Made in China Carl Martin Red Repeat good, bad?

[Dave Locher]

I have been hunting for a used delay. I have found a good price on a used Red Repeat, version 2. The tone control seems very useful. It is made in China.

Is a name-brand pedal made in China any better than a Chinese brand like Biyang or Nux?

[Hank-]

Re: Made in China Carl Martin Red Repeat good, bad?

Not tried it but seen the trapezium shaped one, looks like they come in a normal box now. The previous shape took up unwanted space. Biyang stuff sounds alright, nux i haven't come across. I'll add some more delays for ya to keep an eye out for

Digitech Digidelay
Ibanez DE7
Garagetone Axle Grease
Joyo Quattro
Memory Toy(this ones full analog)
Trex (forgot the name lol)
Boss DD(3,7,5 etc.)
Flashback Mini
Nova Repeater (not exactly cheap used but good one)

[Dave Locher]

Re: Made in China Carl Martin Red Repeat good, bad?

But the other question remains: is a known brand (like Digitech or Carl Martin) pedal that's manufactured in China of better quality than a pedal that is of Chinese brand? I just sold a Joyo compressor and it was NOT the same as the MXR Super Comp that replaced it. I don't want to pay used MXR prices for Joyo quality, if you see what I mean? I would rather spend less for a "Chinese" pedal if the Chinese-made brand-name pedals aren't any better, OR save a few more bucks and buy a used American or at least Japanese pedal. But the tone control on the Red Repeater really appeals to me.
I'm doing all of my shopping online because I live in a podunk city with music stores that have limited selection and SERIOUS markup, which means I can't try out any pedals before I buy them and I'm hoping to end the flipping on eBay cycle soon.

[Hank-]

Re: Made in China Carl Martin Red Repeat good, bad?

It varies from pedal to pedal, hard to say really if a particular chinese brand pedal would be the right one since they are hard to come by across in stores. The stuff like visual sound, tce, digitech, vox, etc. can have a better layout circuit wise & component wise, where as with say certain joyo pedals there could be a compromise made in design during production for cost, poor buffer than the original for e.g.

There's better resale on popular brands than uncommon ones, that's for sure though. It's always better to save up for a better featured, quality components unit if possible.

[Lysergene]

Re: Made in China Carl Martin Red Repeat good, bad?

The Boss RE-20 is very decent. It has bass and treble controls for the repeats (something I wish my Moog delay had, it's so dark) You can choose the number of virtual tape heads and comes with a spring reverb emulator. It goes into self oscillation well and you could run it over with a car.

I have a Line 6 DL4 Delay Modeller also. It feels flimsy by comparison and are notoriously bad for faults. I believe they used to have metal housing and decent switches, then they started to build them differently. I'm not sure if they started to make them in China but I'd go and check it out first.

[PFDarkside]

Re: Made in China Carl Martin Red Repeat good, bad?

It varies from pedal to pedal, hard to say really if a particular chinese brand pedal would be the right one since they are hard to come by across in stores. The stuff like visual sound, tce, digitech, vox, etc. can have a better layout circuit wise & component wise, where as with say certain joyo pedals there could be a compromise made in design during production for cost, poor buffer than the original for e.g.

There's better resale on popular brands than uncommon ones, that's for sure though. It's always better to save up for a better featured, quality components unit if possible.

I agree with this. Chinese manufacturing has come a long way. I'd put more trust in an American/Japanese/European designed pedal made in China than a Chinese designed ripoff pulled from a schematic on freestompboxes.org.