It’s a complicated subject.
I was a dealer for an American gear company. They had a whole shipment of lights come in that they spec’d from China and every single one of them either crapped out before hitting the water or if it did make it to the water it flooded.
I had a Hog reg set for a while just to see what all the hype was about. I got some corrosion on the stainless parts and the end cap button for the tuner knob on the second stage was held on only with two sided tape. The area behind it including the screw got all gunked up with salt water. No way to know until a tear down.
I ended up selling it and went back to my old stuff.
There is no comparison between old American made neoprene and Chinese stuff. The Chinese never really got a handle on producing anything of quality out of rubber, not their thing. The South Koreans on the other hand make some pretty decent neoprene.
Call me whatever you want but I just don’t fully trust Chinese made gear, I don’t care who sourced it.
I’ve had problems with the quality of their stainless in the past. I source USA only stainless now for my stuff.
I don’t care for their political structure and some of the civil rights abuses we hear about.
I think as a country we looked to much for getting stuff cheap and not hard enough about the consequences. Americans are easily sold out.
I know it’s a permanent thing, all this globalization and I understand the political intentions behind globalization. I just don’t like the feeling of being held hostage by a country that doesn’t necessarily have our best interests in mind, and one with such an infamous reputation. It’s starting to bug me, does anybody else feel that way or are you too worried about being called out on it?
At one time the US was the world leader in quality industrial manufacturing. Now so much of that is gone, it’s depressing.
Don’t even get me started on Chinese steel, the crap is almost un-weldable. This is what our bridges and other infrastructure are being made out of now BTW.
Just sayin.
