No idea what you mean? I buy pro audio all the time, but I don't have any music stores to go into any more.

Hey Paul, what gear do you buy all the time?

Microphones, interfaces, pa speakers, di boxes, radio mics and gear like that. For the studios and live work. Some replaced for age, the majority for damage (like dropped and broken hand helds), and some because they just die.

For fun, I also started a little youtube channel where I keep buying interesting mics and bits and pieces from China. Some are awful rubbish, but some are actually really good. I've also been deliberately buying fakes to see how close they are and some I have to label because if I mixed them up I would NOT be able to identlfy.

Here's a link to a recent one so you can hear for yourself.

I just bought yet another dirt cheap big name mic from a source in china. A sennheiser MK4. I got it yesterday so today im going to dig out my old one, not one I actually use much, and try this ‘fake’ one. I suspect it may well not be a fake at all, and just another big name made in china product, diverted out of the back door.

Clearly most fake mics are look a likes, with very different internals, but recently we are seeing identical outsides, and insides too that cannot be identified as fake. The tooling required to copy the clever mouldings and internal structures could of course easily be scanned and recreated, but would that ever be economic on a cheap product? I now have the Shure SM7B, the 87A in the video above and now the Sennheiser. 
 

If, as I suspect, these ‘fakes’ are actually made from the genuine parts, are they real but unofficial, which technically makes the, grey imports, not counterfeits, or are they still counterfeit and fake? Here in the UK, Wrangler jeans, made abroad, were being imported from the factory direct by a supermarket chain. Half the price. Wrangler got it stopped. Genuine product, imported from a foreign country, but via a different and cheaper chain.

As soon as Chinese factories become OEM status, the original firm lose control. Even worse, many of the bigger firms play down the fact some of their gear is made in China, so dont cause a fuss. The public see China and Fake in the same sentence and that is enough to put some people off. 
 

I bet this MK4 is indistinguishable from my old one when i get to the studio, later.

my videos used to always be do NOT buy this, it is rubbish. Now, I am seeing what are for most people, genuine bargains. If this thirty odd pound Sennheiser is as good as I suspect, for cash strapped recordists, it could be a really good buy. That is scary!

Thanks for sharing the info, Paul.

I used post concerns over how I feared Pro Audio companies use China to make their products including our general recording community supporting China/ off-shore gear because it's going to bite back hard.

Glad you are still busy recording and doing what we all love so much, making music!

Follow Up.

I have a Sennheiser MK4. It's fine, but I still use other mics more regularly - so I was surprised to see this model available from a Chinese supplier I use for odds and ends for £35! I've stuck a bot of yellow tape on it because I cannot tell which is which - the German MK4 sounds exactly the same, and the mics are within 4 grams of each other, weight wise. I find it difficult to believe the tooling needed to make this would pay back at £35 a sale? It makes me wonder what is happening.