Not my experience at all.
I've been part of successful offshoring at a few different companies. It wasn't "one and done", that is, we had to try different countries, different subcontractors, etc but it is totally possible to maintain quality AND lower engineering costs by 50-75% by offshoring.
For those interested, my best experience has been with workers in LATAM countries. Pry 75% were Brazilians. Great timezone and culture match also most of them have good written/spoken english.