Does where or who makes a product affects your choice of purchase?

[audioicon]

I'm about to buy new monitors and have been seriously considering the Mackie HR824 Studio Monitors. This is the problem, I was reading some reviews when someone mentioned the monitors were previously made in the U.S.A but now they are been made in China. This deeply discouraged me.

 

I'm not discourage because the Monitor is being made by chinese or in China, me, being a "preacher against global poverty, exploitation of the poor," I feel the reason why products made in China "maybe" inferior is because the people who work in these factories in China are paid nothing compare to the people who work in factories in the U.S.A.

 

 

Now I know Mackie makes quality products but my concerns are simple. Are the Monitors made here in the U.S.A the same quality as the onces being made in China now? I'm not saying Mickie is exploiting people. I'm educated enough to know that the standards are set by the Chinese government. I'm saying that the way businesses are run in Chinese factories affects quality.

 

Why are most businesses sending product abroad, well we know the answer, but Should I still buy the monitor?

Has quality been compromised now that the Monitor is being made else where by a $2.00 an hour employee?

 

What are your thoughts?

 

 

Audioicon

[Hard Truth]

I personally try to avoid products made in China because I do not support the practice of companies relocating to avoid environmental laws and protections for worker's rights. I single out China because of their extensive use of prison (slave) labor for manufacturing.

 

For electronics I am not very concerned about a quality difference between China and other countries. But for items requiring extensive skills to manufacture properly, such as guitars, I would be suspicious of Chinese made goods because they only recently gotten into making these products.

[audioicon]

 

I personally try to avoid products made in China because I do not support the practice of companies relocating to avoid environmental laws and protections for worker's rights. I single out China because of their extensive use of prison (slave) labor for manufacturing. For electronics I am not very concerned about a quality difference between China and other countries. But for items requiring extensive skills to manufacture properly, such as guitars, I would be suspicious of Chinese made goods because they only recently gotten into making these products.

 

 

You speak from the heart and I don't want to turn this thread into Chinese bashing but it just turns my stomach I you hear or see what going on in these factories and "us" buying these items is inevitable because we need them. My main concerns remains the same, has the quality changed since the overseas switch? Anyone who uses this monitor can chime in.

 

Patrick

[the-good-way]

Does where or who makes a product affects your choice of purchase?

 

Generally yes, though it can sometimes be difficult to backtrace the actual sources of components, raw materials, and the like.

 

Has quality been compromised now that the Monitor is being made else where by a $2.00 an hour employee?

 

What are your thoughts?

 

 

Charles Fishman had an ineresting analysis in "the Wal-mart Effect" (I think the specific industry under study for the section was televisions with IIRC a focus on Zenith) about how the labor outsourcing can be another step in tuning margins and, by the time one gets to that stage, much of the quality in the specifications has been designed out of the product, so that the wrokers are properly assembling to low-quality specifications in some circumstances.

 

Other areas of business can suffer from counterfeit parts, etc where there isn't a great handle on IP

 

Some areas of biz (and I'm not speaking of China specifically) wherein the component sources are relatively transparent can show a degree of high quality work - bicycle frames are a good example (as the tubes are generally made by the same couple of manufacturers such as reynolds so you are really looking at cut and weld quality)

 

On the flip side, we have smaller operations like Ogle viols da gamba who has production in Beijing, but, apparently, is run like a small instrument shop as would be anywhere -- allowing for relatively cost-effective instruments (that are otherwise cost-prohibitive to so many) and some legitimate job opportunity

 

 

 

Should I still buy the monitor?

 

 

A small and a big question

there is the quality issue, the various trade-related issues (trade balance, worker treatment, etc)

National development issues

and probably 1000 others

 

The purchasing go/o-go

 

I leave that to your conscience , but it could warrant contacting Mackie to see what kind of worker protection practices they at least have in place

[philbo]

Just go with Tannoys - - made in England....

 

I do pay attention to where things are made, and by who.

 

For example, if somebody gave me a Ford, GM or Chrysler product, I'd immediately sell it. Or junk for $50 it if I couldn't sell it. Not that I have anything against those brands; it's the worthless engineering that goes into them - - I'm utterly weary of buying crap products that unnecessarily break or wear out or suck up gas or are excessively expensive to keep working...

[blue2blue]

I can develop brand loyalties... I've had great luck with Toyotas, for instance. (Only one of them was made offshore. That was a long time ago.)

 

I did pretty well with Alesis gear in the mid-90s. I had to have a couple things fixed (ADATs, of course, were not maintenance free); in fact they fixed my Quadraverb 2 for free about two weeks after it went out of warranty, IIRC.

 

I've mostly had pretty good luck with Panasonic. The better of the two DAT machines I've owned is an SV3700 (not a perfect machine, however -- due to the bizarre lack of a non-head-engaged monitor option). My Panasonic set top DVD recorder is just an amazingly solid little machine that has kept chunking along through around 800 burns (my Fair Use library of old movies will someday rival the Library of Congress, I'm hoping). A couple other Pansonic consumer electronics pieces (like a beefy dual well cassette machine) have been less stellar (what do you expect out of cassettes, I guess... my current Superscrope cassette deck cost nearly 800 bucks a decade or so ago and it's... a damn cassette machine, y'know?)

 

There are some other brands I have a fondness or respect for, as well. I've done pretty well with Mackie mixers, for instance, given the price/format/etc. If I needed new monitors to replace my Event 20/20 bas, I'd probably look first at their ASPs. I like my Rode Nt1 well enough that an NTK or other Rode mic may well be in my future. And, you can't beat Shure for workman dynamics...

[amplayer]

Forgetting the China issue for the moment:

I have a pair of HR-824 monitors that were made in the US (I think). They are pretty good. But right now I think there are other choices in that price range that are just as good and maybe better.

 

Regarding the China issue:

I think Mackie wouldn't manufacture these in China if the quality weren't up to the standard they need. Most of the beauty of the HR-824s is unlikely to be effected by slave labor. However, I am currently trying to minimize my own China purchases because of their slave labor practices. It is VERY difficult to do because China produces such a huge range of products. It is virtually impossible to purchase anything electronic without at least some of it being touched by somebody in a country with dirt cheap (slave) labor.

[Rabid]

Being from Kentucky I hear quite a bit about the Mitch McConnall

[slight-return]

 

My Panasonic set top DVD recorder is just an amazingly solid little machine that has kept chunking along through around 800 burns (my Fair Use library of old movies will someday rival the Library of Congress, I'm hoping).

 

 

ooh, tbe careful there if you are using Sony v Universal based time-shifting as the basis for the fari use status

 

That was a contributory infringement case and so they only needed to prove that there was substantial legitimate use potential for the product

 

importantly to the time-shift part, paragraph 9 of Stevens' decision (it was one of the points that come up in the arugments) that the time-shifting was view-once & erase behavior

Maintaining a persistent archive may very well not fall under time-shift fair use

 

just a heads up there

[UstadKhanAli]

I also try and avoid buying Chinese products because of the human rights (prison labor, etc.) issue. But to answer your question, it depends on the QC implemented. Some Chinese factories can produce high-quality products, while some are abhorrent.

 

That said, I would strongly consider ADAM A7s (which are, admittedly, also made in China, to the best of my knowledge) before the Mackies.

[doug osborne]

 

Does where or who makes a product affects your choice of purchase? Now I know Mackie makes quality products but my concerns are simple. Are the Monitors made here in the U.S.A the same quality as the onces being made in China now?... ... Audioicon

 

 

Absolutely. Every purchase, and especially every investment, should be made with care. A large part of this care should be taken to insure that you are giving your money to whom you want. Everyone has different standards and tolerances here.

 

I'd bet that the Chnia-made Mackies are built as well as US made Mackie monitors. The workers get paid very little compared to US workers, but they get paid a lot compared to the average Chinese citizen, and a ton more than the generation before them - we in the US are largely funding the establishment of a capitalist middle class in China, partially at the expense of our own (I'm not defending China's labor or human-rights practices, but the US doesn't get such high marks on these issues either) .

 

But, in that price range (if the Mackies are truely the monitor that you want), I doubt there is anything not made in China. Tannoy from the UK, JBL from the US, Dynaudio from Denmark, Genelec from Finland, etc., are all going to cost more to have equivalent frequency and dynamic response.

 

Do a little pro and con chart about these speakers, and if you can think of more good reasons than bad to go with it, go with it, with awareness. If the cons win, look at competitors, consider keeping your existing monitors, or evaluate more expensive native monitors and plan to save enough to buy them.

[Ernest Buckley]

If you`re interested, I have a pair I would like to sell. Not sure where they are made but I did buy them in `99 so its most likely America. Anyways, if you`re interested, PM me.

 

As for answering your question, I do not buy Behringer or anything by Zoom. The country of origin means nothing to me.

 

EB