I came here to say something similar. I've become genuinely disturbed at how substandard generic peripherals have become. What's especially disturbing to me is

I came here to say something similar. I've become genuinely disturbed at how substandard generic peripherals have become. What's especially disturbing to me is that the problem often seems to be drifting from spec standards, adhering to specs just enough to be functional for most products for just long enough. I have a audio system that I went through like 4 generic cables on. I was just about to get a replacement system when I saw Anker enthusiastically recommended somewhere, and thought I'd give it a last-ditch chance. It's worked beautifully, no problems. I've seen similar issues with other types of cables. The scope of the problem is astonishing to me--it's like the manufacturing standards at 85% of producers just suddenly went out the window over the last 5 years or so. I suspect there's a good newsstory somewhere there.