What can you tell me about Chinese tubed amps/equipment?

[Kaboom]

There seems to be an evergrowing choice of tube preamps, poweramps, phono preamps etc made in china, at very, very attractive prices.
My better judgement tells me that if its selling first hand on ebay, and its so cheap, it can't compare to the real deal, but the aggressive pricing is proving a very hard temptation to resist.
So who here has any experience with the chinese made amps? feedback?
Cheers!

[Mr Peabody]

A "generic" brand is a generic brand no matter where it's built.

I recently was reading some reviews of amplifiers and was surprised to learn Rotel is being built in China and the Stereophile reviewer seemed to be pleased with the build quality. On the other hand that doesn't mean that everything built in China is good either. I would stick with proven brand manufacturers. The Prima Luna Prologue One got a decent review and it is built in China. I think there is so much manufacturing being farmed out to China and other countries with cheap labor that we can't let that bias our judgement. There's always a risk in buying "no name" products of any kind. I have heard that it is difficult to do tubes correctly at a cheap price, the cheaper designs tend to be quite noisy. At $1,095.00 for a tube integrated with auto bias I'd say give that Prologue One some consideration. I haven't read any reviews but Antique Sound Labs (ASL) has some affordable tube gear as well and seems to be a brand that is well accepted.

[mazdamanic]

There is some stuff out there that I have tried and liked very much. Audio Experience preamps being sold on ebay are a terrific bargain. $400 shipped from Hong Kong and sounds so sweet, you won't buy SS preamps again. I recently bought the Lite DAC-AH from pothaudio and I am simply amazed at the price to performace ratio. I did a direct comparison with the highly regarded but older CAL Sigma tube dac and it outperformed the sigma in all aspects. It is true what they say about non oversampling DACs, the top end is as smooth as a baby's bottom, an absolute steal for $175 shipped. I have also read a lot of great things about the seller mhdtlab on ebay from Taiwan selling great sounding DACs. The only issue is customer service, if you need it you may be out of luck.

[risabet]

Both my tube amps and hybrid pre-amp (TAD-1000's & TAD-150 respectively) and, so I hear, my Martin-Logan Clarity's, are made in China. The amps and pre-amp are hand finished here. I am quite impressed with the build quality of the electronics and sonically both pieces are competitive with units 2 to 3 times more expensive. I can see no reason to avoid products simply because they are made in China. That being said, I am sure that some of the stuff is truly junk but my experience with Chinese made products has been excellent.

[Kaboom]

Actually i was referring to actual chinese brands, not to products designed and marketed in the US or Europe and assembled in china, but more along the lines of
http://cgi.ebay.com/300B-Integrated-...QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.com/Nice-Integrated-...QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.com/Nice-Integrated-...QQcmdZViewItem
and the likes. Stuff that's some wacky name like "music angel" or "ming Audio".
cheers!