This is an issue with Moondrop. Do not buy when there are a lot of QC reports. Unfortunately, it is hard to gauge as consumer. The more popular a product is, the more they sell, the more failures there are. It is the rate of failure that matters, not the absolute #.

I worked in volume electronics manufacturing. This issue actually has nothing to do with made in China. >95% of the consumer electronics are assembled in China today. There are companies like Apple, Samsung, etc that produce high quality products out of China, but they also cost a premium.

The issue is the balance between engineering and component cost, versus product cost.

• Design. There are design attributes that can impact failures. More design effort and iterations cost time and money.
• Reliability testing. Once development, product and components should go thru reliability testing. This test will help map out failure rate over lifetime (1 year, 2, years, 5 years, etc). When there are failures, design, process, component improvements are needed to address the issue. And whenever changes are made, reliability testing needs to be done. Again, cost time and money.
• BOM cost (component and process tolerances). Manufacturers state the tolerances they require (or can accept) for every component. If tolerances are tight, component cost more; but this ensures products perform closer to design. If tolerances are loosened, component get cheaper; then there are larger variations in performance and reliability.

And there are additional market and value factors. What is the strategy of the company? Is cost the most important? Is the company trying to build a strong following and brand loyalty for many years? Versus just making sales for short term profit?

To me, Moondrop is operating at the very lowest end market with Chu and Arya. They are delivery value/price at expense of quality. As for loyalty, I don't know if that can exist in low-end cut-throat IEM market? I do see some loyalty in headphones. Some are repeat customers of Hifiman, Sennheiser, Beyerdynamic, etc. (I know Hifiman has its own QC concerns. But I personally own 2 Hifimans).