Paul Winn wrote:

I totally agree with everything that Dude1 is saying. What i'm finding amusing is people are defending this product because it is 'entry level'. Entry level at £900!!! Entry level at £250 maybe. The joke is £900 in the UK would actually buy a top quality seperates system with proper speakers. 

It's like spending £900 on an Armani suit to then find out it has been made in the same factory as a £50 Top Man suit.

Bang and Olufsen I've bought your products for many many years. I think you are now taking loyal customers for a total ride and quite frankly i think as a company, YOU ARE A TOTAL DISGRACE AND I FOR ONE SHALL NEVER PART WITH MY HARD EARNED CASH TO BUY YOUR SUB STANDARD EXPENSIVE RUBBISH!!! I had my doubts last week upon listening to this expensive fake and was totally let down by it. I waited a year for this thing!

It's like saving to buy an Omega watch and then finding it's assembled by Timex for £50!

 

Nuff said. Good night. My Bang and Olufsen days are well and truly over. Disgraceful!

Paul Winn wrote:

It's like spending £900 on an Armani suit to then find out it has been made in the same factory as a £50 Top Man suit.

It's like saving to buy an Omega watch and then finding it's assembled by Timex for £50! 

Spend a bit of time in Vietnam and you will see countless rolls of Armani, Zegna and Boss suit fabric. The real deal including cashmeres. Where do you think Armani make thier suits... Milan?

Go to Guangdong in China and see how many $7,000 Calloway golf club sets you can pick-up for $200. - Because that is where Calloway make some of their parts!

Look at the detail on some of the high-marque watch counterfits comining out of Indonesia. Perhaps this is because because Rolex, Breitling et al all have the components punched out there. BTW Omega is owned by Swatch. A brand many of us would consider is a lesser marque than American Timex.

QED

Methinks Paul Winn doth protest too much ... and by that I mean that the rant is totally disconnected from today's manufacturing reality. Brands around the world have to perform balancing acts to maintain their brand essence while diluting it with non-core parts and labor. Look at James Dyson, who for years railed against the outsourcing of manufacturing, and who is quite right in stating that this is a major problem for the nations seeing jobs going overseas. Eventually, he had to move his own manufacturing to lower-cost countries, while retaining R&D and external design in Wiltshire.

Apple has done the same - moving manufacturing abroad, and actually getting a lot better quality when doing so, while carrying out its R&D and design in Cupertino. From having Apple-specific parts inside, they've gone to using OEM-parts that also turn up in non-Apple products. However, they've managed to achieve a continuation of Apple distinction, and each product iteration carries the brand forwards.

Where B&O manufactures its units doesn't matter, if only the brand expresses a clearbrand philosophy as its various products are released. We're pretty silly to be demanding Danish manufacture of components that are made in the Far East anyway. The assembly for the leading products in the brand is still carried out in Denmark. (One summer I drove around in an Uusikaupunki Boxster from Porsche, it had the full Porsche feeling, and that's what matters.) 

Previous B&O management was catastrophic with respect to brand philosophy, weaving about instead of setting a course - abandoning the potential of acoustic lenses and room correction, where B&O was way ahead; and delivering a series of SD-card, harddisk, flash storage solutions that were non-conversational with the leading methods of storing and distributing music; focusing on oddball mobile devices that were "Samsung inside" and that drew resources from the main product categories, etc. 

As a B&O enthusiast, I'm much more prone to lament the fact that the company "disappeared" Jacob Jensen, due to the conflict raging between him and Lewis. It's as if a major car brand suddenly denied that an epic designer ever had a hand in its products, when everybody knows it to be the case. 

It's too early to pass judgment on present management, they've barely had time to get an overview of what needs to be done - but it certainly makes for an interesting journey.

I think folk are missing the fundamental issue here.Place of manufacture doesn't concern me per se.Paying the B&O tax on a unit that has been outsourced to reduce costs does.

It's a super high priced iPod dock/speaker unit! 

Dear Bangety Bang,please pass the savings on as we don't like being ripped off.

Nice to see some healthy,passionate debate going on though.

I think all views are valid. It just depends on why one buys B&O. Some people will buy it because it is exclusive and for the brand. Some buy for the design. Others will buy because it is Danish. Some buy for sound quality and ergonomics.

All these are perfectly reasonable with none being the only reason one should buy the product. Clearly if one is buying because it is Danish, the BS8 is not going to be what you want. The same may be the case for other reasons as well. I would not criticise anyone for holding this view. It would not stop me, but I buy for my own reasons.

Mr10Percent wrote:

Paul Winn wrote:

It's like spending £900 on an Armani suit to then find out it has been made in the same factory as a £50 Top Man suit.

It's like saving to buy an Omega watch and then finding it's assembled by Timex for £50! 

Spend a bit of time in Vietnam and you will see countless rolls of Armani, Zegna and Boss suit fabric. The real deal including cashmeres. Where do you think Armani make thier suits... Milan?

 

Go to Guangdong in China and see how many $7,000 Calloway golf club sets you can pick-up for $200. - Because that is where Calloway make some of their parts!

Look at the detail on some of the high-marque watch counterfits comining out of Indonesia. Perhaps this is because because Rolex, Breitling et al all have the components punched out there. BTW Omega is owned by Swatch. A brand many of us would consider is a lesser marque than American Timex.

QED

 

 

Agreed but two wrongs or three does not make it right!!!!.Do not take people as fools because they are not!!!.(aimed at B&O)😂

TripEnglish wrote:

HOW DARE THEY MAKE THIS PRODUCT IN CHINA!!!!

(and elsewhere in an alternate universe...)

HOW DARE THEY CHARGE $1,750 FOR THIS THING!!!!

 

With friends like these, who needs enemies? 😎

This takes the debate about people/customers parting with their cash i am sure everyone of us can buy /afford this product!!!BUT it seems a rip-off!!! pass the saving to customers and see!!!

Doctor wrote:

I think all views are valid. It just depends on why one buys B&O. Some people will buy it because it is exclusive and for the brand. Some buy for the design. Others will buy because it is Danish. Some buy for sound quality and ergonomics.

All these are perfectly reasonable with none being the only reason one should buy the product.

Peter,

If you ever consider a career change from medicine, please think about the diplomatic service!

Cleve  

I don't have such a big problem with things made in China and other far east countries. My Thinkpads are all made over there, and I like them. My main recorder (Sound Devices 722) is assembled in the US,  but it's a high-cost low-run product, a serial product, rather than a mass product, and I'm willing to bet that most if not all of the innards are sourced from China.

With that said, I have seen this BS8, and it feels cheap. The plastics used seems like they tried to save the last few cents on the materials used, when at least another euro or two could have been spent to make it nicer to look at and nicer to touch. Even the iPad/iPod/iPhone holder seems cheap, and surely it wouldn't have cost so much to make a holder that was A) nicer designed, an B) made from better quality materials.

I don't mind paying for quality, and I don't mind paying for design (be it looks and/or engineering),  but this thing is pretty easy to put together engineering-wise, and the design, well, let's just say that it is not anywhere close to the epitomy of Danish design.

It's two speakers and a dock. The design phase seem to hjave constituted laying two drivers on the table holding an iPad in the middle and then going "Well, we need to make this into a real product. Make a case that fits around the parts."

In that context, I do think that £900 is way too much. Besides having the brand on it, what are we really paying for? No, don't give me the "excellent sound", that point is moot, because speakers that close together makes me grab my headphones, since stereo image is done anyway.

So what else is out there for a reasonable amount of money?

Well, these:

link

Small runs, assembled in the UK, active crossover ( 4th order Linkwitz-Riley), DAC that if using optical makes for 24bit/96khz input, and if using coaxial (can be ordered), makes for a 24bit/192kHz input, 75Wpc for the tweeters, 250Wpc for the bass drivers, and very low distortion to boot.

Yes, they're boxes, but really, most audio monitors are.

(no affilition other than I own a pair of them as a consumer)