How to save Bang & Olufsen

182 replies
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cooldude wrote:

TripEnglish wrote:

There was a bit of a miscommunication there. User programability has been a big issue for me. The customer should be able to have most, if not total, control over their programming. It was the "watching TV on your remote" that I think is useless.

No prob, Trip, 

And the 'watching tv on your remote' I only took as an example coming from the article of the samsung remote I read) and sounds as useless to me as it obviously does to you. But how about it shows the album covers and playlists you have on your BS5?
However I do keep an open mind and a 'programmable' system like that (let's say with apps) can offer some interesting ideas and functionality and make your remote even further customizable.... and more futureproof...

 

Then we're in agreement. When I started this thread back in 1788, one of the first points I made was that the BeoSound 5 should be a wireless tablet device and more of a fully functioning remote than one dealing only with limited sources. 

As for how to get through to Stuer... well, I'd try a fax. 😜

"Squeeze" the ($200,-) Logitech Squeezebox Controller in the Beo5, and you have a 2-way wifi-remote. The Beo5 would than be a perfect match with the Beosound5.

Browsing through n.radio and n.music with your beo5 would be a very cool gadget.

 

TripEnglish wrote:

...........................When I started this thread back in 1788, one of the first points I made was that the BeoSound 5 should be a wireless tablet device and more of a fully functioning remote than one dealing only with limited sources. 

As for how to get through to Stuer... well, I'd try a fax. 😜

1788. Following the unsporting conduct of America, the British switched to Australia for colonisation. Denmark and Norway started a war with Sweden.

No wonder no one took any notice of Trip and his wireless tablet idea. 👍

alenvprekrsku wrote:

Ok. Yes it is the same factory but in Europe the work is done by better paid and protected worker (Flexicurity). As well as enviroment is more protected.

So you're paying more for the same work but it's still foreign built.  And this is a good idea why?

cooldude wrote:

If B&O made an Iphone they would not want to sell 50 billion of them either and certainly not market them at a 299$ consumer price either.
So if B&O would market it's own customized iphone at $2000 you still would pay that price for a product that comes of the same chinese assembly line ? wow

I have no problem with apple products and I am a mac user myself. 

I, personally, think they should.  They should design good quality, good looking products at a low price point with large profit margins and sell them in every store with an electronics section.  They should build something they can sell for twice what it cost to make that everyone wants and can buy.  If they do this then they will make money and we won't have to worry about them going under.  Consumers will buy the product, figure out how good it is, and maybe check the next level of product, which could be a nice looking, nice sounding, nicely designed bookshelf system for $1500 or whatever's reasonable.  Maybe then that person thinks "wow, this is great" and moves up.  That's how they got me.  First, A8 headphones, then a Century, then upwards from there.  You hook a 20 year old college student with a $600 computer speaker system that smokes anything else at that price point (the Bose Companion 5, for example... surely they can make something better than that for the same price) and then maybe in a few years when that guy has a job he'll get a BS4 or something.

Profit margins and repeat customers keep companies in business.  If they're in business they'll keep making the stuff we like.  If they're not, they won't.

Oki, let's talk for fun...

 

dilznik wrote:

1&2: this is "fake" product , althought price is cheaper. Evenmore, the quality is standard, but customer will think in his mind that "quality is  more and more reduced"

- Yes, because building it in Czech Republic is just like building it in Denmark whereas building it in China is not.  They could build it in Vietnam and not only make a great product cheaply, but it would save on shipping costs to you.

B&O product is not like Garment/Shoes products, when all material shipped to China, Asia,....and only for labor. Now ProAC, Dyn Audio, B&W already has their speaker produced in China, and now most of speaker named ProAC, Dyn Audio, B&W... with sounds like "fake" product (quality controled again in mother country) and some really is  fake product, made by Chinese. I had come to Guangzhou/Shanghai some times, and see a lot of speaker name B&W lied outside in the street, everywhere. Sonus Faber has cooperate with a Taiwan firm, and now lots of Usher product look like Sonus faber.

If it is cheap, it is not B&O. B&O tends to be the No.1 in quality, in design, in trend, in technology, but not cheap No.1.

 

 

 

Hihi, and I say the last.

This topic is useless for B&O...

 

Giang Nguyen wrote:

Oki, let's talk for fun...

If it is cheap, it is not B&O. B&O tends to be the No.1 in quality, in design, in trend, in technology, but not cheap No.1.

 

This is... um... this is just crazy.  So you're saying B&O *needs* to be expensive?  They shouldn't worry about increasing consumer base and profit margins?  They should just, you know, be expensive?  Maybe I'm not getting what you're trying to say here.

So do you think everything is just fine, all their products are fine, the price/quality ratio is fine, the company is on the right track, that sort of thing?

Hardwriter wrote:

Bayerische, you say:

"Well if Apple was 5-10 times the cost of a PC, as Beovisions are to their competition, I wouldn't buy Macs. They're good, but not that good. Nothing is worth 5-10 times the competition. Apple is about 1,5 to 2 times more expensive than the PC equivalent. If Beovisions where the same, or even 3 times more expensive I wouldn't hesitate.

But you use a Rolex avatar. Is that the exception that proves the rule?

B&O pricing is high but not too high for the market it aims as long as it gets the product desirability right.

Please elaborate on your Rolex theory...? I'm interested to see where it goes...

dilznik wrote:

cooldude wrote:

Even you will have to admit that the Beo5 is an utter disaster and needs continuous channel programming ? Ridiculous if you buy an 800$ remote that needs 200$ of programming every 6 months to bring it up to date ....

 

If Beo5 could control everything in your rack whether it was a B&O product or not, and people could program it at home without hackware off the interwebz that cost money, and if it was $200, they'd sell a million of them.  Or at least a few hundred thousand.

No need to dump the prices there. The better programmable remotes that are around aren't that cheap after all, and people still buy them. There's a huge demand for those, as for example the useless audio on most current (non-B&O) TVs forces people to have a home theatre system as well. Nobody really wants to have an array of remotes on the sofa table.

This could be a great entry product for B&O, if you could actually use it without any other B&O equipment, and it was genuinely user programmable along the lines that Logitech has. Anybody who handles a B&O remote would understand and appreciate how it will cost more than a plastic Pronto or Logitech.

But I guess the programmability issue will never be solved in a manner that non-nerds could do it for themselves... the Beo5 seems another victim demonstrating how the software department of B&O is either badly managed, badly underpowered, or most probably both.

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