In the spring of 2025 I was on the phone with one of the guys at Magnepan. They proudly build speakers with great expertise in Minnesota. Magnepan was created (1969) by an innovative American, Jim Winey, who was an engineer at 3M.

In this conversation we were discussing different amplifiers. I told him I recommend great amps from Bryston (Canada) and Atoll (France). He told me he liked those but also recommends that customers should consider some amps that happen to be built in China.

I pointed out that we should go out of our way to recommend products built in N American and Europe. He said, “I don’t care where it’s made.”

Seriously?!

There are many reasons WHY you should want to buy N American or European vs gear made in China. I’m not saying the Chinese can’t make some respectable products, in this case amps. That’s not the point.

Your Vote

You vote with your wallet.

Magnepan created its speakers. They’re built in Minnesota. When you buy them you’re telling them they did a great job and you’re SUPPORTING them. Workers get more proficient with experience. Designers are compensated for their work and have incentive to build a better mouse trap tomorrow. Your money goes to support quality construction by people who have pride in the product and can actually live a life we consider desirable in N America.

Suppose the Chinese rip off this design. They could make it China, and sell for much less. If this happens, it will terminate his and his coworkers’ jobs.

You’d kill the design / support team in the process. These quality people would be out of a job. They would be less able to support the communities in which they live.

The designers who know the most about these speakers wouldn’t be around tomorrow to improve upon them. Everyone loses. Even the guy who bought ‘em cheap… will have no support when he needs it.

Build Quality

While build quality CAN be OK from China, it’s not the norm. Given the high number of hours/days that employees work, stress and fatigue are high. Excellence is impossible. They have the ability to do basic work for low pay. Yet that work won’t be fastidious. Why does this matter?

Let’s talk speakers. As the Chinese make drivers, the window of acceptability is almost unlimited. For example, you’ll find that the performance among tweeters is wide. If they make a thousand tweeters, they’ll use them all. Some may perform close to the reference standard of the design. But most will vary dramatically from the ideal. What you get in your pair of speakers may be drivers whose performance is quite disparate. Think… of looking through glasses with a foggy prescription, vs wearing glasses that let you see crystal clear.

Let’s look at three Monitor Audio models that were tested by Hi-Fi news magazine. Monitor Audio is a British name, but all of these are made for them in China. The same vendor makes numerous other brands. Golf shirts with different logos.

Gold 300 G6, $6200 Per Pair

These test quite brighter than claims. One was 2.5dB up, the mate 3.7dB. The pair matching was good only if you limit the range, 200-7k. Within that range the disparity isn’t bad, at .7dB. With the grills on they measure 3.5dB duller. Don’t use the grills! And even worse, the speakers measure much more accurately if toe’d in. If you put them NOT toe’d in to your seating- the highs are -6dB at 10k. Placement and angling are critical to acceptable performance.

Bronze 50 7G $650 Per Pair

These have similar off axis dips in the highs. The grills don’t kill the highs as much on this model. Better grills! The impedance of this speaker dips to 4 ohms, even though they call it an 8 ohm speaker. You’ll need a better than generic amp despite this reasonable price point. Pair matching on this pair is much better (.5dB) than the big brothers above. The speakers measure 2dB brighter than spec. which isn’t great. It can be tamed by leaving the grille on- with this model.

Studio 89 $2750 Per Pair

These too are bright at a tad under 3dB at 20k. They have a pair disparity of just over 2dB. That’s not great. They measure a touch more hungry than rated SPL. And per usual with Monitor Audio, the frequency response in the highs has steep roll off as you get off axis.

While all three of these models are probably reliable, none are built to the exacting standards of a company like Atohm of France, or Bryston/Axiom of Canada.

Amps

Great amps from Bryston and Atoll have DUAL, large toroidal, transformers. They have filter capacitance of high ratings. They use a good number of MATCHED OUTPUT TRANSISTORS.

These are amps with linear power supplies, great heft, heart and soul in their sound.

The amps are laid out cleanly with a minimal amount of running wire. They favor through hole parts which sound resolving and dynamic. They have better reliability than running a pile of chips off a flimsy SMPS power supply.

The Chinese build amps without commensurate concern. Transformers are typically much smaller, typically running a single Ecore instead of a pair of toroids. Ecore transformers spray RFI throughout the board imbuing the sound with a gray, instead of black background. They run piles of chips instead of discrete through hole component parts. Even the amps sections are just modules. Their designs are often sloppy, requiring trails of running wire which have Molex connections- just like car stereo gear for quick release and easy assembly. All of these compromises make the sound less alive.

Atoll amps are built with symmetry and designed so the signal is carried with thick traces. There’s no need for oodles of spaghetti with plastic connectors to link this portion of the amp to that.

The smart planning of Atoll is a big part to running better parts with less wire and solder joints.

No China

If you choose to buy a Chinese amp, you’re not supporting the guys like Atoll and Bryston who make better gear. You are supporting virtual slave labor with people working 72 hours a week at low pay, often living in company barracks. They might get to see family on Sunday- if they’re lucky.

Atoll isn’t a lot more expensive than the Chinese. Yet it’s clearly worth the few extra bucks. Please join us in going out of your way not to buy mass merchandise from China.