folkdeejay wrote:

Jonathan wrote:

I think Dkatz is just a snob, pure and simple...

 

Snob or otherwise, it seems he has seen and experienced an awful lot of designer items, brands and retailers ( not to mention the numerous factory visits round Europe !!) in the his first eight years of adulthood.

I say first eight years, as he describes himself as 27 and sadly unemployed for over a year now.  ( my deepest sympathies for that)

That means a very busy period aged 18 - 25 getting exposure to so many high end consumer goods - seemingly far more than I have, with 20 years extra adult life "life" behind me. 🤔

I actually just got offered a job I will be taking. It's an entry level admin position but it pays well enough and is not bad, plus I can either move up in the company and/or find a job that's more suitable.

Many of you may think I am some rich snob, but to be honest, I come from a working class blue collar family: my mother is a manicurist and my father is a taxi driver. We never had much money, and I always aspired since I was a kid to own a Beosound Ouverture. Some of my fondest memories of my childhood were spent at B&O stores in the early-mid 90s. This is why the company and its products hold a special place for me in my heart. They bring a tinge of nostalgia to me. When I used to come in and here the amazing quality of those systems, even as a kid I knew they were something special. This on top of the innovation of design such as the sliding doors and use of metals. Perhaps when I save money and purchase more B&O in the future it will be mostly these 90s Danish made units that I was always so fond of.

Yes, I like the finer things in life. But who doesn't? I have a very keen eye for detail and I am very discerning about quality. For me quality is more about fit and finish, hand assembly, etc.. more than just whether it works or not. Lotus and Alfa Romeo might be considered unreliable but that does not mean poor build quality, as the fit and finish of these cars is absolutely beautiful, and they have way better interiors than competitors at that price.

I actually do my own leather craftwork myself. I buy european leathers, because they are the best, bar none. I hand stitch every purse I make with european Barbours 100% waxed linen thread and no I don't make a profit out of it but I do it for passion as a gift to my friends. I have yet to see any decent leather come out of China or any other developing country. When I see a leather good, I can tell right away if it was made from European or Chinese or Indian leather for example. I have a good friend who is a Bespoke Shoemaker in Japan, Koji Suzuki, he makes some of the best shoes in the world that take 6 months to make, completely by hand. All of his leathers come from tanneries in Europe, why? Because he says that it is impossible to find anything of decent quality in Asia at all... Like I said, I have yet to see a fit and finish in my craft, or even in A/V or any high quality equipment that comes from China to the attention to detail that I as a consumer would find satisfactory.

B&O for A/V is like Louis Vuitton for leather, John Lobb or Edward Green for Shoes, Rolls Royce for Cars, Leica for Cameras, etc... And if they don't outsource their "craft" then neither should B&O, they can survive and so can B&O. If it's outsourced to mass manufacture for cheap it is not a product made by craftsmen anymore, therefore not an artisan product!

I haven't even mentioned the difference in safety standards yet, which is another major issue with consumer products that are made in China. For example use of lead in childrens toys (Mattel), shrimp and other seafood that's been treated with antibiotics and chemicals, chemically treated leather, and many many other such things that have required some of the biggest recalls in retail history. I'm sure these companies did not "request" that they put these things in their products, they just gave them a requirment to make something but the way they make that or what they put in it is not in the control of the companies outsourcing there... Again standards are completely different!

Dkatz wrote:

 I lived in London for 5 ½ years, which is probably far more multicultural than any city in Australia. I met and befriended people from almost every country in the world, and as mentioned I had flatmates from China, Japan, Cameroon, France, England, Italy, many countries in that time period. I learned about their cultures, customs, etc... Actually I found that the Chinese I knew were probably the ones most disappointed in Chinese quality.

 

Clearly you've never travelled out of the UK! London is not very multicultural at all! Same with most of Europe! And clearly you know nothing about Australia!

you know, i started typing a rant about your attitude to the rest of the world and i just can't be bothered. lose your narrow minded attitude and discover a bit more about the world (not as a tourist) before you make judgements. your postings show you do not know what you're talking about, and your inability to accept what other people have said clearly shows this!

The sad thing in the grand scheme is that these guys are the very audience B&o were attempting to pull into the fold.

We all didn't expect BL5's... at least those of us who understand, lest appreciate exactly what they are trying to do!

Jonathan wrote:

Dkatz wrote:

 I lived in London for 5 ½ years, which is probably far more multicultural than any city in Australia. I met and befriended people from almost every country in the world, and as mentioned I had flatmates from China, Japan, Cameroon, France, England, Italy, many countries in that time period. I learned about their cultures, customs, etc... Actually I found that the Chinese I knew were probably the ones most disappointed in Chinese quality.

 

 

Clearly you've never travelled out of the UK! London is not very multicultural at all! Same with most of Europe! And clearly you know nothing about Australia!

you know, i started typing a rant about your attitude to the rest of the world and i just can't be bothered. lose your narrow minded attitude and discover a bit more about the world (not as a tourist) before you make judgements. your postings show you do not know what you're talking about, and your inability to accept what other people have said clearly shows this!

Actually I am from  Baku, Azerbaijan originally. I grew up in San Francisco, spent 5 1/2 years studying and working in the UK, and have traveled all over Europe and Japan among other countries. I am a native bilingual of Russian and speak some Japanese as well. Am I not multicultural myself? Along with my MA in International Studies with an International Economics background then I don't know who is. London IS extremely multicultural, especially in comparison to other European cities I have visited or even any city in America that I have lived in. Have you actually lived there for any given amount of time? I would say Japan is the least multicultural of any country I have visited as 99% of the people there are Japanese.... Why does me talking about the horrible treatment of Chinese labour suddenly make me insensitive to different cultures?

And your attitude is not narrow minded? You have yet to answer any of the questions I have asked, or to see my points or argue them. All you and many other people on the forum keep doing is personally attacking me by saying I am not multicultural or have not lived in a multicultural city or talking about my age or that I am a snob. This is completely uncalled for, random, rude and irrelevant to the discussion at hand!

Why don't you and other forum members try to argue each and every point I make and actually answer some of the questions I have posed instead of throwing insults?

burantek wrote:

The sad thing in the grand scheme is that these guys are the very audience B&o were attempting to pull into the fold.

We all didn't expect BL5's... at least those of us who understand, lest appreciate exactly what they are trying to do!

I think many of these guys will be coming into the fold.  Most of them will not care about the things we have discussed.  In all honesty when I purchased a new Beomaster 5000 some years ago, I didn't know it was made in Denmark.  I thought it was really cool and sounded great.  I had to have it.  I am still a Beofan.

I learned a lot from this discussion.  I spent time doing research on Rolls Royce, Bentley, and others.  Things I really needed to know. 😁

Beolab 5 is definitely on my want list but I keep thinking they are going to do an update soon.  I think someone mentioned the possibility of a new speaker positioned above BL5.

Dkatz, you better stop while you are ahead.  The United States is very multicultural and linguistically diverse.

http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0052.pdf

linder wrote:

Dkatz, you better stop while you are ahead.  The United States is very multicultural and linguistically diverse.

http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0052.pdf

I know, I never said it wasn't! I've lived here almost my whole life. I am a US citizen, grew up here and live here now. It really depends on where you live in the US. Living in San Francisco most of my life, I never encountered the types of people that I did in London and from so many countries. Even when I did encounter people from other countries, it was mostly 2nd or 3rd generations, in London it was all recent migrants, or for the most part people who were studying or working in London. San Francisco has something like 52% Asian population so you don't get the huge diversity of Europeans or Africans you do in London so they are quite different. Either way I have met people from more cultures, that speak more languages, and that are much less integrated and assimilated in London than I have in the US and I have lived about 18 of my 27 here in the US so far!

Dkatz wrote:

I am sure if you asked B&O why they don't outsource their higher end products I bet you they will say that it is exactly for the reason of keeping them at a high standard and high quality with hand assembly, etc... They will give you the same reasons that other high end manufacturers give. Again if China is so amazing at manufacturing then why don't ALL high end brands (especially a/v brands) manufacture in China?

How many times do you need to repeat the same question? I thought it had been answered at least once pages and pages ago.

Because their business models are completely different! Most of these "high-end" manufactures aren't that far from garage operations I mentioned. If you sell a few hundred very expensive products per year, outsourcing it anywhere - let alone to the other side of the world - would be downright silly. Logistics and management alone would cost more than just keep building them in the "garage" downstairs. Many of them are also so expensive compared to their substance that labour costs simply aren't an issue. (Besides, who is to know where they get all their parts - I forget which "high end" CD player I saw that essentially was a $20 OEM DVD drive, undoubtedly from Asia, in a fancy case. You don't receive that kind of rip offs with B&O)

If any of these "high end brands" decided to introduce, say, a $1000 iWhatever and planned to sell 100.000 of them in a few years time, they would reconsider or simply not be able to do it.

No, B&O isn't a "high end" manufacturer in the traditional sense (nor an artisan outfit), however much you would like it to be. Some of the products are "high end" (if you don't ask the "real" high end afficionados...) such as BL5, but I believe even those sell an order of magnitude more than many of their counterparts.

Electronics are not leather purses (nor cars nor houses, or what other silly things have been compared to B&O over the course of this thread). There were days when nice ladies soldered resistors and capacitors between valve socket pins and had something to do with the quality, but those times are over. Reliability of series built electronics is mostly defined by those who design the boards. After that, assembly robots take over, and they don't care much where they run.

***

EDIT: Oh, while we're talking about electronics and such stuff that B&O actually manufactures & sells... let's take TVs. Arguably, B&O's top end there are traditional high end products in the way that there's not much else available that even approaches the price (except perhaps Loewe, which is cheaper in many senses of the word). Static picture quality is obviously the same as with whoever uses the same (good) panels, dynamic PQ probably better than anything due to B&O's proprietary processing in the Beosystem 3. They are also made in Denmark from excellent materials with great attention to detail. According to what we've heard here, all key things are in place, so that wealthy individuals should flock to buy these expensive high end products, and the less blessed of us should work our arses off to some American dream to perhaps one day to be able to afford one. Does this happen? No. All you hear is that they are too expensive and then people go and buy something made of plastic.

Dkatz wrote:

Puncher – Can you show me pictures of videos of the “hand assembly” you mention? I highly doubt it is assembled and quality control tested the same way as the Struer products. I don't have the cost breakdown but perhaps you can give it to me if you know it? Although I doubt that... The point is that it will cost less to produce the materials and components in China, as well as assemble the unit! Much Much less so the profit margin will be much higher in percentage per unit otherwise they would not be there, it's kind of common sense! Perhaps it would look the same, but I believe the quality control would be much more strict as it's their own factory that they can control 100% 24/7. And again I believe there is a reason beyond convenience and cost savings that B&O produced their own plastics and metals factory in Struer, even Automotive companies bought their Aluminum for cars because they knew it was the best available! They could have bought it from China as well! Again Puncher – name some extremely high end luxury products that are outsourced to China? There aren't many, if any... If it were the same quality, B&O would outsource their higher end goods to China as well...

I don't have any videos of the Chinese plant but I can be certain it is "hand assembled" - how else would it be put together, especially in China?? I ask again, perhaps you can explain precisely how it would be assembled differently in Struer? - as far as I know the parts do not fit together in any other configuration (unless of course it is a Decepticon iPod dock)! I also don't have costs, I asked the question because you seemed to know that materials and labour "cost next to nothing", I hoped you could be more specific.

Although you "believe" quality control would be much more strict by manufacturing in Struer there is little if any evidence to support you.

B&O are well known as experts in aluminium processing, no one is doubting their proficiency however this alone is not a justification to manufacture all of their products under the same roof - to  they have no extraordinary talents as injection moulders that I am aware of.

Whoever else manufactures whatever else in China is irrelevant, as has been pointed out now many times - different size business', different markets etc. However, as most of B&O's top of the range product are pretty much built to order, rather than supplied from stock, it makes sense that the assembly plant isn't six weeks away by boat and that individual  palettes of BL5's etc. aren't being shipped halfway around the world for the majority of customers. 

While some of this is only my opinion, I like to think that 30 years experience in the engineering/consumer goods manufacturing industry somewhat limits my chances of being completely wrong. I certainly believe it to be more relevant than vague references to leather purse and silk shirt manufacture.

Well said Mr Tounedos.

Voice of reason in a muddled, woolly headed thread.