A thing I think about now and again is the manufacturer of the top rods, whilst they are built over here, where is the Carbon cloth sourced ? Apparently there are only a small number of carbon manufacturers, and if the most competitively priced carbon cloth comes from the far East it would make sense to purchase it, even through a middle man that may be based in Europe/USA, now if the top rods used this carbon, and given that they also use components like rings, shrinktube etc already from the far East would this make them far Eastern rods ?
I know some will say it's an inferior Carbon (which I don't think is the case as you just purchase the standard of Carbon you require, Toray etc) Just a thought !!
