else I have been, not anywhere in the Americas, Europe and South East Asia. I presume Oz and Nz would also not have such practices. India I don't know well enough and Africa - where I have been industry did not exist in any meaningful sense of the word.

So the prevalence of a variety of in the eyes of a westerner deceptive business practices (that mainland chinese do not view as something bad incidentally - they think it's clever) in China together with the outsized market share in manufacturing create a dynamic of it's own, that leads to "quality fade".

Thor

 

[abbey road d enfer]

Yes and no...

At last, thanks for a cold-headed and well argued post.

 

[abbey road d enfer]

Many of the "scavengers" you mention are chinese, or de facto Chinese.

Actually, I don't care how one may call them. I just see the facts. And being chinese, western or martian is meaningless.
Take the example of Harman, what do you call them?
What they have done to AKG is akin to a genocide, when JBL Pro and Crown have been treated rather well.

 

[thor.zmt]

Take the example of Harman, what do you call them?

Samsung, actually.

What they have done to AKG is akin to a genocide, when JBL Pro and Crown have been treated rather well.

I am not so sure on JBL Pro, it's rather Chinese based on what I have seen as is Harman Kardon.

Crown got shut down in Elkhart and moved to Mexico.

I'd not call any of that genocide, but certainly the brands are diluted compared what they once where.

Thor

 

[GeorgeToledo]

Yes and no. Specific features of both the chinese economic system and of post communist chinese culture (as found on the mainland, but not on Taiwan) contribute poor products all across the board, not just microphones.

Sitting at the "Old China Hand" Pub in Hong Kong we old china hands had many conversations on this topic, all the way to guys crying into their beer because they just had lost a thick wedge in a business deal involving chinese products.

Yes, each incidence is a single isolated incident, but when the sample side grows large, this changes to a statistically significant sample size.

So I will argue that the "cheap products" from China (and they only come from China at this price, nobody else can compete) are of actually much poorer quality than necessary even at the price, precisely because they are from China, as opposed to for example Japan or Taiwan or even Philippines and Thailand and that the technical and/or manufacturing flaws are a consequence of how many mainland china factories at the lower end of the price spectrum operate. Some related reading:

Explaining China's Quality Control Problems

Microphones are just a specific example of something that impacts a huge range of products.

It is absolutely possible to make high quality products in China that are designed well and offer excellent specification. But they usually come out of actually foreign run (often Japanese run - over time all our subcontractors in China shifted to Japanese run factories) operations, include close cooperation between the export customer and the chinese factory, foreign QA & QC professionals and often foreign engineering and imported critical supplies.

At that point these high quality products can no longer be cheap. Often they can even no longer be "low price".

In fact the combination of the rising costs to have foreign professionals work in China and rising wages have made it reasonable and even necessary to reshore to control costs. Some companies I have passing familiarity with (e.g. an Italian company operating in security systems electronic devices - my ex is married to the boss) found that after nearshoring production in the intermarium region their quality was massively improved, production did not oversight from Italy, shipping was less expensive and much faster and they could work much more on "just in time" production, so they found that overall they had better products, less capital in stock and lower prices.

This observation is not an attack on china or chinese people. It does not mean that all products out of China are automatically bad. But most really cost products from China are problematic in ways that Japanese, Taiwanese or from Hong Kong were not, back in the 1950's - 1980's when "MIC" instead read MIJ & MIROC, MIHK.

It is an observation on the business environment in Mainland China and the unfortunate effects shifting production there has had, worldwide on the general quality of products, due to high prevalence of making things in China and the loss of industry and skills elsewhere. Guangdong Province north of what used to be Hong Kong is not called "the world's factory" for nothing. If you have time, look at the products you are using and buying and where they originate.

The World’s Factory, On Film

Thor

Why are there bad US, Russian, and European mics.

.

 

[GeorgeToledo]

What they have done to AKG is akin to a genocide, when JBL Pro and Crown have been treated rather well.

Can someone send my membership money back, thanks.

 

[abbey road d enfer]

Samsung, actually.

That's what I meant; korean. Korean is not chinese.

I am not so sure on JBL Pro,

JBL Pro still have their labs and R&D in Northridge CA.

Crown got shut down in Elkhart and moved to Mexico.

The brand is still alive and well, with new product developments., which cannot be said of AKG.

I'd not call any of that genocide,

I don't understand why the use of the word "genocide" as an hyperbole creates so much tumult...

but certainly the brands are diluted compared what they once where.

Not all similarly; seems to me that AKG has been more brutally hurt than JBL and Crown. I may be wrong, though.

 

[thor.zmt]

Why are there bad US, Russian, and European mics.

Because bad products can be made anywhere. But the OP did not ask about bad microphones, he asked why many (most?) cheap microphones are bad.

To my best knowledge there no cheap microphones (as in << 100 USD) made in the US, Russia, and Europe. They are only made in china these days. On TEMU you can even get a Neumann U87 Clown for 3 Bux. And it actually makes noise:



I am not even going debate the "2nd coming" western boutique shops, some are really good, some are not, some take OTS Chinese parts and put them together, some just take a generic chinese OEM/ODM Mic, get a different colour paint, sprinkle some fairy dust and sell it expensive.

And yes, some even make their own capsules or rebuild chinese ones. Some even make their own capsules from scratch.

But Cheap mikes are MIC. And all that means.

Thor

 

[abbey road d enfer]

Listening on "reasonable" speakers (i.e. not my studio monitors nor the radio-clock), I don't hear the supposedly huge difference this guy contends.
Could it be due to the fact he's listening on headphones + bone conduction, and the mics may be out-of-phase (actually polarity-reversed)?
This evaluation is much stupider than the one done in the recent "where does teh sound come from" thread.

 

[thor.zmt]

Listening on "reasonable" speakers (i.e. not my studio monitors nor the radio-clock), I don't hear the supposedly huge difference this guy contends.

Spoken voice is not that good an evaluation.

I wanted to illustrate "Cheap Microphone".

I would expect more careful comparison would show many of the problem the OP mentions.

Thor

 

[abbey road d enfer]

Spoken voice is not that good an evaluation.

That's what I meant.