NEX wrote:There is some real crap written about the quality of Chinese products,
look about your house and you will find a Made in China label stuck on most of the electronic stuff, it works else you would have binned it.
Quite right,but I suspect the production technology and original developmental work are usually from Western or Japanese sources.The factory is sited in the P.R.C. (Peoples Republic of China as opposed to Taiwan) simply because it's cheaper/easier to set-up there and/or the labour is cheaper.
However,it was the case a little while ago that manufacturers of computer motherboards with quality aspirations were emphasizing their use of Japanese made capacitors,as it seemed Chinese made capacitors were considered by the market as less reliable.
Craig wrote:No matter where a product is made, it comes down to quality control
Many years ago I read that the difference between the most prestigious (i.e. expensive) camera lenses and the cheaper independant makers was partly down to quality control.Every Lens from someone like Carl Zeiss was tested and those that did not achieve the required standard were rejected.With the cheaper lenses maybe one in ten were tested and the baseline for performance was lower.