This is exactly what videos like this should be. Tight editing, consistent flow, clear audio, a bit of embellishment, and no padding. Whole video is 1:46, conveys all the information, has a clear conclusion, and is entertaining. I know this video probably took hours to plan, record, and edit but I really do appreciate the effort that went into it.
@@EdStewbie I once built a 'Talent Booster' solo pedal for our guitarist, it was just a switch and some flashing LED lights, but he used it to boost his solos, glad he never took the box apart...
lol you're paying for Music Hall's 'proprietary research' and 'exhaustive tuning by ear' that showed that a black paint job sounds better than the red paint job.
I was in Sam's Club years ago when the "Vacuum Tube Sound" craze began and every company was trying to capitalize on it. There was a DVD player with two tubes sticking out of it. The promotional material stated, "You haven't heard movies until now. Richer. Warmer. Clearer. The Sound of Analog!" Followed by some nonsense graphs showing the "difference in quality". I took one look at it and noticed something very interesting. The tubes were glowing bright yellow, but the light came from underneath it and not the tubes themselves. Yes, it was lit by LEDs on a separate board underneath them. I placed my fingers on the tubes and started to chuckle. It was cold as ice, I doubt there was even a current running through them. I began searching one of the boxes for any additional information on the product. Then I found an asterisk in the smallest text far below all the other info and tucked away next to the obligatory FCC compliance info. "Digitally Simulated Analog Sound"
That is both hilarious and very common! Though I have seen (and even owned) legitimate tube products where the tubes are just used in the signal chain not in the power stage and they absolutely impart on the sound in measurable ways but source level tubes still don't sound as good as bonafide amp stage tubes to my ears. There's some cheap watch on the internet, I think that Thinkgeek has them it has fake tubes in it, they even glow. :)
@@nounoufriend no it wouldn't but my experience was with an actual tube input processor from Behringer it was legit not just tubes lit up for the sake of being lit up. And it still didn't impart the kind of sound that a tube amp stage does. It was mild at best, I'm sure on an oscilloscope the effect was measurable but probably very minor.
@@bernardthedisappointedowl6938 Yes, but actually 180° phase shifted to the regular noise. So the noise cancels each other out. The result is less noise! Thats because a snakes body has got several 180° degree bows.
OMG! have you added up the cost of the Rolls components, they just take $5.00 worth of parts stick them together and charge you TEN TIMES AS MUCH WHAT A RIP OFF! We all know that when a company wants to add a product to is range that is going to be almost exactly the same as an existing product they will often get the original company to make a re-branded version for them rather than developing a new product that would cost three for four times as much by the time it was developed and tested.
My marketing text in college had an anecdote about a jewelry store owner who was going on vacation and left written instructions for his workers to mark down a shelf of junk jewelry he hadn't been able to sell for "1/2". They misread the "1/2" as "x2" and instead of halving the price, they doubled it. When the owner returned, all the jewelry had been sold. It's well known in the marketing industry that people judge quality by price. It's part of a strategy known as "market segmentation," where you take the same goods and change the appearance, packaging, and price to appeal to a different end of the consumer market. It's done all the time in every industry.
Although I have not tried expensive cables and can't say if they change the sound as much but different types of copper have different electrical characteristics
Mark Rowe Hahaha!!! They could have glued a nice smooth pebble to it (called it a shakarikamookie stone) and charged 100 times the price!!!!! The astounded audiophiles would be, well, astounded at the blacker blacks, the sheer absence of grain and the utter lack of aural detritus!!!
But in the automotive world it’s kinda separated, sometimes buying the “quality” part is better because it’s actually better but sometimes it’s the opposite
Yeah, but particularly when you buy parts with the manufacturer logo on the box, those are often available from the original company that made it (Denso, Delphi, Bosch, etc.) for less, and sometimes aftermarket brands just buy from the OEM in bulk and put it in their box (Beck/Arnley comes to mind). There are definitely a lot of cheap junk parts out there, though.
@@CarsSimplified I'm new at the wrench but I got brakes like that... Also, what happened to tires?? I got them for 35 bucks each, they are awesome... But expensive rubbery like continental and pirelli often fails testing! Hm, we get off topic 🛥
@@Ciakuz well, if they charged $5K for it and put this little board into a huge brushed aluminum box, with golden terminals, that would do it. Will turn it into "audiophile grade". But they have more profit selling many units for $80 than few units for $5K . Economy of scale.
It helps to know even some basic electronics. Like identifying good caps. I always want to see under the hood of items before buying. But I've seen this happen except the markup was over a thousand. I wished I could remember what company I saw a few years ago that got caught marking up a transformer.
Reminds me of an article I read decades ago. A guy invites his audiophile friends over to judge his new speaker cables. First he used his Monster cables. Then has the friends go into another room so he can change the cables. He then plays the same music without any other changes and asks them what they think. In general most thought they were very similar, some preferring the Monster cables, other the new cables and others thinking it was a toss up. He then revealed the new "cables" were actually wire coat hangers he had straightened!
Monstercable used to wind yards of VERY high gauge wire vs a short run of heavy cable and then ask people to compare them. Of course a short run of thicker cable will sound better than a wire barely able to carry 20 watts before it bursts into flame.
Ahh but everyone knows the thick guage of a coat hanger will sound better), but seriously that is what determines the quality of a cable, wire guage, nothing else matters, capacitance and inductance dont even factor into the equation at audio frequencies.
I heard a story about who bought some fancy stereo system. He said that they must of been good and should of had been built out of high end quality components because they weighed a lot. He opened them up and looked inside. He found some lead weights inside of them to make them heavier.
To be fair, the lead could be there to reduce case harmonic resonance, or possibly X-ray / Gamma ray / Cosmic radiation shielding of high sensitivity components. /s
Even (genuine) Beats headphones include weights to make them feel higher quality...! Reminds me of the film camera days when they used to make fake "SLRs", i.e. a no-frills point and shoots made to resemble an SLR in order to con those who didn't know any better, and which typically included weights inside the very cheap and nasty (and otherwise unconvincingly light) plastic body.
I just want to thank you for not making this into a 10 minute video. I wish other UA-camrs realized that they can get their point across and make a great video in less than two minutes a lot of the time.
The black casing definitely adds a deeper smokey flavor to the lower-mids, and the different ink they use in the branding label brings a slight fruitiness to the trebles. Well worth the extra $29 IMO.
Luckily, both seem to be discontinued. But just for the amusement of the US viewers: Here in Germany, the Rolls VP29 is still available for 99 euros, originally it was around 120. The Music Hall Mini was 95 when it was still sold. Including tax, mind you.
This is nothing new. Mark Levinson back in the early 2000’s, took a $1200 solid state amp from China, rebadged it with his own brand Red Rose, and sold it for $7000. He claimed he put “better parts” in it to justify the cost. Same chassis, same internal design. Just a different silk screened name on front plate.
Mike K Rebranding is fine... I guess. But the outright blatant lies? There are some companies I respect even though they sell expensive gear like Genelec. But I think there are more companies that are of the former category.
@@mikek1635 although I can see an argument for quality control, or better customer service; for example, readily providing replacements for faulty product. For more DIY electronic parts, I often see cheaper products that I can get shipped from China. But they can't be returned (or they take weeks to ship, and often at a prohibitive price) and/or there will not be customer service in English. But there's an electronic parts company near me called Sparkfun, where not only can I get great customer service, but easily get refunds or make returns. I'll pay more to get that from them.
Thanks for sharing this. I'm on the market for a turntable and music hall was one of the brands on my shortlist. After watching this, my shortlist list got a bit shorter...
You have no idea how much these Oompa Loompa's are costing me to rebadge and paint these things! You nailed it, spend more to get more doesn't get anything but a name.
Nah, thats what i like to call the "Dumb Effect". I mean its not that hard using google before you buy anything. I usually spend a week before i buy expensive stuff doing research and finding out its weaknesses etc. Not only does that give me a good idea about the product, but its competition as well. So i might end up with a better product for less cash.
the quality of components and over all quality inspection could make a difference . we used to sell 2 versions of the same product. the only difference was that the more expensive one was already fully tested benchmarked and aprooved. the price was more than 50% expensive
Crooks! Serious ly, its guys like you that make it worth going on line and looking this stuff up before buying. We have all gotten taken at one time or another.
Still happens today. Franklin Audio apparently stopped selling some of their products under their own name, and they're now available branded as Dayton Audio, at a markup. For a while both products were available from the same vendor.
@@jtjones73 lol how about Samsung the biggest one of them all. Sennheiser makes their headphones from driver to assembly. Most reputable brands don't do this, as brand reputation is why they can sell for high prices. Your ignorant cynicism is really cool though 😎😎
Thanks for this info and a review... I'm so thankfull since I was looking for some cheap preamp and after seeing this video made my choice much easier... Keep the good work my man, PEACE BRO!
This is like Rega selling a 20 dillar AT3600 cart for 60 bucks with "Rega" printed on it. This shady side of the audio business is always a bit depressing to look at. At least now we live in an age where we can find out real information and navigate the minefield, thanks for another video.
Dj Phase Four blame your local market for that one, they’re about the same price here in the U.K. so Rega are not charging $60 for it, your local retailers are. I know the person who made that video likes to try and discredit anything decent but Rega are not a rip off brand by any stretch and have one of the very best reputations in the industry for customer care.
Nope both wrong. Read my reply and learn how it works. Nothing evil is happening here. With distribution and other associated costs, it is about right. Sucks sure, but hey that is how it works folks.
Vincent Chen, I didn’t say anything evil was going on, but it does go to show how much is added in import taxes, shipping and distributor/dealer markups. As I say, the Rega Carbon is a similar price to the AT here in the UK where Rega are based. I just take issue with people attacking a good brand. People need to get better informed on why an apparently similar product might cost more.
Si1983h You can get a private label carbon cantilever for that cartridge at LP gear significantly cheaper than Rega. With that said just about every high end company has thier "cheap Asian made turntable" but with a audiophile name marked way higher than the usual 60 percent dealer mark up.
keith parkhill the Rega branded stylus is only £18 anyway (in the UK). I’d be fine with a cheaper version made by AT but I’d steer clear of knock off styli for any cartridge.
Marketing 101 - that's what brands are for! Look it up. As we might still remember the era where brand values were based on functions, features and product quality, we are now living in an era where brand "values" are "created" on a blank sheet of paper and then backed up with advertising. This "brand-building" is expensive but generates a predictable consumer behaviour = predictable profits. Take any company that has been taken over either by investors or by the nincompoops from "M" department: Step 1 - fire everybody who knows what they are doing as they represent the "past". Step 2 - give great jobs with pompous job title (usually including the words "global", "manager", "innovation" and "consumer") to underpaid graduates. Step 3 - stop all product development but build a big procurement organization in China. Step 4 - stick your company logo on any crap from China you can get you hands on. Spend more on the "brand experience" when consumers complain. Step 5 - grab the money and run. Step 6 - simply repeat with next company when you need more money (investor perspective). ... once you know this pattern, you will discover it everywhere.
Yeah, that formula is literally everywhere. With the exception of chinese procurment as it didnt apply, I even worked for a healthcare company that basically followed this formula.
I have to call BS on the Apple comparison. Apple actually does spend a lot more on their products than the majority of their competitors, and for those cases where they don't, you'll pay almost as much for the competitor's product. But there's a huge aspect of the cost of an Apple that you're not factoring in. When you buy an Apple product, YOU are the customer. When you buy most of their competitor's products, you are their PRODUCT, and they're selling YOU to their customers. See Apple vs. Android for example.
@@babybirdhome Yeah, a lot more on advertising, vendor lock in, and trying to cover up the fact they lie every single chance they get. From getting in bed with education so they could rewrite computer history and their importance in it, to suing other companies for things they themselves didn't actually invent, to ridiculous markup for cheap veneers to cover up some of the worst design choices in the industry. Like Jobbo the clown's insistance that "fan noise is evil" resulting in every system right back to the crApple 2 being an unmanaged heat hog -- to the point that by the time of the G3 toilet seats the CPU's were burning holes through the dialup adapters, and G4 cubes were heating up so much they would desolder their own chips to the point they would fall clear off the boards. Then of course the "well these aren't laptops, you're not supposed to use them on your lap -- they're a macbook!" idiocy ... there's a reason Apple wouldn't know proper cooling if it stripped naked, painted itself Noctua tan, and hopped up on table to sing "Oh look at what a big cooling fan I am!" -- i9 Macbook overheating issues? Well no f***ing s***. Anyone surprised by that is a moron. Just like on the toilet seats undervolting and underclocking 50% or more G3 processors to wrap them in insulation instead of putting heat sinks on them, or neutering perfectly good PCMCIA ports by omitting two power rails and calling it "airport" to lock third party vendors out of providing wireless cards... or swapping master and slave on PATA optical drives so that most third party models hardwired to slave wouldn't work... or selling 18 bit monitors and calling them 24 bit because "Dithering makes it the same"... or selling monitors where they cheaped out using flat cables too thin for the connectors resulting in striping. How about the use of paints with solvents that are illegal to spray in the US for safety reasons, that were "safe once dry" that actually continued to emit noxious fumes for years after they got into customers hands with the so-called G5 "Mac Pro"? But hey, at least you got some artsy-fartsy form-factor. BARF! When I hear about things like bendgate, or phones getting locked out because you replaced a button with one from an identical model, all I can think is "Well no s***, what did you expect from Apple. Have you not been paying attention the past FOUR DECADES?!?" They are some of the slimiest, sleaziest, untrustworthy dirtbags in the industry, and when I hear people talk about the quality of their products I genuinely have ZERO damned clue what the f*** they're talking about. If ANY other company pulled half the stunts they have over the years, they'd have gone the way of Packard Hell long before Jobbo was ever brought back into the company he originally got himself kicked out of. But I guess one can never underestimate the power of Job's reality distortion field.
I noticed the same with other products. If I'm interested in an amp, I always try to find out which opamps are used. Then I look for amps which use the same opamp. More than a couple of times I find amps which not only use exactly the same opamp but are also the same in all other specs.
Audio is without question the market with the most vile purveyors of snake oil. I know it because I've been an EE for almost four decades, and a musician for even longer, and have seen the utterly absurd audio marketing garbage foisted at so-called "audiophiles," (more aptly called "audiofools") over this time. This propaganda promotes products that are mediocre at best as "highest audiophile quality" while simultaneously denigrating products that are excellent, though low-price. When was the last time you saw an honest double-blind study related to audio products? Ever see a bunch of "art aficionados" staring awestruck at a canvas uniformly covered with brown paint gushing all kinds of absurd adjectives about the awesomeness of the art? Unfortunately, as the saying goes, "you can't fix stupid."
Yeah that is why I have several Sony receivers there cheap and have excellent build quality hooked to my klipsch forte 3s I can piss off the neighborhood
YUKI JINJUJI fair play to you. I sell and work with electronics and the comparison in audio quality from a £400 amp to say a £2000 is minimal to say the least when paired with a decent set of speakers. Another example of electronic marketing bull shit is Sony’s high res audio speakers. Cables are another electronic par for the course scam with with all the associated made up bollox
@@moi01887 Gold plated plastic fibre optics. That's a spicy meat ball right there. Consumer grade audio tends to just push excessive gross amounts of bass as well as the whole 'loudness wars' aspect. But once you leave that there's a very narrow band before it's just snake oil once more.
Audiophools are value inverters that separate the wheat from the chaff and then eat the chaff. They gush over shitty vinyl records, tube amps, and high-priced copper cables and have no idea how badly they're being played by the audiophool writers they worship. Basically, the modern audiophool is an anti-man, anti-mind, anti-reason anti-science nitwit that is easily spoofed into any idealogy that elevates old crap technology over new. If the audiophool community is stupid, the musician community is even worse.
I've seen this kind of thing my whole life. I have always enjoyed taking stuff apart, electronics in particular. Very often, only a couple manufacturers produce certain products, and everyone buys from them, puts their brand on it and sells it as their own. These manufacturers are called OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers). Computer companies do not own manufacturing facilities, they typically provide specs to a manufacturer who builds them, then the manufacturer will put the company's brand logos and load their software on it before shipping them to distributors. These manufacturers aren't going to reinvent the wheel every time, the PC that was made for DELL will also be branded eMachine, HP, whatever and sold to them with a different colored bezel or something to make them look unique for each brand. I have taken apart numerous laptops and desktops that have entirely different shells, but interchangeable parts inside. A lot of manufacturers don't make products with any customer in mind, they simply manufacture unbranded products and sell them to whoever wants them. That was probably the case with the item in this video. A manufacturer makes small amplifiers, then company A buys some and puts their name on it, and company B also buys some and puts their name on it. A company like Sony will sell the item for $129 because they know the Sony brand carries a certain expectation of quality. A company like Yorx is a recognized name, but are not known for the quality of their products, so they only charge $79 for an item that is identical to the Sony in every way except cosmetically. The Aston Martin Cygnet cost t £30,000, which until it gets a different grill, rims, and Toyota's logos changed to Aston Martin, is a Scion IQ. The Scion IQ sold for £13,000. That's a lot of money for a grill and some rims. Lots of parts are manufactured, then bought by various car companies. If you know who makes what, you can buy the same part for $20 if you ask for it as KIA part, or $349 if you want it to be a Mazzerati part. The headlights on a UPS delivery truck are also used on an Oldsmobile Allero. In the 1980's, Rolls Royce and Bentley both used Delco brand stereo head units, which happens to be the same model as a Chevy Celebrity was equipped with. The BMW 5 series uses the transmission from a Cadillac CTS. It happens even more often with groceries. If you look at the shape of a container for a store brand/generic product and compare it to name brand versions of the same type, you'll probably notice a common container among the two products, just with a different label. You can also look at factory codes and batch numbers on labels and find several brands, all using the same container, made in the same factory at the same time but have different labels and are sold a very different prices.
Last year I went looking for a digital optical to analogue 5.1 audio converter, because I bought a simple surround system, but it the models that had that input cost upwards of €300. After browsing through a lot of converters, I learned they're all the same one, just being sold under different branding. They were all made in the same factory, same assembly line. So of course I just bought the cheapest on offer. It works most of the time, but there's a buffer that slowly builds-up a delay and I have to restart it every few hours if I don't want the audio to have half a second delay from the video.
I had a washing machine with a digital display, it was the lower end version of their line. I needed a new seal on the door so I googled it and discovered that only the trim and finish were different on my machine and they just disabled functions in the controller by literally disconnecting certain wires, there were instructions on how to hook up the wires correctly and boom I had the $300 higher priced model.
seriously with a brand name being "BEATS" would you really trust it for hifi sound reproduction if you are not a teenager????? only children buy that crap because they saw a cool kid in school with the same pair of headphones
@@joetooly8297 Nope, in fact not at all. I've seen reviews where its actually the pair with the worst sound quality and least bass. And you would think that Beats would be more Bass rich? oh well. People get scammed all the time
@@Googaliemoogalie um apple did improve beats. From total shit to usable. It used to bloated bass but now its toned down thank god. Still never gonna buy an audio product on the basis of brand name :/
a few years ago I had an online argument with someone at Music Hall. I wanted to know if there was any difference between the Audio-technica AT3600L phono catrridge which regularly sells for under 10 bucks, and the similarly looking Music Hall cartridge that sold for $80. They sounded identical in my own testing on a Fluance RT-81 Turntable. The cartridges looked identical (white) except the logo on the front of the cartridge stylus housing; one had the typical AT logo and the other one had the Music Hall marking. They gave me the same line - proprietary design differences, while arguing that their $80 piece was way better than the cheap AT. I don't know about recent times but back then I smelled a rat. Owning anything 'Music Hall' is like telling the world that you're a sucker and have been misled. 🐀
their early composers were amazing for the price , i had a rack with dpr402s and a rack of composers ,, very little between them , except that the rack of composers cost less than one 402.
@@Mechanon84 they're unethical, they steal designs and try to sell it cheaper than original company, using worse components etc. R&D costs money and you just support bad behaviour. Get a Yamaha or something similar.
Excellent job, and it gets worse the more money you spend, sometimes. I remember some company was charging an INSANE amount of money for a universal disc player, like $10k. It was literally an Oppo with a box AROUND the Oppo (you took the outer box out and found a completely intact Oppo inside). Some audiophiles still claimed it sounded better.
This even happened back in the day. Rotel made a lot of amps for HK and also sold them under their own name, NEC made stuff for many brands and again sold them under there own name in limited numbers. Inkel in Korea was another OEM for many brands. Marantz was made by Superscope all through the 70's. I even saw a Yamaha with a slightly different face branded Blaupunkt when I was poking around on eBay. Nothing new though maybe eye opening for some people.
I have seen people many dollars for pre amps. I use the same amp I bought years ago from Radio Shack and since purchased 5 others used or as new old stock. Simple black, with ground connection and AC cord in the back. In the front RCA in and out. The other preamps are built into the receiver. These pre amps have always been reliable and the sound outstanding. No need to spend high dollars for one
At least he didn't buy a pair of $88,000 speakers, with $1000 cables, to listen to music professionally mixed down on some JBL LSR's - that DON'T cost $88,000. He could have been that guy that swears he hears stuff better than the band and the engineers could hear.
Hahahaha yeah. I know someone with a £20000+ hi-fi setup and cables that cost thousands. I try to explain to him that you could buy a ton of the XLR cables used in the studio the album was recorded in for the same amount as his 1m stereo phono cable. Or that the mic on the snare is likely an SM57 that costs about £100
So you are saying that the speakers used to mix down a track will remove frequencies? If you are not saying that then you are saying nothing. There is EVERY possibility that the band and engineers didn't hear something... ESPECIALLY if their equipment is poor! I see your point but you make it terribly :)
@@antoniomonteiro1203 for example using two opamps for each channel with a RIAA network divided in two separated sections. Then using amplification stages with discrete components instead opamps.
Using two op-amps for each channel may add some advantage once you will have a larger feedback gain, although you will be introducing another point of noise and distortion, even if small. But I agree that it may be a possibility. Using discrete components in the amplification is something I did extensively 30 year ago, when the low noise op-amps were expensive and the acceptable cost ones were very noisy. At present, I don't know. I haven't checked recently if modern low noise transistors get significant advantage over modern low noise op-amps. One advantage of good op-amps is that they are designed with special attention to distortion which is facilitated by the symetry of the integrated transistors. That can only be achieved partially with discrete components. Regarding your specific point of "best sounding", I believe that the only difference you would notice in an A/B comparisons would be noise (with no signal applied). From my experience I don't believe that with sound one could tell the difference between a one stage vs two stages nor a discrete vs integrated op-amp (with the same RIAA components and careful design). Of course my belief may be proven wrong.
@@antoniomonteiro1203 a two stages in my opinion it's a good solution that allow to have high RIAA accuracy and high gain for MC. Opamps and discrete amplifiers sound similar it's possible, but discrete stages give you much more design flexibility.
@@effelog Having two stages may be better/may be not, (Id like a blindfold test to see, Id say it would 50/50 guessing) The BA4560 isnt a bad op amp, very well spec'ed, good for current driving on the output, if you dont need the current sourcing then a TL072 would be all Id use, remember, less is best! You have to remember that if you want to go and add all the extra "bells and whistles" (dual stages etc) then we arent comparing apples for apples so to speak, the price would obviously need to go up also.
Better/different quality parts or construction will not change the nominal specs, but still can't imagine so few components adding such a huge difference to the cost. Smaller production run?
Does Music Hall claim that it's a superior product? If not then there's no scam here. Their product definitely looks better (nicer screen printed graphic on the case), and their photos look WAY better. As a professional product photographer I greatly appreciate it when anyone pays someone to do good photos instead of just using whatever ugly snapshot they can do themselves. These guys are doing better marketing and presumably it's paying off. That's a relatively small markup compared to the stuff you usually find. I've seen tools I bought a decade ago at the dollar store (like a AA powered engraver tool I use to put my name on my tools) sold currently for around a 2000% markup over what I paid at retail. Basically I agree with your conclusion that it's the same product, but I take exception at the notion that they need to earn your trust because they cheated you. Unless they claimed it is superior to identical units then this is just a case of one distributor undercutting another, or one charging a reasonable premium for their better marketing and better presentation. There's nothing dishonest about that.
This reminds me of a video VWestlife did awhile back demonstrating a few expensive phono cartridges with fancy packaging were actually rebranded Audio Technica models. Sorry I don't have the link.
MOST products are not manufactured by the company that’s on the box. A huge amount of consumer products are stuff some no name company made and someone else rebranded with a markup. You can often buy this stuff direct for much less. In this case, the markup is quite small. I highly doubt the $40 extra here is paying for the owners 3rd yacht. This isn’t a super high volume product, it’s not a big markup, and two companies want to make a buck. This is super common, it’s super difficult to avoid.
I wish I could find a cheap 2 channel Compression Amplifier. The sound levels change so much on my computer, I use Headphones, that I am constantly jumping out of my skin when an ad comes on.
How is something built around one 50 cent "jellybean" op-amp IC -- not even the audio-specific TI NE5532 -- and some even cheaper Chinese passive components worth nearly $50, let alone almost $20 more?
@@ulfdanielsen6009 -- True enough. In this case, the consumer is apparently willing to pay double for what amounts to nicely-styled little Hyundai with a Rolls-Royce badge and a pretty paint job.
Well if the seller was sending you the components in a bag and telling you to design your own PCB and source/drill/paint your own case you'd be half right. But like everything, you're paying for someones time. Time spent designing and testing, sourcing, organising, selling... People don't work for nothing. Sure, you can do it yourself if you enjoy that kind of thing, but when you can buy one for $50 it's hardly worth the effort.
@@Malc180s -- Except in east Asia, from which the same product could be imported to retail at half the cost (or less) here. Moreover, design is a one-time expense, and this is a notably trivial circuit for a competent engineer to whip up.
@@editorjuno Doesn't matter. Business main goal is to make money. Marketing currently is one of the biggest price factors. (competition). Of course no one is telling you that you cannot compete. If this is so easy, just make better preamp and sell it for $10, make profit and secure your future... Why not ?
i'm a sucker for those late '90s audio amplifiers, many had had some nice semi-audiophile specs, and they were regular old stereo before the surround craze begun i'm all for subwoofers, but i can't get warm for surround lol
You know what they say, ignorance is bliss! I wonder if the music Hall mini would have sounded better if you didn't come across this ugly truth. The placebo effect is real.
@@gblargg probably true, that looks like a generic op amp, with a few passives, the case is probably the most expensive part. if it costs more than 10 bucks to manufacture I'd be surprised.
Some years ago my TV went pop and stopped working. The technician came round, diagnosed the problem and took it back to his workshop. In passing, he said that despite the brand name on the front of the TV, the insides were mass produced at a factory somewhere in Asia, and could found in at least half a dozen different big name brands. The only difference was the casing. Fortunately, this meant that replacement parts were readily available and my TV was soon working again, fixed at a very reasonable price.
Yeah, you should rename this "Preamp Demonstrates How Capitalism Works and Why It Pays to be an Informed Consumer". That being said, I was only here because I was wondering which one to pick up for a project I'm workin on and had noticed how they were similarly spec'd. So, you saved me the cash and I certainly appreciate that, under any title. Good work, Sir and thank you.
The same with the Audioquest USB Dac, there is a shop in Germany called Conrad who sells an identical china oem usb Dac, identical to the Audioquest one for only 9,99 instead of 99,99...
Wow my friend, you've achieved a lot of success just the last week alone! Congrats, and I hope you monetized this video!
5 років тому+32
You just figured this out?? LOL I have many rebranded Realistic phono preamps sold in the 70s, that were made by a high end manufacturer..sold at 1/10th the price to Radio Shack. They been doin this fo' years son.
The receivers were obviously not built in house either. I don't know who built them, but I remember some of them were pretty good. I pulled a Realistic receiver out of the dumpster and it didn't work but I hotwired around the speaker relay, tested it, and hooked it up. I was very pleasantly surprised that it worked great and sounded beautiful. Everything worked except the speaker protection relay. I'd fix it but I already have a bunch of hi fi equipment. I'm keeping it though and might fix it some day.
More BS. Please name the high end manufacturer. Nearly all high end manufacturers that exist today didn't exist in the 70s. The ones that did, were making mediocre equipment at that time. Radio Shack has never been the place to get a bargain.
carlos oliveira except maybe the Realistic Concertmate MG-1... a rebranded Moog synthesizer. An inverse of the issue here, something high end sold as a cheap consumer synth to bring in some extra cash. So Radio Shack did have some high quality amazing value products. A bit off topic but an interstices case nonetheless :)
carlos oliveira I’d have to do some research to locate the actual manufacturer, but I know my dad had a Realistic tape deck which was made in Japan, had soft touch electronic controls, and an LCD tape monitor, auto reverse with separate motors for each direction, etc etc. All very high end features for the late 1979s. Also MCS (JCPenny house brand) was made primarily by Technics. Their turntables have direct Technics models. Including some of the SL1X00 tables. It was and still is very common for name brand manufacturers to produce in house brand stuff for large retailers.
@@carlosoliveira-rc2xt Many Realistic-branded receivers in the 1970s were made in Japan by companies like Pioneer, Kenwood/Trio, NEC, Rotel, Hitachi, Fostex and others; they had cassette decks that were rebranded Aiwa and Sony. Although maybe these were not "audiophile-grade" they were certainly high-quality, high-end consumer-grade products. These were fantastic value, as they were often the same inside as the branded version but sold for a fraction of the price. They also had a lot of junk that was worth what you paid for it.
How would this actually be used for anything? Maybe you could connect the line out to the line input and use it as a saturation device. Does it saturate or does it just distort?
It's not only a problem in audio products. But you can also have another problem. Two products looking the same but one of them is built like a tank and the other is just crap.....
Product support is another factor. I have no opinion on either unit, but if one company has better customer support, or a better warranty, it can be worth paying a small premium for a rebadged item.
Audiophile Lesson Number One: Never buy anything without listening unless it comes with a no-questions-asked return guarantee. Audiophile Lesson Number Two: Never forget Lesson Number One.
Audiophile Lesson Number Three: Everything seems to sound better if it is expensive. Audiophile Lesson Number Four : Listen to it blind, added gold plating and shiny bits makes it sound better. Audiophile Lesson Number Five : Stop being an audiophile and buy more flowers for your wife/boyfriend, and still have money left.
@@chevon5707 Really doesn't take much to trigger you NPC's now, does it? Run subroutine. Post PC gibberish. Repeat. Again, please don't post until you're able to generate your own ideas. What not to lose in the NPC wasteland: My original post on the importance of listening before buying stands unchallenged and unscathed.
Inretesting. I got this and an older high end JVC for a whopping $40 and they work great, but this is also my first real dedicated turntable and by extension first preamp (had a couple cheap turntables before)
batsonelec C For now. Don't think that the same people who've stolen and subverted the Republican party aren't hard at work on doing the same thing to the Democratic party. It's just harder to do to Democratic party because Democrats aren't nearly such a homogenized group. Republicans (conservatives really) are like dogs - they live and work in packs. Democrats are like cats - it's harder to herd cats.
@@batsonelectronics Not really. There are clear differences in the members of the two parties, but like in this video, once you take the cover off, the leaders of the parties are the same. The Clintons were the same war mongering, tax and spend paid for politicians as the Bushs were. That's largely how Trump came into power. He was the anti establishment politician.
No matter which side you choose, republican or democrat, they all are the same people, controlled by someone else, yyouve all veen played, veen fooled..im sorry.. Thats the truth, actually they all on the same cult too..you have no free choice actually..it was a play..
I'm surprised you weren't suspicious when it looked the same, in the promo pics, etc, same back, different color(maybe you had a feeling before? Had to try/see?). Nice video! I'm not an audiophile, but deal with the same products, different name, etc w/Indoor plant growing equipment/products. Mostly from China, so exact copies, patents aren't as reinforced. But "Made in The USA" means a possible patent violation, or at least, a deal with the cheaper company for their exact specs(actual whole thing made by Original company, so they get a deal, put their name on, charge double/triple whatever large order they made cost). And a great company will know that real customers will figure this out and pay less for the same. Kudos for shining the light on the subject!
There are plenty of companies that rebrand cheap Chinese stuff. Lots of electronics you buy are rebrands and marked up, with the Chinese company's permission of course, infact sometimes there will be multiple rebrands of the product, it's common with headphones and chargers and stuff like that, a specific example would be corsair power supplies, they just take great wall power supplies, rebrand them and paint them, or a lot of case manufacturers like rosewill just rebrand jonsbro cases
Exactly. Most electronics are rebranded from other manufacturers. Helps keep the manufacturing costs down. And then you apply different brand labels and sell at different price points. It's all about profit maximisation. Sell the "premium" version to customers who're willing to pay more, and have a cheaper alternative so you don't miss out on the sales to the budget-conscious consumer.
Usually if I see the same IO and control layout it is safe to assume it's the same OEM product. That IC inside is about 50p so if you wanted to build something like this yourself you probably could for less money and have some fun while at it! The housing and jacks probably cost more than the discrete components.
Vestel is an OEM manufacturer and make for over 500 different brands, not only TV's. In Europe they produce electronics for TOSHIBA, HITACHI, JVC, TELEFUNKEN, FINLUX and many more. Of course production is licensed, but about quality... I don't know, I don't use it. I believe quality of all contemporary goods is at least not bad, sometimes good or v. good.
Same deal for Sharp and JVC TVs - they license the brand name and their LCD screens to smaller Eastern Europe electronics companies that build and assemble them and sell them in Europe under their respective brands. That's why Sharp and JVC TVs cost less than LG, Samsung, Sony etc in the UK
@@julianmach3192 Most Vestel stuff is lowest-tier garbage that barely works when new and only goes downhill from there. The fact that it's being rebadged by so many ex-reliable brands is like an insult to the customers...
Thank you for this video. Might I ask you a question as a new guy in this kind of thing? I recently bought a okayish record player to listen to my old LPs again. But the sound is, obviously, pretty dull. Is there a decent amplifier I can use, that is under 40$ to make it a bit better? There are loads of those from china, but I am not qualified enough to find out which one would be decent enough. Maybe you own a product that could fit my needs and you would recommend. Any help would be much appreciated. Thank you and kind regards
@@Audiorpheus_Vinyl Thank you kindly for replying. But What if I want to use passive bookshelf speakers with a record player that already has got a preamp?
a lot of electronics companies licence out their designs.... the extra money simply goes for MusicHall to pay Rolls for the use of the design (likely)....so yeah an extra link in the food chain. Knowledge is key to avoiding paying for these extra steps.
Not all. Their USB-1 was a Hanpin - Chinese. Models 1.3 and 1.5 are from the same Taiwan factory that builds similar tables for Denon, Teac, Fluance, AT, Dual, Elac, Crosley and others.
I was just about to make as comment about Macs. As a computer technician, I can tell you, if you open up that Mac, the only difference is the case; all the components are Intel, AMD and ATI etc. The RAM can be taken from a standard laptop. So can the HDD/SSD, the screen, the motherboard... You get my gist haha.
![If you can't hear this then you're not an audiophile [See description for link to followup video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/48PxwspDvrE/mqdefault.jpg)
This is exactly what videos like this should be. Tight editing, consistent flow, clear audio, a bit of embellishment, and no padding. Whole video is 1:46, conveys all the information, has a clear conclusion, and is entertaining. I know this video probably took hours to plan, record, and edit but I really do appreciate the effort that went into it.
yes there's people out there who haven't taken the unit apart and will swear its better sounding. Confirmation bias - just love it.
placebo effect
@@EdStewbie I once built a 'Talent Booster' solo pedal for our guitarist, it was just a switch and some flashing LED lights, but he used it to boost his solos, glad he never took the box apart...
We call these people 'retards'.
They're the same people who swear platinum plated cables that send DIGITAL SIGNALS are better than anything else.
Par for the course in the audio industry...LOL
Absolutely correct. The color of the case has an effect on how idiots think it sounds. This is a proven fact.
Don't give souljaboy anymore ideas now
Souljamp
True
funny but he deserved to get scammed
Unexpected comment
lol you're paying for Music Hall's 'proprietary research' and 'exhaustive tuning by ear' that showed that a black paint job sounds better than the red paint job.
lol
Red wunz go fasta.
next is a gold plated one coming next year LOL
Orks are triggered by this.
@@pwnmeisterage red wunz go fasta, butt black wunz zound betta!
I was in Sam's Club years ago when the "Vacuum Tube Sound" craze began and every company was trying to capitalize on it. There was a DVD player with two tubes sticking out of it. The promotional material stated, "You haven't heard movies until now. Richer. Warmer. Clearer. The Sound of Analog!" Followed by some nonsense graphs showing the "difference in quality".
I took one look at it and noticed something very interesting. The tubes were glowing bright yellow, but the light came from underneath it and not the tubes themselves. Yes, it was lit by LEDs on a separate board underneath them. I placed my fingers on the tubes and started to chuckle. It was cold as ice, I doubt there was even a current running through them.
I began searching one of the boxes for any additional information on the product. Then I found an asterisk in the smallest text far below all the other info and tucked away next to the obligatory FCC compliance info. "Digitally Simulated Analog Sound"
That is both hilarious and very common! Though I have seen (and even owned) legitimate tube products where the tubes are just used in the signal chain not in the power stage and they absolutely impart on the sound in measurable ways but source level tubes still don't sound as good as bonafide amp stage tubes to my ears. There's some cheap watch on the internet, I think that Thinkgeek has them it has fake tubes in it, they even glow. :)
@@IhateUA-cam Would not much to just power the heaters on fake valve amp
20 plus years ago I bought a Carver single disk player with tubes I was amazed how it did not sound any different than my Mitsubishi CD player
@@nounoufriend no it wouldn't but my experience was with an actual tube input processor from Behringer it was legit not just tubes lit up for the sake of being lit up.
And it still didn't impart the kind of sound that a tube amp stage does. It was mild at best, I'm sure on an oscilloscope the effect was measurable but probably very minor.
everyone knows digitally stimulated analog sounds are the best.
Shorts, sweet and to the point. This is how a video should be done.
Too bad the title, description, and thumbnail make no mention of the product so anyone actually looking for info will never see it.
You are incorrect. The music hall has been enhanced by soaking in snake oil for 24hrs. Better sound you see?
I thought snake oil could ruin the signal to noise ratio, as it starts making "sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss" sounds? ^oo^
@@bernardthedisappointedowl6938 ok that was good
@@bernardthedisappointedowl6938 Yes, but actually 180° phase shifted to the regular noise. So the noise cancels each other out. The result is less noise! Thats because a snakes body has got several 180° degree bows.
@bernardthedisappointedowl
....crickets chirping ...
:-)
OMG! have you added up the cost of the Rolls components, they just take $5.00 worth of parts stick them together and charge you TEN TIMES AS MUCH WHAT A RIP OFF!
We all know that when a company wants to add a product to is range that is going to be almost exactly the same as an existing product they will often get the original company to make a re-branded version for them rather than developing a new product that would cost three for four times as much by the time it was developed and tested.
My marketing text in college had an anecdote about a jewelry store owner who was going on vacation and left written instructions for his workers to mark down a shelf of junk jewelry he hadn't been able to sell for "1/2". They misread the "1/2" as "x2" and instead of halving the price, they doubled it. When the owner returned, all the jewelry had been sold.
It's well known in the marketing industry that people judge quality by price. It's part of a strategy known as "market segmentation," where you take the same goods and change the appearance, packaging, and price to appeal to a different end of the consumer market. It's done all the time in every industry.
The economic history of Diamonds right there.
Apple
Aka Rebranding
Also from a book called Influence by Cialdini
These preamps are also available in Do-it-Yourself Kits for $15.
there are also cute amplifier boards on ebay china for 0.99cents!
@@fidelcatsro6948 stupid comment unless they're the same as the item in question
Major Disaster it’s a joke bro, take a chill pill
@claton blade your mum or his?
Thank you for the article. I also experienced similar situations. I must say - this happens with many Hi Fi products.
The fools. They could have said it was "Oxygen-Free" and charged ten times as much.
Hahaha true.
Oxygen is okay, it's the gluten I can't stand.
LOL
Although I have not tried expensive cables and can't say if they change the sound as much but different types of copper have different electrical characteristics
Mark Rowe Hahaha!!! They could have glued a nice smooth pebble to it (called it a shakarikamookie stone) and charged 100 times the price!!!!! The astounded audiophiles would be, well, astounded at the blacker blacks, the sheer absence of grain and the utter lack of aural detritus!!!
The world of auto parts is a lot like this, too.
My new 1997 civic waves "hello" 😂 should have been looking better... But it was cheap
But in the automotive world it’s kinda separated, sometimes buying the “quality” part is better because it’s actually better but sometimes it’s the opposite
@@thelonewanderer420 right
Yeah, but particularly when you buy parts with the manufacturer logo on the box, those are often available from the original company that made it (Denso, Delphi, Bosch, etc.) for less, and sometimes aftermarket brands just buy from the OEM in bulk and put it in their box (Beck/Arnley comes to mind). There are definitely a lot of cheap junk parts out there, though.
@@CarsSimplified I'm new at the wrench but I got brakes like that... Also, what happened to tires?? I got them for 35 bucks each, they are awesome... But expensive rubbery like continental and pirelli often fails testing!
Hm, we get off topic 🛥
Audiophiles are easily scammed.
You are absolutely correct, this box is far from what anyone could call "audiophile grade equipment" though :)
@@Ciakuz Agreed...hah
especially when they don't research before they buy
@@Ciakuz well, if they charged $5K for it and put this little board into a huge brushed aluminum box, with golden terminals, that would do it. Will turn it into "audiophile grade". But they have more profit selling many units for $80 than few units for $5K . Economy of scale.
It helps to know even some basic electronics. Like identifying good caps. I always want to see under the hood of items before buying. But I've seen this happen except the markup was over a thousand. I wished I could remember what company I saw a few years ago that got caught marking up a transformer.
Reminds me of an article I read decades ago. A guy invites his audiophile friends over to judge his new speaker cables. First he used his Monster cables. Then has the friends go into another room so he can change the cables. He then plays the same music without any other changes and asks them what they think. In general most thought they were very similar, some preferring the Monster cables, other the new cables and others thinking it was a toss up. He then revealed the new "cables" were actually wire coat hangers he had straightened!
Charlie Mason when used as wire, coat hangers certainly qualify as high gauge and low resistance wiring.
Monstercable used to wind yards of VERY high gauge wire vs a short run of heavy cable and then ask people to compare them. Of course a short run of thicker cable will sound better than a wire barely able to carry 20 watts before it bursts into flame.
50 meters of cat5 connected to Radiotehnika S90. No flames and it worked.
What an absolutely revealing test! Almost shocking result.
Ahh but everyone knows the thick guage of a coat hanger will sound better), but seriously that is what determines the quality of a cable, wire guage, nothing else matters, capacitance and inductance dont even factor into the equation at audio frequencies.
I heard a story about who bought some fancy stereo system. He said that they must of been good and should of had been built out of high end quality components because they weighed a lot. He opened them up and looked inside. He found some lead weights inside of them to make them heavier.
To be fair, the lead could be there to reduce case harmonic resonance, or possibly X-ray / Gamma ray / Cosmic radiation shielding of high sensitivity components. /s
@@kevind6645 as well as stabilisation of the chassis.
Even (genuine) Beats headphones include weights to make them feel higher quality...! Reminds me of the film camera days when they used to make fake "SLRs", i.e. a no-frills point and shoots made to resemble an SLR in order to con those who didn't know any better, and which typically included weights inside the very cheap and nasty (and otherwise unconvincingly light) plastic body.
Oh you mean Beats audio? That’s fake also
@@kevind6645 That is, indeed, the point of the lead in most items.
This was by far the most helpful video in the hi-fi sector that I have seen in a long time. It shows that the brand is what you hear. Thank you
I just want to thank you for not making this into a 10 minute video. I wish other UA-camrs realized that they can get their point across and make a great video in less than two minutes a lot of the time.
The black casing definitely adds a deeper smokey flavor to the lower-mids, and the different ink they use in the branding label brings a slight fruitiness to the trebles. Well worth the extra $29 IMO.
Luckily, both seem to be discontinued. But just for the amusement of the US viewers: Here in Germany, the Rolls VP29 is still available for 99 euros, originally it was around 120. The Music Hall Mini was 95 when it was still sold. Including tax, mind you.
Excellent find. Thank you so much for the warning.
This is nothing new. Mark Levinson back in the early 2000’s, took a $1200 solid state amp from China, rebadged it with his own brand Red Rose, and sold it for $7000. He claimed he put “better parts” in it to justify the cost. Same chassis, same internal design. Just a different silk screened name on front plate.
I didn't know that. Shameful.
Mike K Rebranding is fine... I guess. But the outright blatant lies? There are some companies I respect even though they sell expensive gear like Genelec. But I think there are more companies that are of the former category.
cl2nd en1st Not if charge more for the same product.
@@mikek1635 although I can see an argument for quality control, or better customer service; for example, readily providing replacements for faulty product. For more DIY electronic parts, I often see cheaper products that I can get shipped from China. But they can't be returned (or they take weeks to ship, and often at a prohibitive price) and/or there will not be customer service in English. But there's an electronic parts company near me called Sparkfun, where not only can I get great customer service, but easily get refunds or make returns. I'll pay more to get that from them.
McIntosh did this on a low end Nakamichi cd changer and put pretty cosmetics and charged about 4 times as much as the nakamichi if I remember correct.
Thanks for sharing this. I'm on the market for a turntable and music hall was one of the brands on my shortlist. After watching this, my shortlist list got a bit shorter...
But, but...it costs more, it MUST be better...right?
Wallet placebo effect
it^s the same with apple products
You have no idea how much these Oompa Loompa's are costing me to rebadge and paint these things! You nailed it, spend more to get more doesn't get anything but a name.
Balck color is far more expensive...surely...
Yep you're right...what a bunch of suckas 😂
Nah, thats what i like to call the "Dumb Effect". I mean its not that hard using google before you buy anything. I usually spend a week before i buy expensive stuff doing research and finding out its weaknesses etc. Not only does that give me a good idea about the product, but its competition as well. So i might end up with a better product for less cash.
the quality of components and over all quality inspection could make a difference . we used to sell 2 versions of the same product. the only difference was that the more expensive one was already fully tested benchmarked and aprooved. the price was more than 50% expensive
Uh this happens in literally every industry, no surprise here.
Same thing that came to my mind just from reading the thumbnail.
@@montag4516 I know, right? Good PSA about Hall though, just crap title.
Not to that extend. Who the fuck would want to pay double for the same thing?
yep, all the time.
that is literally false. you should watch the video
Well done man love the way you put it out there...
Ha they weren't the same some of the capacitors were bent at a different angle...…… cheers.
Crooks! Serious ly, its guys like you that make it worth going on line and looking this stuff up before buying. We have all gotten taken at one time or another.
Trust me this is nothing new, I'm a repair technician and you would be surprise to know how many reputable brand does this.
You are 100% right but also it's good every time one of them gets bad rep from it.
Still happens today. Franklin Audio apparently stopped selling some of their products under their own name, and they're now available branded as Dayton Audio, at a markup. For a while both products were available from the same vendor.
Sure, I´m technician and I´ve seen high-end brands selling the same product at almost double price
I think the surprise would be to find a major brand that makes their own electronics; audio, video, etc.
@@jtjones73 lol how about Samsung the biggest one of them all. Sennheiser makes their headphones from driver to assembly. Most reputable brands don't do this, as brand reputation is why they can sell for high prices. Your ignorant cynicism is really cool though 😎😎
Thanks for this info and a review... I'm so thankfull since I was looking for some cheap preamp and after seeing this video made my choice much easier... Keep the good work my man, PEACE BRO!
This is like Rega selling a 20 dillar AT3600 cart for 60 bucks with "Rega" printed on it. This shady side of the audio business is always a bit depressing to look at. At least now we live in an age where we can find out real information and navigate the minefield, thanks for another video.
Dj Phase Four blame your local market for that one, they’re about the same price here in the U.K. so Rega are not charging $60 for it, your local retailers are. I know the person who made that video likes to try and discredit anything decent but Rega are not a rip off brand by any stretch and have one of the very best reputations in the industry for customer care.
Nope both wrong. Read my reply and learn how it works. Nothing evil is happening here. With distribution and other associated costs, it is about right. Sucks sure, but hey that is how it works folks.
Vincent Chen, I didn’t say anything evil was going on, but it does go to show how much is added in import taxes, shipping and distributor/dealer markups. As I say, the Rega Carbon is a similar price to the AT here in the UK where Rega are based. I just take issue with people attacking a good brand. People need to get better informed on why an apparently similar product might cost more.
Si1983h You can get a private label carbon cantilever for that cartridge at LP gear significantly cheaper than Rega. With that said just about every high end company has thier "cheap Asian made turntable" but with a audiophile name marked way higher than the usual 60 percent dealer mark up.
keith parkhill the Rega branded stylus is only £18 anyway (in the UK). I’d be fine with a cheaper version made by AT but I’d steer clear of knock off styli for any cartridge.
Thanks for the good advice. Without your video I would´ve bought the music hall. You saved me 30 bucks. Thanks for that.
Marketing 101 - that's what brands are for! Look it up. As we might still remember the era where brand values were based on functions, features and product quality, we are now living in an era where brand "values" are "created" on a blank sheet of paper and then backed up with advertising. This "brand-building" is expensive but generates a predictable consumer behaviour = predictable profits. Take any company that has been taken over either by investors or by the nincompoops from "M" department: Step 1 - fire everybody who knows what they are doing as they represent the "past". Step 2 - give great jobs with pompous job title (usually including the words "global", "manager", "innovation" and "consumer") to underpaid graduates. Step 3 - stop all product development but build a big procurement organization in China. Step 4 - stick your company logo on any crap from China you can get you hands on. Spend more on the "brand experience" when consumers complain. Step 5 - grab the money and run. Step 6 - simply repeat with next company when you need more money (investor perspective). ... once you know this pattern, you will discover it everywhere.
F. D. This why a Lexus in the USA is just a standard Toyota back in Japan!
Yeah, that formula is literally everywhere. With the exception of chinese procurment as it didnt apply, I even worked for a healthcare company that basically followed this formula.
See "Apple" and "Ikea"
I have to call BS on the Apple comparison. Apple actually does spend a lot more on their products than the majority of their competitors, and for those cases where they don't, you'll pay almost as much for the competitor's product.
But there's a huge aspect of the cost of an Apple that you're not factoring in. When you buy an Apple product, YOU are the customer. When you buy most of their competitor's products, you are their PRODUCT, and they're selling YOU to their customers. See Apple vs. Android for example.
@@babybirdhome Yeah, a lot more on advertising, vendor lock in, and trying to cover up the fact they lie every single chance they get. From getting in bed with education so they could rewrite computer history and their importance in it, to suing other companies for things they themselves didn't actually invent, to ridiculous markup for cheap veneers to cover up some of the worst design choices in the industry.
Like Jobbo the clown's insistance that "fan noise is evil" resulting in every system right back to the crApple 2 being an unmanaged heat hog -- to the point that by the time of the G3 toilet seats the CPU's were burning holes through the dialup adapters, and G4 cubes were heating up so much they would desolder their own chips to the point they would fall clear off the boards. Then of course the "well these aren't laptops, you're not supposed to use them on your lap -- they're a macbook!" idiocy ... there's a reason Apple wouldn't know proper cooling if it stripped naked, painted itself Noctua tan, and hopped up on table to sing "Oh look at what a big cooling fan I am!" -- i9 Macbook overheating issues? Well no f***ing s***. Anyone surprised by that is a moron.
Just like on the toilet seats undervolting and underclocking 50% or more G3 processors to wrap them in insulation instead of putting heat sinks on them, or neutering perfectly good PCMCIA ports by omitting two power rails and calling it "airport" to lock third party vendors out of providing wireless cards... or swapping master and slave on PATA optical drives so that most third party models hardwired to slave wouldn't work... or selling 18 bit monitors and calling them 24 bit because "Dithering makes it the same"... or selling monitors where they cheaped out using flat cables too thin for the connectors resulting in striping. How about the use of paints with solvents that are illegal to spray in the US for safety reasons, that were "safe once dry" that actually continued to emit noxious fumes for years after they got into customers hands with the so-called G5 "Mac Pro"?
But hey, at least you got some artsy-fartsy form-factor. BARF!
When I hear about things like bendgate, or phones getting locked out because you replaced a button with one from an identical model, all I can think is "Well no s***, what did you expect from Apple. Have you not been paying attention the past FOUR DECADES?!?"
They are some of the slimiest, sleaziest, untrustworthy dirtbags in the industry, and when I hear people talk about the quality of their products I genuinely have ZERO damned clue what the f*** they're talking about. If ANY other company pulled half the stunts they have over the years, they'd have gone the way of Packard Hell long before Jobbo was ever brought back into the company he originally got himself kicked out of.
But I guess one can never underestimate the power of Job's reality distortion field.
I know this is an old video now, but quite enjoyed your "catch out"! Thanks
Music Hall Mini's Reply "want some salt with that?"
I noticed the same with other products. If I'm interested in an amp, I always try to find out which opamps are used. Then I look for amps which use the same opamp. More than a couple of times I find amps which not only use exactly the same opamp but are also the same in all other specs.
Audio is without question the market with the most vile purveyors of snake oil. I know it because I've been an EE for almost four decades, and a musician for even longer, and have seen the utterly absurd audio marketing garbage foisted at so-called "audiophiles," (more aptly called "audiofools") over this time. This propaganda promotes products that are mediocre at best as "highest audiophile quality" while simultaneously denigrating products that are excellent, though low-price. When was the last time you saw an honest double-blind study related to audio products? Ever see a bunch of "art aficionados" staring awestruck at a canvas uniformly covered with brown paint gushing all kinds of absurd adjectives about the awesomeness of the art? Unfortunately, as the saying goes, "you can't fix stupid."
Yeah that is why I have several Sony receivers there cheap and have excellent build quality hooked to my klipsch forte 3s I can piss off the neighborhood
YUKI JINJUJI fair play to you. I sell and work with electronics and the comparison in audio quality from a £400 amp to say a £2000 is minimal to say the least when paired with a decent set of speakers.
Another example of electronic marketing bull shit is Sony’s high res audio speakers.
Cables are another electronic par for the course scam with with all the associated made up bollox
If anyone needs an example of this, just Google "gold plated toslink cable" ;^)
@@moi01887 Gold plated plastic fibre optics. That's a spicy meat ball right there.
Consumer grade audio tends to just push excessive gross amounts of bass as well as the whole 'loudness wars' aspect. But once you leave that there's a very narrow band before it's just snake oil once more.
Audiophools are value inverters that separate the wheat from the chaff and then eat the chaff. They gush over shitty vinyl records, tube amps, and high-priced copper cables and have no idea how badly they're being played by the audiophool writers they worship. Basically, the modern audiophool is an anti-man, anti-mind, anti-reason anti-science nitwit that is easily spoofed into any idealogy that elevates old crap technology over new. If the audiophool community is stupid, the musician community is even worse.
I've seen this kind of thing my whole life. I have always enjoyed taking stuff apart, electronics in particular. Very often, only a couple manufacturers produce certain products, and everyone buys from them, puts their brand on it and sells it as their own. These manufacturers are called OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers).
Computer companies do not own manufacturing facilities, they typically provide specs to a manufacturer who builds them, then the manufacturer will put the company's brand logos and load their software on it before shipping them to distributors. These manufacturers aren't going to reinvent the wheel every time, the PC that was made for DELL will also be branded eMachine, HP, whatever and sold to them with a different colored bezel or something to make them look unique for each brand. I have taken apart numerous laptops and desktops that have entirely different shells, but interchangeable parts inside.
A lot of manufacturers don't make products with any customer in mind, they simply manufacture unbranded products and sell them to whoever wants them. That was probably the case with the item in this video. A manufacturer makes small amplifiers, then company A buys some and puts their name on it, and company B also buys some and puts their name on it. A company like Sony will sell the item for $129 because they know the Sony brand carries a certain expectation of quality. A company like Yorx is a recognized name, but are not known for the quality of their products, so they only charge $79 for an item that is identical to the Sony in every way except cosmetically.
The Aston Martin Cygnet cost t £30,000, which until it gets a different grill, rims, and Toyota's logos changed to Aston Martin, is a Scion IQ. The Scion IQ sold for £13,000. That's a lot of money for a grill and some rims.
Lots of parts are manufactured, then bought by various car companies. If you know who makes what, you can buy the same part for $20 if you ask for it as KIA part, or $349 if you want it to be a Mazzerati part.
The headlights on a UPS delivery truck are also used on an Oldsmobile Allero. In the 1980's, Rolls Royce and Bentley both used Delco brand stereo head units, which happens to be the same model as a Chevy Celebrity was equipped with. The BMW 5 series uses the transmission from a Cadillac CTS.
It happens even more often with groceries. If you look at the shape of a container for a store brand/generic product and compare it to name brand versions of the same type, you'll probably notice a common container among the two products, just with a different label. You can also look at factory codes and batch numbers on labels and find several brands, all using the same container, made in the same factory at the same time but have different labels and are sold a very different prices.
And water is wet. I remember sennheiser doing hd555 and hd595, same thing way different prices lol
Last year I went looking for a digital optical to analogue 5.1 audio converter, because I bought a simple surround system, but it the models that had that input cost upwards of €300.
After browsing through a lot of converters, I learned they're all the same one, just being sold under different branding. They were all made in the same factory, same assembly line. So of course I just bought the cheapest on offer. It works most of the time, but there's a buffer that slowly builds-up a delay and I have to restart it every few hours if I don't want the audio to have half a second delay from the video.
But could you have gone on for another 20 minutes about other things? Wait, no, this was perfect.
Haha! Exactly!
I had a washing machine with a digital display, it was the lower end version of their line. I needed a new seal on the door so I googled it and discovered that only the trim and finish were different on my machine and they just disabled functions in the controller by literally disconnecting certain wires, there were instructions on how to hook up the wires correctly and boom I had the $300 higher priced model.
A fool and his money are soon parted.
*easily
Thanks for sharing this, we all need to get the word out when we find this kind of shifty slight of hand.
Like Beats headphones, monster cable, and other assorted overpriced crap you have to go with a reputable company.
seriously with a brand name being "BEATS" would you really trust it for hifi sound reproduction if you are not a teenager????? only children buy that crap because they saw a cool kid in school with the same pair of headphones
I cant confirm or deny, as I don’t have any beats. But people have said that since Apple has taken over the beats brand, the sound has improved.
@@joetooly8297 Nope, in fact not at all. I've seen reviews where its actually the pair with the worst sound quality and least bass. And you would think that Beats would be more Bass rich? oh well. People get scammed all the time
@@Googaliemoogalie um apple did improve beats. From total shit to usable.
It used to bloated bass but now its toned down thank god.
Still never gonna buy an audio product on the basis of brand name :/
@@cyano3d
Apple is a design brand. they don't know shit about audio
a few years ago I had an online argument with someone at Music Hall. I wanted to know if there was any difference between the Audio-technica AT3600L phono catrridge which regularly sells for under 10 bucks, and the similarly looking Music Hall cartridge that sold for $80. They sounded identical in my own testing on a Fluance RT-81 Turntable. The cartridges looked identical (white) except the logo on the front of the cartridge stylus housing; one had the typical AT logo and the other one had the Music Hall marking.
They gave me the same line - proprietary design differences, while arguing that their $80 piece was way better than the cheap AT.
I don't know about recent times but back then I smelled a rat. Owning anything 'Music Hall' is like telling the world that you're a sucker and have been misled. 🐀
I wonder how this compares to the behringer umc22
if it's anything like their guitar/instrument gear, it's all garbage.
their early composers were amazing for the price , i had a rack with dpr402s and a rack of composers ,, very little between them , except that the rack of composers cost less than one 402.
avoid everything behringer like a plague, it's a scam company
@@Mechanon84 they're unethical, they steal designs and try to sell it cheaper than original company, using worse components etc. R&D costs money and you just support bad behaviour. Get a Yamaha or something similar.
@@retrocomputing really hmm just got the umc22 in a few days ago not a pro at equipment but it sounds much better than my blue snowball did... I think
Excellent job, and it gets worse the more money you spend, sometimes. I remember some company was charging an INSANE amount of money for a universal disc player, like $10k. It was literally an Oppo with a box AROUND the Oppo (you took the outer box out and found a completely intact Oppo inside). Some audiophiles still claimed it sounded better.
AKA white label, a very common thing in many markets. Importers can put their logo on a Chinese manufactured product.
This even happened back in the day. Rotel made a lot of amps for HK and also sold them under their own name, NEC made stuff for many brands and again sold them under there own name in limited numbers. Inkel in Korea was another OEM for many brands. Marantz was made by Superscope all through the 70's. I even saw a Yamaha with a slightly different face branded Blaupunkt when I was poking around on eBay.
Nothing new though maybe eye opening for some people.
I have seen people many dollars for pre amps. I use the same amp I bought years ago from Radio Shack and since purchased 5 others used or as new old stock. Simple black, with ground connection and AC cord in the back. In the front RCA in and out. The other preamps are built into the receiver. These pre amps have always been reliable and the sound outstanding. No need to spend high dollars for one
Is like some "gamer" products" in PC hardware industry.
At least gaming products add RGB lighting to make the product uglier and scare away sane costumers
"It costs more, it must be better."
The phrase that drives most of the audiophile industry.
At least he didn't buy a pair of $88,000 speakers, with $1000 cables, to listen to music professionally mixed down on some JBL LSR's - that DON'T cost $88,000.
He could have been that guy that swears he hears stuff better than the band and the engineers could hear.
Hahahaha yeah. I know someone with a £20000+ hi-fi setup and cables that cost thousands. I try to explain to him that you could buy a ton of the XLR cables used in the studio the album was recorded in for the same amount as his 1m stereo phono cable. Or that the mic on the snare is likely an SM57 that costs about £100
So you are saying that the speakers used to mix down a track will remove frequencies? If you are not saying that then you are saying nothing. There is EVERY possibility that the band and engineers didn't hear something... ESPECIALLY if their equipment is poor! I see your point but you make it terribly :)
That is absolutely correct
@@ernestporee3697
You just woke up a comment I completely forgot about…rightfully so. 5 years ago. Haha.
This happens frequently. A few years ago there was even some high-end Blu-ray player and that turned out it was an Oppo inside.
Looking the board there is one dual opamp with probably RIAA EQ on the feedback network. The simplest and not the best sounding design.
Just curiosity: why not best sounding? How would you do it better?
@@antoniomonteiro1203 for example using two opamps for each channel with a RIAA network divided in two separated sections. Then using amplification stages with discrete components instead opamps.
Using two op-amps for each channel may add some advantage once you will have a larger feedback gain, although you will be introducing another point of noise and distortion, even if small. But I agree that it may be a possibility.
Using discrete components in the amplification is something I did extensively 30 year ago, when the low noise op-amps were expensive and the acceptable cost ones were very noisy.
At present, I don't know. I haven't checked recently if modern low noise transistors get significant advantage over modern low noise op-amps.
One advantage of good op-amps is that they are designed with special attention to distortion which is facilitated by the symetry of the integrated transistors. That can only be achieved partially with discrete components.
Regarding your specific point of "best sounding", I believe that the only difference you would notice in an A/B comparisons would be noise (with no signal applied). From my experience I don't believe that with sound one could tell the difference between a one stage vs two stages nor a discrete vs integrated op-amp (with the same RIAA components and careful design). Of course my belief may be proven wrong.
@@antoniomonteiro1203 a two stages in my opinion it's a good solution that allow to have high RIAA accuracy and high gain for MC. Opamps and discrete amplifiers sound similar it's possible, but discrete stages give you much more design flexibility.
@@effelog Having two stages may be better/may be not, (Id like a blindfold test to see, Id say it would 50/50 guessing) The BA4560 isnt a bad op amp, very well spec'ed, good for current driving on the output, if you dont need the current sourcing then a TL072 would be all Id use, remember, less is best! You have to remember that if you want to go and add all the extra "bells and whistles" (dual stages etc) then we arent comparing apples for apples so to speak, the price would obviously need to go up also.
Better/different quality parts or construction will not change the nominal specs, but still can't imagine so few components adding such a huge difference to the cost. Smaller production run?
Does Music Hall claim that it's a superior product? If not then there's no scam here. Their product definitely looks better (nicer screen printed graphic on the case), and their photos look WAY better. As a professional product photographer I greatly appreciate it when anyone pays someone to do good photos instead of just using whatever ugly snapshot they can do themselves. These guys are doing better marketing and presumably it's paying off. That's a relatively small markup compared to the stuff you usually find. I've seen tools I bought a decade ago at the dollar store (like a AA powered engraver tool I use to put my name on my tools) sold currently for around a 2000% markup over what I paid at retail.
Basically I agree with your conclusion that it's the same product, but I take exception at the notion that they need to earn your trust because they cheated you. Unless they claimed it is superior to identical units then this is just a case of one distributor undercutting another, or one charging a reasonable premium for their better marketing and better presentation. There's nothing dishonest about that.
This reminds me of a video VWestlife did awhile back demonstrating a few expensive phono cartridges with fancy packaging were actually rebranded Audio Technica models. Sorry I don't have the link.
AT-3600 vs Rega Carbon video
MOST products are not manufactured by the company that’s on the box. A huge amount of consumer products are stuff some no name company made and someone else rebranded with a markup. You can often buy this stuff direct for much less. In this case, the markup is quite small. I highly doubt the $40 extra here is paying for the owners 3rd yacht. This isn’t a super high volume product, it’s not a big markup, and two companies want to make a buck. This is super common, it’s super difficult to avoid.
I wish I could find a cheap 2 channel Compression Amplifier. The sound levels change so much on my computer, I use Headphones, that I am constantly jumping out of my skin when an ad comes on.
How is something built around one 50 cent "jellybean" op-amp IC -- not even the audio-specific TI NE5532 -- and some even cheaper Chinese passive components worth nearly $50, let alone almost $20 more?
Because a product will cost what the consumer is willing to pay for it.
Strangely it will never be sold at a cheaper price than that,
@@ulfdanielsen6009 -- True enough. In this case, the consumer is apparently willing to pay double for what amounts to nicely-styled little Hyundai with a Rolls-Royce badge and a pretty paint job.
Well if the seller was sending you the components in a bag and telling you to design your own PCB and source/drill/paint your own case you'd be half right. But like everything, you're paying for someones time. Time spent designing and testing, sourcing, organising, selling... People don't work for nothing.
Sure, you can do it yourself if you enjoy that kind of thing, but when you can buy one for $50 it's hardly worth the effort.
@@Malc180s -- Except in east Asia, from which the same product could be imported to retail at half the cost (or less) here. Moreover, design is a one-time expense, and this is a notably trivial circuit for a competent engineer to whip up.
@@editorjuno Doesn't matter. Business main goal is to make money. Marketing currently is one of the biggest price factors. (competition). Of course no one is telling you that you cannot compete. If this is so easy, just make better preamp and sell it for $10, make profit and secure your future... Why not ?
i'm a sucker for those late '90s audio amplifiers, many had had some nice semi-audiophile specs, and they were regular old stereo before the surround craze begun
i'm all for subwoofers, but i can't get warm for surround lol
You know what they say, ignorance is bliss! I wonder if the music Hall mini would have sounded better if you didn't come across this ugly truth. The placebo effect is real.
Wait until he finds out that the Rolls has a big markup as well.
@@gblargg probably true, that looks like a generic op amp, with a few passives, the case is probably the most expensive part.
if it costs more than 10 bucks to manufacture I'd be surprised.
Some years ago my TV went pop and stopped working. The technician came round, diagnosed the problem and took it back to his workshop. In passing, he said that despite the brand name on the front of the TV, the insides were mass produced at a factory somewhere in Asia, and could found in at least half a dozen different big name brands. The only difference was the casing. Fortunately, this meant that replacement parts were readily available and my TV was soon working again, fixed at a very reasonable price.
"Rebranding" is more common than some people might realize.
Raising the price is shameful though.
It's the same with distortion pedals; you can pay triple (or more) for some and they will still sound the same as medium-priced (or cheaper) ones.
It's all about marketing..
Yeah, you should rename this "Preamp Demonstrates How Capitalism Works and Why It Pays to be an Informed Consumer". That being said, I was only here because I was wondering which one to pick up for a project I'm workin on and had noticed how they were similarly spec'd. So, you saved me the cash and I certainly appreciate that, under any title. Good work, Sir and thank you.
is this a review by Garfield the cat?
garfield not only hates mondays but also lying companies
sounds a bit like garfield it could be true!
The same with the Audioquest USB Dac, there is a shop in Germany called Conrad who sells an identical china oem usb Dac, identical to the Audioquest one for only 9,99 instead of 99,99...
Apparently your paying twice as much for the black color of the shell
Thank you very much, is very positive that you expose these things!
The black color is worth the difference mate.
Wow my friend, you've achieved a lot of success just the last week alone! Congrats, and I hope you monetized this video!
You just figured this out?? LOL I have many rebranded Realistic phono preamps sold in the 70s, that were made by a high end manufacturer..sold at 1/10th the price to Radio Shack. They been doin this fo' years son.
The receivers were obviously not built in house either. I don't know who built them, but I remember some of them were pretty good.
I pulled a Realistic receiver out of the dumpster and it didn't work but I hotwired around the speaker relay, tested it, and hooked it up. I was very pleasantly surprised that it worked great and sounded beautiful. Everything worked except the speaker protection relay.
I'd fix it but I already have a bunch of hi fi equipment. I'm keeping it though and might fix it some day.
More BS. Please name the high end manufacturer. Nearly all high end manufacturers that exist today didn't exist in the 70s. The ones that did, were making mediocre equipment at that time. Radio Shack has never been the place to get a bargain.
carlos oliveira except maybe the Realistic Concertmate MG-1... a rebranded Moog synthesizer. An inverse of the issue here, something high end sold as a cheap consumer synth to bring in some extra cash. So Radio Shack did have some high quality amazing value products. A bit off topic but an interstices case nonetheless :)
carlos oliveira I’d have to do some research to locate the actual manufacturer, but I know my dad had a Realistic tape deck which was made in Japan, had soft touch electronic controls, and an LCD tape monitor, auto reverse with separate motors for each direction, etc etc. All very high end features for the late 1979s. Also MCS (JCPenny house brand) was made primarily by Technics. Their turntables have direct Technics models. Including some of the SL1X00 tables. It was and still is very common for name brand manufacturers to produce in house brand stuff for large retailers.
@@carlosoliveira-rc2xt Many Realistic-branded receivers in the 1970s were made in Japan by companies like Pioneer, Kenwood/Trio, NEC, Rotel, Hitachi, Fostex and others; they had cassette decks that were rebranded Aiwa and Sony. Although maybe these were not "audiophile-grade" they were certainly high-quality, high-end consumer-grade products. These were fantastic value, as they were often the same inside as the branded version but sold for a fraction of the price.
They also had a lot of junk that was worth what you paid for it.
How would this actually be used for anything? Maybe you could connect the line out to the line input and use it as a saturation device. Does it saturate or does it just distort?
It's not only a problem in audio products. But you can also have another problem. Two products looking the same but one of them is built like a tank and the other is just crap.....
Product support is another factor. I have no opinion on either unit, but if one company has better customer support, or a better warranty, it can be worth paying a small premium for a rebadged item.
Audiophile Lesson Number One: Never buy anything without listening unless it comes with a no-questions-asked return guarantee.
Audiophile Lesson Number Two: Never forget Lesson Number One.
Audiophile Lesson Number Three: Everything seems to sound better if it is expensive.
Audiophile Lesson Number Four : Listen to it blind, added gold plating and shiny bits makes it sound better.
Audiophile Lesson Number Five : Stop being an audiophile and buy more flowers for your wife/boyfriend, and still have money left.
@@robbedoeslegrand236 Audiophile NPC, eh? Please don't post again until able to think for yourself.
Lol crossover between audiophiles and alt-right... idiots both, not surprising
@@chevon5707 Really doesn't take much to trigger you NPC's now, does it? Run subroutine. Post PC gibberish. Repeat.
Again, please don't post until you're able to generate your own ideas.
What not to lose in the NPC wasteland: My original post on the importance of listening before buying stands unchallenged and unscathed.
And not an ounce of self awareness. Shocking.
Inretesting. I got this and an older high end JVC for a whopping $40 and they work great, but this is also my first real dedicated turntable and by extension first preamp (had a couple cheap turntables before)
Omg that's crazy. I'm sharing your video on my Facebook page. That way all my followers are aware.
The black case stops the sound distortion you get from the red version. Black paint is expensive,
the rolls LOOKS more expensive if anything.......
OMG, IT'S THE ROLLS? DAMN! Great find!
The same can be said for our political parties. You take the cover off of each only to find out that they're the same people.
No, there are distinct difference between Republicans and the Democratic party.
batsonelec C For now. Don't think that the same people who've stolen and subverted the Republican party aren't hard at work on doing the same thing to the Democratic party. It's just harder to do to Democratic party because Democrats aren't nearly such a homogenized group. Republicans (conservatives really) are like dogs - they live and work in packs. Democrats are like cats - it's harder to herd cats.
@@batsonelectronics Not really. There are clear differences in the members of the two parties, but like in this video, once you take the cover off, the leaders of the parties are the same. The Clintons were the same war mongering, tax and spend paid for politicians as the Bushs were. That's largely how Trump came into power. He was the anti establishment politician.
No matter which side you choose, republican or democrat, they all are the same people, controlled by someone else, yyouve all veen played, veen fooled..im sorry.. Thats the truth, actually they all on the same cult too..you have no free choice actually..it was a play..
Yeah, Bernie Sanders and Trump are totally the same... Smh
Thank you for making this video.
It's one of the reasons why I don't buy external DACs, rather I buy SoundBlaster Sound Cards.
I'm surprised you weren't suspicious when it looked the same, in the promo pics, etc, same back, different color(maybe you had a feeling before? Had to try/see?). Nice video! I'm not an audiophile, but deal with the same products, different name, etc w/Indoor plant growing equipment/products. Mostly from China, so exact copies, patents aren't as reinforced. But "Made in The USA" means a possible patent violation, or at least, a deal with the cheaper company for their exact specs(actual whole thing made by Original company, so they get a deal, put their name on, charge double/triple whatever large order they made cost). And a great company will know that real customers will figure this out and pay less for the same. Kudos for shining the light on the subject!
Many companies use OEM products. Music Hall is hardly the first in the audio component industry.
There are plenty of companies that rebrand cheap Chinese stuff. Lots of electronics you buy are rebrands and marked up, with the Chinese company's permission of course, infact sometimes there will be multiple rebrands of the product, it's common with headphones and chargers and stuff like that, a specific example would be corsair power supplies, they just take great wall power supplies, rebrand them and paint them, or a lot of case manufacturers like rosewill just rebrand jonsbro cases
Pssshhh.... welcome to the world of electronics. ALL electronics.
Exactly. Most electronics are rebranded from other manufacturers. Helps keep the manufacturing costs down.
And then you apply different brand labels and sell at different price points. It's all about profit maximisation. Sell the "premium" version to customers who're willing to pay more, and have a cheaper alternative so you don't miss out on the sales to the budget-conscious consumer.
Usually if I see the same IO and control layout it is safe to assume it's the same OEM product. That IC inside is about 50p so if you wanted to build something like this yourself you probably could for less money and have some fun while at it! The housing and jacks probably cost more than the discrete components.
TV's made by Vestel in Turkey are branded Panasonic in Europe.
Vestel is an OEM manufacturer and make for over 500 different brands, not only TV's. In Europe they produce electronics for TOSHIBA, HITACHI, JVC, TELEFUNKEN, FINLUX and many more. Of course production is licensed, but about quality... I don't know, I don't use it. I believe quality of all contemporary goods is at least not bad, sometimes good or v. good.
Same deal for Sharp and JVC TVs - they license the brand name and their LCD screens to smaller Eastern Europe electronics companies that build and assemble them and sell them in Europe under their respective brands. That's why Sharp and JVC TVs cost less than LG, Samsung, Sony etc in the UK
@@julianmach3192 Most Vestel stuff is lowest-tier garbage that barely works when new and only goes downhill from there. The fact that it's being rebadged by so many ex-reliable brands is like an insult to the customers...
Thank you for this video. Might I ask you a question as a new guy in this kind of thing? I recently bought a okayish record player to listen to my old LPs again. But the sound is, obviously, pretty dull. Is there a decent amplifier I can use, that is under 40$ to make it a bit better? There are loads of those from china, but I am not qualified enough to find out which one would be decent enough. Maybe you own a product that could fit my needs and you would recommend. Any help would be much appreciated. Thank you and kind regards
This is the video for you: The Best Phono Preamp Under 50$ ua-cam.com/video/cdL4cHPq5e0/v-deo.html
@@Audiorpheus_Vinyl Thank you kindly for replying. But What if I want to use passive bookshelf speakers with a record player that already has got a preamp?
It's black, it definitely should sound better.
it definitely LOOKS better and in your living room, this will make you happier - how can you put a price on happiness?
"It's black, it definitely should sound better."
I've always preferred gray, or orange (like Orange amps).
But...but...the Rolls doesn’t have a slick black case with the words Music Hall Mini stamped on it. I mean, that’s worth the additional premium right?
a lot of electronics companies licence out their designs.... the extra money simply goes for MusicHall to pay Rolls for the use of the design (likely)....so yeah an extra link in the food chain. Knowledge is key to avoiding paying for these extra steps.
Music Hall turntables. Proudly made in Czech Republic. All of them.
Not all. Their USB-1 was a Hanpin - Chinese. Models 1.3 and 1.5 are from the same Taiwan factory that builds similar tables for Denon, Teac, Fluance, AT, Dual, Elac, Crosley and others.
What kind of work do you do when you’re working with these products?
Getting angry about 49$ preamp, then there is me paying 8 grand for a mcintosh xD
Why did you do that?
With the nonsense going on here, someone is going to tell you that the same in China is $10.00.
Your mother must be so proud.
Did you open it and find a Samsung inside?
I was just about to make as comment about Macs. As a computer technician, I can tell you, if you open up that Mac, the only difference is the case; all the components are Intel, AMD and ATI etc. The RAM can be taken from a standard laptop. So can the HDD/SSD, the screen, the motherboard... You get my gist haha.