Whoah. Sorry, pretending to be a moderator… but I’m not. This is taking a bad spin.
I’m not defending the Chinese. There have been craploads of inferior products coming out of there. However, we Americans aren’t necessarily any better in some aspects.
Shall I go on for about 100 pages about Chinese intellectual theft and patent infringements as it pertains to the audio industry? Or how about a few pages about how the same Chinese factories that make AUTHORIZED Disney products make intentional OVERAGE runs to create a grey market of what are essentially illegal units, yet are made with 100% authorized materials, dies, stamps and procedures, which in turn makes the bootlegs 100% identical and indistinguishable from the “real thing”, because for all intents and purposes they are the real thing?
No, I won’t
One of the issues with China is we often find we can get the same “product output” for a 1/4 of the price. Some companies question this because they have a 3 out of 4 fail/rejection rate, yet it is still cheaper to go this route. I find the biggest issue is how the manufacturing processes are run. Too many Asian factories and companies are very greedy and only want “more money” and don’t care about how that trickles down to the workers. As I’ve been told, there’s a lack of environmental regulations in China, so the dumping or disposing of waste and byproducts isn’t done in a more “green-friendly” manner, which also reduces costs. When companies are often more over-seen by those who are sub-contracting the work out to them and IMPOSING more rigid controls, there’s no reason why the Chinese-made product can’t be as good as the American made one. Also, there are some companies that want to express an extreme pride in workmanship and put in the extra effort to reduce waste, decrease fail/rejected units and put their best efforts forward.
This isn’t just a Chinese issue. When we as Americans outsource to most Asian nations, as well as some middle-eastern nations, we often get the same issues: Lower costs, higher rejection rates. I see this in products from Vietnam, India, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philipines and others as well.
Back on audio briefly: The Mackie SRM450 has gone through 4 generations. The first, using RCF drivers(Italian made), which are the ones I have, I feel sound the best. The second generation isn’t a true second generation, but it involves the RCF buy-out by Mackie, and those drivers don’t sound as good for some reason. The third generation is involving the use of Chinese-produced drivers, and honestly, those speakers sound like crap. The SRM450v2’s use the same crap-tastic Chinese drivers, with a newer crappy set of internal active amplifiers on-board, which “amplify crap to crap” and sound like @$$ unless you use a system analyzer to correct all the screw-ups. This helps, but doesn’t resolve the problem completely.
Back to yoyos:
Aluminum isn’t just aluminum. They are almost always alloys. I have no idea if 6061 in the US is the same blend as 6061 in China or over-seas, or what the tolerances for 6061 is. Or 7075 for that matter. I’m not a metal expert, I never will be. We know that controlling as much as possible is important to yoyo production. One Drop proves that there’s more to just engineering when it comes to making quality yoyos. It does start with the raw product: the Aluminum cylinders(or whatever they are called).
If you start with an inferior base material, then you’re already sunk. If the material isn’t consistent end to end and all through-out, there’s no way you can win. If you’re not using CNC machines with the right tolerance capabilities, then you’re causing more problems. The odds are the Chinese places may not be using machines with the same precision capabilities and are not quite as selective as they could be with their aluminum to “save costs”.
What I will say is this:
I am tired of seeing American jobs leaving due to corporate greed. The human factor is a large element that has been disregarded in favor of making the all-mighty dollar(that is losing international exchange appeal by the way). I would prefer to see the American companies to try to keep their products being made domestically whenever possible. To bring it to the yoyo world, I single out YYF, but not because I hate YYF. I don’t hate YYF at all. I do know they produce yoyos in the United States. Why not work a bit extra to get all their metal yoyo productions done in the United States? This would remove YYF from whining about the high fail rate they get from China. I mean, that’s what I would have done.
My wife and I do try to make decisions to “Buy American” whenever we can, even if that means higher prices. We don’t always do that, we’re not perfect, but we do try.
In closing, a product isn’t inferior just because it’s made in China. A product is inferior if it is made inferior and that’s regardless of where it is made.
Now, since this thread is about the Shutter and whether or not people feel it’s one of YYF’s greatest throws of all time, could we stick to that subject?
Sorry for pretending to be a moderator. I’m a bit tired of seeing some threads deteriorate like this.