Chinese Screens

[pauldub]

Has anyone ever bought Chinese fastfold screens?

 

Particularly from china screen.

 

They have a wide range of very affordable products, just wondering if anyone has experience with them and the build quality

 

cheers

[Steve Cavill]

To jump straight in, and possibly set an arguement going....

 

I would steer clear of anything that comes out of China, its either;

 

a) Illegally copied

b) Poor build quality

c) Blatant rip off of a product made else where, yet sold at a fraction of the cost

d) Extremely difficult to get spares for

e) No customer support

f) No aftersales care

g) Will fall apart as soon as you open the packaging

 

These are of course, my views.

 

Keep the trade local, you may pay an extra £200 but at least you have the satisfaction of being able to talk to someone on the end of a phone at somepoint during the day, that actually understands you and can give you the advice you need.

[spove]

I second that, I would stick away from the chineese screens also. If you are in the market for some screens and are not really wanting to pay to much for them PM me and I will see if I can help as I currently have 5 manufactures from the UK and Europe that I can sell from.

 

A

[paulears]

So what Chinese screens have you all inspected that are poor quality, and what makes should we avoid?

 

Seriously, though - I really hate (despite oddly agreeing with some of the comments) these generic AVOID AT ALL COSTS posts. Chinese imports have been talked about quite often, and an excellent post on the subject appeared recently.

 

There are rubbish chinese products, there are also some good ones - sweeping statements like this really are just opinions based on spin, rather than experience of the products. I've not looked at a chinese screen - but until I do, my opinion doesn't really have any weight behind it - so I won't make statements like this. And of course, if I had some non-chinese product I could flog by citing how awful the chinese product is, and the euro sourced is only £X more expensive, then that's kind of biased, isn't it?

[Pete McCrea]

Personally I prefer to stick to established manufacturers with a good reliable distribution chain, so the likes of Da-Lite, and the products available from Screen Expert to name a few.

 

I feel that if I have issues we can get them sorted with minimal fuss and without expensive phonecalls. I personally can't vouch for the Chinese products as I have never knowing dealt with them.

[Steve Cavill]

The generic "Stay away from chinese products" statement always comes up because people have always had problems with the products. Be it customer support or general reliabilty of the fixtures.

 

THe venue in which I work has some chiese fixtures, and 90% of them are in bits in the amp room, simply because they fail and parts are difficult to get hold of.

 

Once china prove they can manufacture good fixtures, and provide a good parts service, maybe attitudes will change, but it doesnt look like this will happen any time soon.

[paulears]

Well, I've just been luckier than the people who always have problems. I have lighting, audio, video and computer products made in China, alongside American and European product. In the last year, I've had one cheap LED can fail, two pieces of American audio rack mount devices fail, 3 Chinese wall-wart psus die, and no problems with the cheap VDAs and small LCD monitors.

 

My Pearl River followspots carry on working despite damp cold North Sea air.

 

The Chinese clones of EV300s have been kicked around as much as the real EVs we have and seem to wear just as well. The early Yamaha (made in Japan) desk turned its heels up ages ago and sits in our duff pile.

 

I'm not denying that some Chinese budget products are pretty fragile/unreliable, but cheap non-Chinese seem from my own experience, just as bad!

 

The spare parts and lifespan are one feature you do not get when you buy from Chinese sources, but if you have a real shortage of funds, or simply want more from your money, and lifespan isn't so important - then I don't see that the word 'Chinese' should automatically be linked to 'unreliable' or 'inferior'. Nobody is claiming a Chinese audio mixer is as good as a Cadac.