Zhenghao

Some of these Chinese mouthpieces aren't bad at all. I've tried several over the years and actually have two pretty good ones. Almost every one of them has much better workmanship that the original piece they are copied after. The problem is usually design and finish. Baffle design is often simplified in some way to make manufacturing easier. Many "gold plated" pieces are really just brass with lacquer and the lacquer kind of screws up the facings and tables. The silver ones usually don't have this trouble.

The two I have that are really good are both Selmer clones. One is an alto silver piece that has always played really well with beautiful tone. The other is a gold soprano piece that I had to level the table on and lightly remove the lacquer for the rest of the facing. It has a very dark sound which is exactly with I wanted from the metal piece on soprano. I bought the alto piece on a lark and got the soprano piece because I didn't want to spend two hundred for a real Selmer metal and then possibly not like it. I'm very lucky that this $25 clone cleaned up so nicely.

So as long as you don't have to depend on the piece being good right out of the box and as long as you're not spending your last dime to buy it, I see no problem trying out one of these Chinese knockoffs. It's really a pretty cheap gamble.