Thinking back to 1999 - 2000 if you ran an Associated you used Reedy / LRP or if you ran a Losi you ran Trinity / Novak. It was a team thing, you weren't flying the flag correctly if you did it differently.

Nowadays it seems all sorts of manufacturers have successfully entered the race offering quality products to choose from.

Around the pits you often listen to guys chat about having an Orca ESC with a Trinity Motor and LRP lipos, and that if they squint differently, hold their breath and hop on one leg it appears their car is going fractionally quicker than when they used the LRP Esc Reedy Motor and Revtec Lipos.

The question I always wonder is, what really is the difference? I've spent the past decade as an International Sourcing Buyer for numerous leading Australian, New Zealand and American companies as well as owning my own sourcing companies.

I've looked into this space on numerous occasions and you will be quite amazed at how few genuine factories (not agents, factories) there are in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong Manufacturing these products.

Take Motors for example; you have an armature, a stator, a can and bearings. Unless a tribe of elves dillegently sat and matched stator to armature (R1 and Trinity do have such elves) really what's coming off the shelves is, well the same thing. At the end of the day there is only so many K.v an electric motor with your wined of choice can pump out.

So yes some brands have a cult like following, Trinity is nowhere near the brand it was in the early 2000's, yet it still has a core following of guys who insist using their motors to win anything.

Admittedly being an on road man I can be a little OCD and like to see things looking neat and tidy. Universal colours etc. (sorry)

But we still use our brand of choice for our LiPos, ESCs and Motors I.e. muchmore throughout. Or is it now a pick n mix culture and leave the brand matching for pros?

Keen to hear thoughts on matching and also setups others run.

I'm Luckily I can match my socks in the morning no less my RC stuff LOL
It does seem that most stuff nowadays comes from one or two factories and just gets re-branded to suit . Might be a little bit better quality control for some things , Like in CPUs that get cherry picked for higher OC so higher price .
Same probably happens in RC electronics .
Probably only electronics that i match are the trans-receiver because you have to . For the rest ??? ehhh needless to say I have way too many program cards

I agree with the comments. Most stuff is just rebranded anymore, but that I believe is somewhat caused by the fact modelers have set higher standards over the years of what to expect from a product and like you said, there is only so much you can do away from the basic principles. That is also unfortunately what will hold back any spectacular advancedments due to supply and demand. Just like the CPU example by the last commenter. Fact is PC's are about 3-4 generations behind. RC is no different.

Matching Socks, that did have me laughing.

It is interesting, anybody with a little capital and a desire to do so can get into something, approach a factory asking for OEM and you have yourself a brand.
Intellect make the majority of branded LiPo's on the market. So long as you meet the MOQ's they'll put whatever you want on the battery.

I was reading into Nosram who have been industry leaders in computer technology in this space for many years, their ESC's do not come cheap, particularly here in Australia.

If there is any particular benefit to be had it's in the computer or ESC.

I don't see the Motor or LiPo providing any real benefit based on my research

well in my rs4 race car (in stock class) i use a traxxas xl5 esc, an axial 27t motor, a flysky tx/rx and a trx servo, switching to something a little less dead soon, a turnigy mg similar specs to a 2075 this is it, http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...FWxo7Aod00YAFA so once i switch none of my electronics will match me, being only 13 i have to bargin hunt %95 of the time so when i have more money i will go for an sv3 combo (have on in the bandit) but in a time where i have less funds i will go with a sv3 esc but say a neweer or a leopard motor the only thing i will strictly keep with is castle esc's

Yep, with smaller demographics manufacturers have to rely on the same sources.

For me, the core electronics like the radio and receiver, I would like to keep it within the same brand just from a reliability stand point. I don't race any more so the other electronics I am pretty open to suggestions regardless of the brand.

The hole brand thing back in the day...I get it. I was an Associated dude running Reedy motors, and my buddy went to the dark side...Losi w/ anything purple (Trinity). Then came the brushless motors/LiPo batteries to the playing field and that opened up what RC is today...oodles and oodles of re-branded products.

I don't want to get in too deep on the re-branded "thing". If you have been in the hobby for the past couple of years, and you veer away from the top elite brands, you can pretty much see/tell when something is the same i.e. motor/ESC/RTR radios/4 button type chargers/batteries ...just different ink/stickers on them.

Oh, and the color still means a lot to some. I don't mind what brand of gear I get to put in my kits... As long as it has decent specs; I will put anything blue (or black/silver motors) in my Associated FT kits to match up with the FT parts.

Since 1977, I only ran whatever was the best or fastest. LOL

They've had to in a lot of ways, now days kids parents buy them a $80 video game and a playstation and it keeps them happy for a few months.

Here in Sydney you turn up to meets and even the guys running the 21.5 classes are using the top of the range gear, parent's cant be expect to for out $3000 for a setup. It's insane.
But that's another discussion.

Recently I did some research into LiPo's and one company is making 95% of the brands out there, all with varying stickers. So when it came to replacing mine I went with the Acorn MAD series, made in Singapore. Which has a smaller concentration of skilled workers manufacturing up there.

Orion, Reedy, Orca and Muchmore all come out of the same plant.

Regarding radio gear, absolutely run the same, the Japanese make Casio watches. Futaba, Sanwa and KO Propo, all three are equally as good as one another.

I know other industries it's simply QC. A cheaper no name brand will let more go through that need to be returned. While some name brands add their own level of QC when they get the shipments from the same factories. Their tolerances on the % of faulty product is simply a lot tighter.

Will a Spectrum Transmitter be compatible and work with a Futaba receiver?

I know for me I like to have my stuff match as much as possible. Not a fan of using Futaba and then another brand servo. If I run Futaba I run Futaba servos and so on. Kinda have OCD with that kind of stuff and my Radio and electronics in general always have to looks like brand new or I will sell them and get new. I really do everything I can to keep my stuff matching and neat at all times.

No

All that OCD and you'll run Castle ESC's, the ugliest turd out there