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japanese highend verses usa highend (opinions pls)

R

receiverwar

Member
Hello,
Great forum by the way! Does anyone feel any of the japanese highend gear is on par with the us highend manufacturers? (krell, mcintosh,levinson etc.)

and do any models of the gear come to mind

thank you. (no flame wars please) :banana:
 
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It is my opinion that Japanese gear that was actually made in Japan is really darn good. Something about the Japanese work ethic perhaps which precludes them doing a crappy job on their gear. Once the manufacturing started being offloaded to countries like Korea, china, etc instead, it sure seems like quality took a nose-dive.
 
Any country can produce excellent high-end equipment. The technology is not country specific, nor the parts. The biggest differences would be the build quality and that is more a function of an experienced work force and QC, also an experince issue. There are several contries that make high-end equipment easily every bit as good and better than the US.
 
In the 80s the Japanese put out some excellent separates gear. Most were huge bargains for what you got, and some were priced more dear, but still a good deal for what you were getting. Yamaha and Onkyo, for two, put out some excellent TOTL gear, and it is still competitive today--another reason to look for that great older gear.
Accuphase and Luxman made gear that compares with the best.
 
One of the biggest problems with high-end Japanese gear is that we don't get much of it in North America. There is more in Europe than over here, but still not like in Japan. The TOTL gear we get is excellent, but not up to what they save for themselves. Too bad for us.

When's that last time you've seen anything like this over here?
 

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i have always preferred Japanese made electronics and US made speakers. in my experience they compliment each other very well.
 
I agree...My newest acquisition is a tube DAC made in China. Amazing construction. Super thick faceplate. Sounds fantastic. If this unit were made here it would cost at least $2K. I got it for less than $500!!

Brian said:
Any country can produce excellent high-end equipment. The technology is not country specific, nor the parts. The biggest differences would be the build quality and that is more a function of an experienced work force and QC, also an experince issue. There are several contries that make high-end equipment easily every bit as good and better than the US.
Click to expand...
 
I have long believed that Accuphase is the equal of anything built anywhere. Especially in the digital area, there are very few mfrs that can compete.
 
I own Japanese, US and European hifi brands and now collecting upscale Japanese vintage gear for the simple reason I could get them now at a small fraction of their original prices back in '70s and '80s (old hifi gear from Japan's recycling centers are shipped out to nearby countries. No problem with their 100-volt power supply since 100-volt step-down transformers are available here in the Philippines.)

IMHO upscale US brand amps could match, or even exceed, Japan's best. The issue, however, is on differences in the innards of same-model electronics that Japanese companies sell locally and those for the international market. Since they could sell their best hifi in the domestic market at significantly higher price, some have resorted to cutting production cost for export models to be competitive in major markets such as US and UK. Some of Japan's best, including the most expensive ones, were never shipped out, though

I also thought Japan's speakers are not as good as those made in the US until I heard good ones. The best major Japanese speaker brand IMHO is Diatone (Mitsubishi) which, like Sansui, was also featured in k-nisi/freett website: http://page.freett.com/knisi/diatone3.htm
 
Diatone was making speakers from late '40s until late '90s, and production/distribution dates for some are given on the website. Don't know why the company stopped producing. A Japanese vintage hifi trader, however, told me a few weeks back that Diatone/Mitsubishi has resumed speaker production starting this year, but can't confirm that. BTW, Mitsubishi was the firm that bought Akai in Japan in late '80s, when Akai tape decks changed brand to A&D (Akai-Diatone).
 
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