[Ghoostknight]

https://de.aliexpress.com/item/4000412716175.html
i saw on a few products that they get explicitly advertised as "genuine made in japan furutech" with OVP/packaging and everything as it seems, i know its naive to think that this is a 100% true claim but this made me kinda curious, do fakers actually go to this length?

i just bought them in the end because they have way better construction than the local ones, even if it just would be messing instead of copper and no NCF etc..

 

[Paulc52]

So in the past I've ordered some knockoff aliexpress cables. Surprisingly, these cables sound quite good, I mean well above their price point. They outperform some cables I have tried that are 10-15x more expensive.

It looks like this.




Recently I asked a seller to make me a sata cable with this wire.

I received it and unfortunately it didn't work, it seems they didn't wire it properly or theres a short somewhere. I took it apart to see what it looks like. Really hate that glue insulator they use.



So it looks like the wire is actually silver or at the very least sterling silver. Its not plated and looks to be 28 awg conductors with a teflon or pet sleeve then spiraled aluminum shield then pet or teflon sleeve on top of that. No wonder it sounds so good. I tried to light it on fire and it wont burn or melt. PVC should melt or burn if I tried that.

It is quite surprising the quality of these things. Most likely the conductors are sterling silver because the pricing doesnt make sense for such a thing.

I have purchased quite a few of these knockoffs and they perform unbelievably well, I'm sure they're not as good as the real thing but for the price they are quite good. Quite a pleasant surprise.




Few notes, there are some sellers reported by members that are not pleasant do business with. Recommend not purchasing from these sellers due to shady business practices and/or problems returning. Will update as we go along.

Goltech - Sent cable with missing parts and gold odin cable with lesser valhalla conductors.
Queensway - Several members reported incorrect pinout for hdmi cable and had problems returning or getting a refund.



Other good stuff

https://www.ebay.com/itm/133425075429
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/325...o.order_list.order_list_main.5.21ef1802fTJ8Bd
Xangsane Sterling Silver USB
Recipe for making cable with mundorf solid core silver/gold wire by elan120 on audiophilestyle.

Funny thing. I watched a video by Audioquest on their cables and how they are made and that they are made in the U.S., Netherlands and China and the guy said no matter where the cable is made (he) should not be able to tell the difference. Since myself and s buddy had the K2 speaker cable, Colorado interconnects, we decided to blow the money on the same cables from Aliexpress and then we were going to examine them, removing the ends and see what we saw. On the Colorado rca interconnects we noticed that the external appearance was exact. We then removed the barrell on the RCA and could see that it had been cold welded, all wiring appeared to be exact and the color (silver) of the wire was the same. Was it perfect surface silver? Don't know, but it was solid silver core and not a silver over copper. The perform superb. My guess is that they (since the cables are made in China) are either making runs of their own and selling them, or (more likely) are duplicating them. It wouldn't be difficult for them to do. Are they using a different quality silver? Possible, maybe not. I also got a WEL digital cable (beast) didn't take it apart, but quality of build was impeccable. I have seen some where the cabling appeared exact, but had different (cheaper) connects. If you look around you can find many made with the (1000 series) silver plated bananna or spade Audioquest ends. I've seen some of these mega buck cables sell for a few hundred dollars and I've seen some Audioquest cables sell for 1k, so even though that's much cheaper than buying from a dealer, I hope they aren't using cheap crap at 1k

 

[amix]

incl a cross section of the NCF resin parts to make a best guess at its composition

I'd be surprised if they even went that far.

 

[amix]

get explicitly advertised as "genuine made in japan furutech" with OVP/packaging and everything as it seems [...] do fakers actually go to this length?

Oh yeah, that's exactly what the real fakers do! Make us believe...

 

[Jake2]

I'd be surprised if they even went that far.

Agree.. that’s best case, more likely case is they copied the NCF branding and the packaging etc, which I’m sure they’ve had a lot of practice at.

I would note my Furukawa Flux-50 AC filters definitely improve the sound of connected devices more than most power cables, and a number of buyers reviews and folk on headfi found same. So in that case it seems likely they’ve had a go at incorporating some piezo-electric and/or vibration damping materials into either end - maybe just the CF, but potentially more like a bit of crushed tourmaline or Rochelle salt. A bit easier there as a) it’s a fair more expensive so more worth their while and b) the volume of each end of the Flux-50 is much bigger than the AC sockets etc linked above so easier to incorporate materials.