bitflipper Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 I received multiple Amazon gift cards for Christmas, totaling $200. My office/studio/rehearsal space is a garage with a wood rollup door, the only surface lacking acoustical absorption. So I figured I'd spend my $200 on some stick-on acoustical panels. When I searched for acoustic treatments on Amazon, they showed page after page of acoustic foam products. All surprisingly cheap. Got my hopes up for about 10 seconds. First thing I realized was that it was the same handful of products under dozens of different brand names. Names that are random strings of characters, such as WVOVW, OTUOER and ZHOJEREL. All with "customer" ratings of 4.7 stars. And all clearly useless, being too thin and apparently not even made of acoustical foam. We're talking the kind of low-grade lightweight packing foam you throw away. All the product descriptions included the word "soundproofing" - a red flag in itself. I always go straight to the 1-star reviews on anything I buy from Amazon. Every one of them complained that these panels did not isolate sound. Those buyers had obviously been misled into thinking that's what these products are for. Many also complained that the panels came smushed into vacuum-sealed plastic bags and were malformed and squishy. I had to explicitly search for "Auralex" to find any product that was not Chinese junk. Ultimately found a good deal, even though the panels were 5x more expensive than the fakes. But there was only one vendor selling Auralex, and that vendor was not Auralex. Some reviewers complained that what they got wasn't even actually Auralex. We'll see. Amazon does not seem to care if products they sell are fraudulent. (Example). 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigb Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 As someone who used to be a third-party seller on Amazon (along with my business partner), I can tell you that all the rumors you hear about Amazon are not completely accurate. They are actually far worse than you hear about! I can give many reasons, but I don't want to make myself angry again. Our final straw was when they basically stole $16,000 worth of inventory from us. Enough said for now! 🤬 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bapu Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 Yesterday I saw sort of the same thing. I had an ad for a legit Hartke 4x10 cab pop up. B&H Photo for $829 but up above that ad were related products from about 12 company names like Dave described above. All from China. Selling their Hartke 4x10 ranging in price from $77 to $99. No, I did not buy any of them. Not even the legit B&H one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigb Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 Ya! They all have these funny-sounding company names that you just know are fake! Like Alembic for example! 😂 😜 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bitflipper Posted January 12 Author Share Posted January 12 To be fair, I have no problem with meaningless brand names. What the hell is a Korg, anyway? First time I saw that name, I pictured a Japanese monster movie. Roland was a made-up name by a guy (Ikutaro Kakehashi) who didn't speak any English but wanted something that easily rolled off the tongue of an English speaker. A couple years ago, I purchased an extension cord. It was nice: all-metal construction, heavy 15' cable, 10 outlets spaced to accommodate wall warts. So when I recently added more powered speakers to my setup, I went to order two more of them. The exact model was no longer available, but there were four products that appeared to be identical, down to the bright yellow color. I didn't really take notice of the brand, which was CRST. Might have been a pun, as in Jesus Crst, what is this piece of sht? The ground pins literally fell off before they were even used. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kitekrazy Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 Not surprised by this. I guess New Egg can be like that as well. People will buy a motherboard and they get one that was returned. The problem is with cheap stuff is when it breaks it's easier to replace than deal with a manufacturer warranty. All we do is enlarge landfills. I rarely buy anything off of Amazon. For PC add ons like drives I buy from Best Buy. The problem with China is they steal patents and designs. So far they are not good at stealing quality. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigb Posted January 13 Share Posted January 13 I can confirm that one thing Amazon does is this: Once they see that something is selling well, they have China make it for them then they undercut everyone's price. Many people don't realize that the seller they're seeing is one of many for that product (yes, you can check out the other sellers if you see that link). To get the coveted "Buy Box" however you have to be the lowest price. Additionally, once a listing has been hijacked, you CANNOT advertise to get rid of your now stale inventory because... wait for it... AMAZON ONLY LETS THE LOWEST PRICE SELLER ADVERTISE!!! 🤬🤬🤬 There are many other reasons to NOT work with Amazon, but I was trying to avoid the painful memories. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rain Posted January 13 Share Posted January 13 (edited) Wow. That stinks, Craig. Makes me glad that I mostly use Amazon for books and blu-rays, and stuff like tea and cat food. I used to watch a lot of movies on Prime but it seems that almost everything requires a subscription to this or that now, and I received an email recently stating that there would now be ads during Prime movies. For movies, imho, it's no longer worth it but I order enough stuff from them to make them membership worth it. Interestingly enough, and on a more positive note, I found out a while a few years ago that they also print certain books on demand. I was looking for a French translation of a book by Nietzsche (mine was falling part) and I received it unexpectedly soon after I passed the order. I've received a few of those since, usually the day after I order because they get printed almost immediately after I order them. Like this one ordered June 15th. Edited January 13 by Rain Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bitflipper Posted January 13 Author Share Posted January 13 16 hours ago, kitekrazy said: The problem with China is they steal patents and designs. So far they are not good at stealing quality. Here's a different take: what they are good at is cutting corners to lower the cost of manufacture. Long before China was flooding the world with cheap garbage, they were subcontracting for North American and European manufacturers. Working for foreign companies who stressed one prime directive: make it cheaply. Since that was their bread 'n butter, that became the nexus of their collective expertise. Chinese engineers learn the same stuff in school as everybody else, so it's not like they suffer from mass incompetence. Every engineer learns the concept of "high quality, on-time, or cheap; pick two". When a trusted high-end brand such as Telefunken hired them to increase the profit margin for microphones, the engineers were given a clear mission - make an existing product that looked the same but was cheap to manufacture. So they did. They came up with a microphone that looked exactly like a $3000 Telefunken but cost under $100 to make. Unfortunately, it did not sound like a Telefunken and when users tore them down they found that the guts of the mic were far inferior to the German-made original. You could in fact buy the same exact microphone under a Chinese brand for $150. It was the greedy executives at Telefunken who were the villains of that story. The only thing that's changed is that the Chinese got smart and cut out the middle man, instead selling their cheap crap directly to consumers. Amazon made that possible. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Vere Posted January 13 Share Posted January 13 (edited) I owned a music store for 12 years so I’m a huge fan of only shopping in real music stores. But they were always 250 miles away. I’d load up on my Daddario strings so I wouldn’t run out. I noticed they sell them on Amazon and I bought a set for my classical guitar and they seemed low quality??? I then learned that they are not the same ones you get in a music store. They are fakes made in China. I bought those cheap acoustic squares a few years ago and they make great packing for gig suitcases! You’ll see them in a lot of videos. Have you considered a nice thick set of drapes? A band I was in once practiced in a garage and he had scored these old theatre curtains which he would close to cover the door and his messy toolbench. That and an orange shagg carpet and the acoustics were pretty good. Edited January 13 by John Vere 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigb Posted January 13 Share Posted January 13 Looks legit... 4 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bitflipper Posted January 14 Author Share Posted January 14 12 hours ago, John Vere said: Have you considered a nice thick set of drapes? Too expensive. I have exactly $193.01 to spend. I started with $200 but downloaded an MP3 album for $6.99. A symphonic metal band from Sweden featuring four girl singers that does epic covers of 80's-era American Top 40 hits. Couldn't resist. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
X-53mph Posted January 14 Share Posted January 14 17 hours ago, John Vere said: Have you considered a nice thick set of drapes? A band I was in once practiced in a garage and he had scored these old theatre curtains which he would close to cover the door and his messy toolbench. That and an orange shagg carpet and the acoustics were pretty good. Back when I used practise studios before gigging, I went to a particular studio in London Archway (underneath a railway bridge). They used heavy carpet nailed to the walls and drape curtains, like a scene from Twin Peaks. It works great for insulating, but it's a killer if you have dust allergies. @bitflipper what kind of insulation are you looking for? To prevent sound from getting out or into the room Or to prevent reflections? I've spent a lot of time researching this subject. I might have some suggestions, depending on what you need. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Notes_Norton Posted January 14 Share Posted January 14 I'm old enough to remember when the junk was made in Japan. Where the cheap labor is, the junk will be produced. Even the USA or European corporate brands that have their goods made in the cheap labor countries are guilty. After all, moving there in the first place is to cut costs. I've purchased some good Made-In-China products, and I've purchased some cheap Made-In-USA crap too. IMO, internet order is like mail-order, where you can't hold the product in your hand before buying. That makes it difficult to see obviously cheap crap. And sadly, many products that we used to buy locally, are no longer available locally. I can't buy a pro-level saxophone anywhere within at least 250 miles from here. A couple of stores will carry a student model, but that's it. On the other hand, we can get things on the Internet that were never available locally. I guess everything has its pro/con duality. So we take our chances when we wish upon stars. And so many of the ratings are false. You get the 5 stars clandestinely written by the company selling the product, and the 1 star bogus reviews written by competitors. Sometimes it's tough to sift through the garbage. I always make sure I get a no questions asked return product. As long as Amazon or whoever is going to pay for the return postage, I have an out if it doesn't meet my expectations. Notes ♫ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Vere Posted January 14 Share Posted January 14 Thrift stores often have old drapes. New would be expensive for sure. You can make nice cloth ones out of landscaping cloth and mineral wool. We make Roxul insulation here in my town. They make a special sound proofing batt that are for partition walls. My studio is in the basement and the ceiling is not finished. So I put Roxul in there and covered the ceiling with landscaping cloth. My wife says she only can hear the bass. And it’s very quiet. I have a dozen guitars hanging on the back wall which is made out of chip board and between them I have the cheap foam things. My studio is very dead. There’s a difference between having a treated room and just a dead room. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigb Posted January 14 Share Posted January 14 I don't know if I have any pictures but, when I was doing some voice-overs for a trade-show video I simply used moving blankets clipped to things like a mobile laundry hanging rack. Made for excellent gobos! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
57Gregy Posted January 14 Share Posted January 14 Egg crates and carpet swatches. And no-pest strips. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bitflipper Posted January 15 Author Share Posted January 15 8 hours ago, craigb said: ...when I was doing some voice-overs for a trade-show video I simply used moving blankets clipped to things like a mobile laundry hanging rack... At one point I had screwed planter hooks all over my ceiling for the purpose of hanging moving blankets. Somewhere around here I still have a box of U-Haul moving blankets I'd bought just for that purpose. They have convenient eyelets that fit over the hooks. That was early in my acoustical journey, though, and at the time I did not yet understand the relationship between wavelengths and the thickness and density of absorbtive materials. By the time I'd moved from the bedroom to the garage I was able to apply what I'd learned and now sit in a forest of rigid fiberglass. Still, there is some value to thin absorbers. They do work on reflections above 2KHz that tend to interfere with speech intelligibility. Certainly helpful in vocal booths, especially for voice-overs. Hopefully, it'll also help my bass player, who stands in front of said garage door at rehearsal, to locate those elusive pitches in his harmony parts. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhonoBrainer Posted January 15 Share Posted January 15 I've spent the last four days over-researching laptops, ssd upgrades, ram upgrades. I sleuthed Amazon, B&H, and Best Buy. I ended up buying the laptop, memory stick, and ssd from B&H. I needed pry tools and small screwdrivers for the opening of the laptop. Bought those on Amazon for $9.98. Cheap crap has its place, and that would be Amazon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Byron Dickens Posted January 15 Share Posted January 15 7 hours ago, 57Gregy said: Egg crates and carpet swatches. And no-pest strips. Egg cartons don't do anything except create a fire hazard. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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