Bookshelf speakers that are NOT made in China. - Page 2

No worries.... I often chuckle at times when someone claims they don't want something because it's made in "Anywhere but the gool 'ol US of A." Yet, the shirt they have on came from Malaysia, their shoes from Singapore, their Ford pick'em up truck from Mexico, the wife's Chrysler mini-van from Canada all the while, typing away from their computer shock full of parts and pieces sourced from China.

Sigh.... all part and parcel of the times I guess.

Good point. Not to impugn the OP with less than the purest of motives, but in other threads the question seems to imply that a pair of speakers (or other product) is more holy and blessed if assembled by a white guy from Iowa or Ontario rather than an Asian guy from Guangdong. That's why I, as an equal opportunity speaker buyer, love my Chinese built Infinity Primus's, as well as my American made Revels.

You may want to check your facts my friend, our drivers are NOT and have never been sourced from an OEM manufacturer. We ARE an OEM manufacturer supplying drivers to many other high end companies. Dynaudio drivers are designed and manufactured in our state of the art factory in Denmark along with every other aspect of our speakers.

source?

Just for clarification, every part of the driver is made in Denmark? Cones, coils, baskets, spiders, magnets, etc? I know that at least some OEMs have parts of their drivers made in China, but final assembly is done elsewhere.

In speaking with a research person at www.madeinusa.com yesterday, we talked about the distinction of something being "made" in the U.S.A. versus something "assembled" in the U.S.A. Many companies import drivers, crossovers, and enclosures, and assemble and test here. It's a way of controlling quality and it keeps a few people here employed, but it is a gray area. Www.madeinusa.com does draw a distinction.

They also note American content. I was shocked a few months ago to discover that although my '08 Corvette Z06 has quite a bit of American content, my wife's Honda Element, also built here, has a few percentage points more American content. Out of my last dozen vehicles, only one has been from a foreign company. I'm not going to sidetrack the discussion, though. It ain't my thread...

Stunningly beautiful speakers.

China.

While the cabinets are made locally in the USA, I was told by Ty a few months ago that he was switching to Chinese made OEM drivers (due to cost).

So, maybe that was the case in the past...

Another thing to consider is that if something is made in China, that doesn't have to mean that it's of poor quality. There are different levels of manufacturing in China with a corelation between quality and price. So, just because something is "Made in China" it can still be of the same quality as something made here in America or Europe. (Be that crappy or top-shelf quality)

I specifically said I didn't want to impugn you and that other threads take the wrong tack. I gathered by the specific way you asked the question that you weren't looking to only find mythical 'made in the usa' speakers. I figured you were looking for something different. No offense intended.

Understood.... Dyn has long had a reputation of being an OEM manufacturer. But, I read somewhere (maybe a year ago?) and forgive me if it were on an internet board and not from a more reliable source, that Dyn had shifted a lot of their sourcing (drivers anyway) from China (or was it India). So, my use of the term OEM in this instance was not accurate. But, I believe the rest of my point to be correct.

And just to clarify, you are stating unequivically that the boards your crossovers are mounted on, the internal wire you use, the caps and capacitors, voice coils, port tubes, poly-fill, screws, fasteners, solder, adheasives, glues etc.... are ALL manufactured right in your state of the art factory in Denmark?

I'm sorry, but you'd have a fairly difficult time trying to make that case. I'd wager many of those things are sourced from different countries all over the world. That's the point I'm trying to make.

Unfortunately the internet can be a source of many fallacies and any statement to the effect that we source our drivers from any one is a fallacy, we do now and have always manufactured our drivers in our factory in Denmark. The cone, the voice coil, the bobbin, etc. are manufactured in our factory in Denmark, in fact the machine used to make the driver cones was designed by one of our engineers due to the one piece design of the cone. Items such as poly fill, port tubes, solder, internal wire, capacitors and fasteners would be difficult for us to manufacture and are sourced from other companies, as in the case of many of our capacitors which are souced from Solen and the wire which is sourced from Van Den Hul. You would be surpised to know however that the glue used to assemble our cabinets was developed in house because we wanted a glue with no toxic chemicals. 95% of our speakers are wrapped in real wood veneer and these veneers are hand selected from non endangered sources.
To make a long story short, there is a certain amount of pride associated with being one of the very few driver manufacturers in the world let alone one that still manufactures outside of the far east. Yes we have a few parts at various points in our speakers that are sourced from other reputable manufacturers but there are very few other speaker companies that can match the level of proprietary manufacturing that we offer.
John, you made a good point and yes you are correct in that NO Loudspeaker company can completely manufacture 100% of the product with name on it but some companies come very close.

Maybe some models, but my old boss at Harman, Pat Mountain (VP at Canton for years), has told me most of their stuff is made in China. As far as bursting my bubble, I don't have a bubble.

And as I stated, the Canton stuff is gorgeous. For a stylish speaker with flat panel televisions, they're hard to beat.

That's funny you say that because in certain industries China's products are considered the BEST because their manufacturing facilities are very new, whereas many domestic (Read: United States) facilities are older and haven't been updated. Our industrial revolution happened much earlier than some countries and we've outsourced so much of it because other countries and people are willing to work for less.

Guru pro speakers are made in Sweden. Look out for their amazing QM10 speaker (that should stand against the wall).


http://guruproaudio.com/

keep in mind that to put the "made in" label only 51% of a product needs to come from the the country that claims the "made in" label.

It would be very difficult to compete in this market if a manufacturer does not exploit the cheap labor offshore unless the product is top of the line which only some ball players would buy.

So dont be so carried away by the "made in" labels.

I was just wondering what is the ultimate goal of the OP in gathering this information.

Have you considered making some DIY speakers? That way you could pick your components and select ones that aren't sourced from china, to as great an extent as possible.

There are numerous places that can do custom speaker cabinets and plenty of DIY designs. Many of them require only basic soldering, screwing and gluing.

and what is the reason for excluding china?
because they might add toxic chemicals into any part of the
speaker ? :-)

anyway...

Try Magnepan. I have the MG12's. Says made in MN, USA but I bought it mainly for its sound. For $1199 it sounds like $10000 speaker. I have tried many boxy heavy speakers (B&W, PSB, Paradigm etc.) and nothing came close to the MG12s. Only issue is you cant keep them close to the walls. But if you have to then you can get the MG-MC1's as they are made to put them on the wall, at an angle. Then you would need a sub as the MGMC1's only go upto some 80Hz. There were 2 pairs sold for $900 total just on Audiogon. Each pair retails at $850.

Not sure about this but what about Wilson Audio?

I applaud your patriotism, but let's get real. How far are you willing to go. Maybe assemble here but capacitors, wire, steel used in the basket etc. are all apt to be imported regardless of the claims made on the box. It's not up to the consumer to sort out this manufacturing mess. I will continue to buy what sounds best to me, and be damn with who made it. Don't buy a Ford with many having transmissions made in Korea.\\

And are you going to play your new American made speakers off an American made receiver...good luck, and to everyone else who really thinks they can recommend any American made HT product.

He's not talking about buying American made speakers, only about buying speakers not made in China. At least read the thread before replying to it.

As a chinese man, i'm very curious why you don't want to buy speakers from China. Do you have something against the Chinese?

Your country's government has a number of policies with regards to human rights and other related topics that many people overseas disagree with. Most likely his desire to avoid chinese products is related to them, but that sort of thing gets into politics and that is against board policies for very good reasons. I would suggest sending him a PM if you want a full answer.

I have no interest in the OP's motives; after all this thread is ostensibly about the OP's question.

ATC manufacture drivers and speakers in the UK. I believe Beyma do something analogous in ES (but I've not heard their stuff in many years so can't swear it's still true).

EDIT: Visited Beyma's site, and at least in the English version they state they manufacture in Valencia. Good for them.

EDIT 2: Anybody know if ADAM manufacture their own drive units, or at least if they source their drive units from another EU-based firm? Their manufacturing is apparently (still?) in DE.

EDIT 3: Wilson Benesch apparently manufacture everything in the UK.