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I'm sorry, but for me this thread reeks of snobbery, racism and gross generalisation..
Maybe a little harsh, like I said before I think B&O need a product that sells to the masses BS8 could just be that! Its irrevelabt where its made, It just shows how crazy that its cheaper to use chinese labour and ship around the world! That is the sad part but the market dictates via demand I for one wouldn't be happy to pay £1500 for a ipod dock!
Well said Puncher!
Do I want a well built, stylish, reliable and desirable product...................... yes!
None of the above requires it be built in any specific location, nor does it assume that Danish craftsmen are mystically more skilled or capable than any others.
A lot of what has been mentioned on this thread is about being willing to pay more money for exclusivity, not quality. If that floats your boat then fine .......... it's just unilkely we'll ever hit it off should we ever meet in a bar somewhere.
...............people going through special apprenticeship training schemes learning to assemble this equipment (including B&O), so yes this factors into to quality. If it is made in China it won't have the same apprenticeship schemes....................
Many years ago I completed a craft apprenticeship before heading off to study engineering at University. I've since worked in light engineering/manufacturing for over 25 years and regularly deal with engineers from the UK, US, Germany, Czech and China. I would never presume that I am somehow better skilled or more professional than my Chinese colleagues or that the product from their manufacturing plants is in any way substandard compared to those made in our US or European facilities.
. I would never presume that I am somehow better skilled or more professional than my Chinese colleagues or that the product from their manufacturing plants is in any way substandard compared to those made in our US or European facilities.
Indeed - anyone with an ipad/macbook will know how well made they are - easily on a par with the Danish produced Beocom range.
I am lucky enough to have seen the production line for Beocom 2 in Denmark - it was inspiring to see the aluminium casing go from blank to finished item - and also the care with which the Danes then constructed a phone from the parts (and I now use one everyday at home as a result) but I suspect if I ever saw the line that assembles the aluminium bodied macbooks, I would be just as impressed.
I have to agree that with the exception of some of the real tat - that is obviously from sweatshops and made from suspect materials in probably very pooorly regulated conditions ....ie the disposable items that fills poundshops (but then every country in the world can produce crap - its easy !!) - I really do not see why it matters where things are made anymore.
The concerns about low pay and poor conditions with workers in penury and entire towns beholdento the factory is valid - to a degree - although I am aware that in large parts of the world, what the west now consider to be unnaceptable T&C's are actually seen as a route out of poverty for many workers.
It is also true that we in the west seem to have very short memories 🙁 The UK - and indeed most of the western world - was quite happy to employ millions of people on very similar terms as many emerging markets do now, until very recently. As I look out of my window this very minute, I can see two big mill chimneys from the cotton mills that employed my grandparents generation.
We were also quite happy to pollute, despoil and generally mistreat the natural resources we had access to, including people, until very recently.
I suggest anyone who doubts just how grim it was (and not just 'up North') reads King Cotton by Thomas Armstrong.
Please note that I am not advocating a race to the bottom - just that there is a little less hubris shown about items made in Denmark, the US, UK Germany etc compared to the emerging markets.
To digress:
Leica and Zeiss german lenses are the sharpest in the world?
Highly debateable.
Historically,I remember a Mamiyaflex being tested by AP in the 1960s where the reviewer said that the lenses were so sharp,that for portraiture, he had to put a couple of layers of nylon over them to soften the image.
Then we had the Contax SLRs,and their Zeiss lenses,made by Kyocera in Japan,the quality of which was the equal of anything coming out of Germany.
The build quality of my 10 year old Contax N Digital camera is the equal of anything being currently produced today.
I still have Topcon RE Cameras,and lenses,from the 1960s whose mechanical,and optical,quality is superb.
I would not use Optical lenses as a mark of craftmanship - these highly technical products are machine made regardless of where they are produced, although they may be hand assembled. The quality comes from the optical design and the materials used for manufacture, it has nothing to do with long apprenticeships. I think there is a valid argument regarding craft skills in products such as leatherwares, clothes etc, but not in technical products. The quality boost you may perceive when it is produced in Denmark vs China is largely a perception certainly not a reality. China has factories fitted out with the latest technology and production methods. My concern relating to outsourcing is not a quality issue but an economic and social one, where the West largely removes manufacturing from their economies and leaves a large tranche of unemployed people who could easily be making those same products, or beome dependant on service industries which produce nothing.
The latest Leica camera uses a Kodak sensor. My friends Volvo has a Ford platform, and an engine made near Liverpool. The Boeing 737's that i and the other "last of the summer wine" Chris bang around in hardly have anything made by Boeing in them, apart from the shell. Still a Boeing.
China has stealth fighters and a space programme, we don't.
The latest Leica camera uses a Kodak sensor. My friends Volvo has a Ford platform, and an engine made near Liverpool. The Boeing 737's that i and the other "last of the summer wine" Chris bang around in hardly have anything made by Boeing in them, apart from the shell. Still a Boeing.
China has stealth fighters and a space programme, we don't
.
The UK has developed some of the most amazing aircraft and engines. The Rolls Royce Olympus engines on the Concorde SST was very impressive. That aircraft was an amazing achievement. The economics never worked out. The UK does have stealth fighter but its being done with friends. I think one of the flags on this plane is the Union Jack.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8_4GnCTp578/S6rMcLy7nAI/AAAAAAAABXI/VyONLI2YqVs/s1600/JSF_F35B.jpg
The UK is also a part of European Space Agency. Wings for the Airbus 380 are made in Wales. I could go on.
Volvo is now under Chinese ownership and Kodak is petitioning for bankruptcy.
You make my point better than i do. As for the F35 having a Union flag on it, i wear Nike's and it doesn't make me an athlete. Boeing won't even give the RAF the FBW software codes thats how much we are involved but thats just niff naff.
The brutal truth is that very shortly even some of our premium brand cars will be constructed in China/Vietnam etc, with the West being relelgated to design centres. Not where i want us to be going, but the future and mostly the present.
My concern relating to outsourcing is not a quality issue but an economic and social one, where the West largely removes manufacturing from their economies and leaves a large tranche of unemployed people who could easily be making those same products, or beome dependant on service industries which produce nothing
I agree.
But the pursuit for economic advantage will continue - Apple to Brazil for example (I know it was primarily a strategy to overcome tariffs, but none the less) - and at some point we will see Africa as a cheaper labour pool open up.
But in the mean time what are we doing to ourselves, or more importantly our grandchildren ? The world can not consist of designers designing for other designers.
Here in Australia there is currently a debate about the car industry: should it continue to subsidised to survive ? or should get go the way of the footware industry (disappeared 20 years ago) ?
The tourism industry is putting their counter-claim forward - they employ more people and yet get much less support.
One could be a cynic and say that tourism is spread around the electorates ... car manufacturing is very visible and very localised to a few electorates.
This week we saw an Australia icon, a tomamto sauce factory, shut down, because it is cheaper to operate the NZ factory with NZ tomatoes and ship us the "bottles" (probably arrives in a tanker, yuck).
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