A friend of mine bought from e-bay a Chineese cdp, the MHZS cd33. He phone me and today we met and we opened up the unit, suddently what he thought was a bargain changed to a fake product.

It cames with a Sony KSS-213Q pickup, but....Sony don't make a KSS-213Q pickups... these are el cheapo sweatshop jobs you can pick up for a few Euros or Dollars.
It amazes me that six moons - two years ago - even refers to it as a "sony" laser pickup (even shows a picture of it!) http://www.sixmoons.com/audioreviews/raysonic/cd128.html.

It also amazes me that the $1700 Raysonic CD-128, Spark Audio's CDT-23 and Shanling's HDCD-S12 should be using such a "moody" laser pickup.... No such thing as a "SONY KSS-213Q" pickup..... fact.

It just makes me wonder how much Chinese gear employs counterfeit / fake parts.... quite a lot I'd imagine...

Another thing is these so called "reviewers" haven't got a bloody clue..... time they started to earn their living and do some research I think...

The OPA2604 I removed from the CD33 looks nothing like the OPA2604 I know of.
Possible the 2604 in the CD33 is nothing more than an NE5532 with "OPA2604" printed onto it.

The Rubycons caps are fakes, no need to remove them from the board to determine that, the printing on the sleeves is just awful.......and the ELNA Silmic, Mcaps, SCR etc. i just don't know....

I'm just stunned with all this.

Why be stunned? I considered the raysonic last year, but I said to myself "hold out" what sounds good on paper is probrably overated. Generally I think sixmoons is mostly gloss and caters to their advertisers. I think they're very clever at it but its whomever is paying the bills that gets their blue moon awards. I think sterephile has similar problems but at least they provide measurements. sometimes the measurments are not that flattering.

After buying my Almarro and response audio speaks, I've lost my love for gear that is slightly off the beaten path. That's why I was considering the rega...and still am. I've become very skeptical unless I find multiple good reviews about something. I'd rather pay a premium for great gear than to be stuck with a "giant killer" which in all reality probrably doesn't stack up.

I've also noticed that sixmoons has a very cushy relationship with NAT distribution/quest for sound. Turns out they are the NA distributor for raysonic.

FWIW

Wait.
I'm not saying the MHZS cd33 sounds bad. For the contrary. It sounds really great! It’s a top quality design and as solid as a rock...Nevertheless, some of the parts inside are definitely fakes or...... clones.

It may sound great but imagine how much better it would sound if they used the actual parts they intended to use. Why would they do that though? They can make so much money by being dishonest and then getting someone to hawk their gear with glossy reviews/ads.