I read the review… The hubris is staggering…
Our company does some work for OEMs (firmware) in the car radio business and I cannot begin to tell you how hollowed-out western R&D/design has become. Venerable old brands are nothing more than marketing companies now.
Also… I decided to keep these junkpiles for no other reason than to experience what folks are mixing on (and the fact that sweetwater didn’t like the idea of issuing a refund / out of stock blah blah blah… PIA not worth any effort). So for fun we pulled the bad box apart and fixed it (cold-soldered cap) and the work was pretty-much as appalling as you would expect. Its not as though one or two expensive components were sacrificed at the alter of micro-pennies - Every single component we looked at was bottom-dollar, low tolerance junk including wire and PCB. We did not spend that much time on it but if I had to guess, an additional $5.00 on the BOM could have made the difference between junk and respectable. This 5 bucks would translate into $50.00 (max) at retail (assuming 5x from BOM to retail which is not uncommon). But no - make it as cheap as possible that’s it, that’s all. Is there no end to the great race to the bottom?