Do you want coffee or sound ?

For me the made in DK sign is part of the dream.

Started the dream in 1995 all the products I bought had the DK sign.

Dream/luxury product.

The B&O products still cost a fortune (been quoted 10.000 € for BV14-55 on stand, around 11.000 € for Avant) so knowing they are made in a little country it's important.

I'm not the only one surely : Chanel, Ferrari, Rolls Royce, Patek Philippe, Riva... Luxury.

Nothing to compare with Apple products that changes every six months...

BS1 was eavy but not so much (I would say less than BL15).

The acoustic lens looked "ordinary" I mean more 180 than 360 degres like other speakers that have a wall/corner switch.

BeoGreg:

For me the made in DK sign is part of the dream.

Started the dream in 1995 all the products I bought had the DK sign.

Dream/luxury product.

The B&O products still cost a fortune (been quoted 10.000 € for BV14-55 on stand, around 11.000 € for Avant) so knowing they are made in a little country it's important.

I'm not the only one surely : Chanel, Ferrari, Rolls Royce, Patek Philippe, Riva... Luxury.

Nothing to compare with Apple products that changes every six months...

It's the same for me with Campagnolo bike parts 

http://road.cc/content/news/141525-campagnolo-strike-threat-1-5-jobs-cut-vicenza-hq

CB:

The new B&O coffee grinder

The 21st century "rundspreder"

Hi CB,

A big thank you for jogging my memory, I saw a set of "rondstraler" or "rundspreder" 1960's B&O omni-directional speakers a few years ago and loved the sound - but due to my poor Danish, I couldn't get the spelling right to be able to find them in any online searches!  

Strange how B&O have gone from "musical tin cans" to a "musical coffee grinder" in the space of 50 years.......

I must admit to being quite surprised by the tone of the new Beosound 1 when I first heard it, as the treble is noticeably prominent.  However, I wonder if this may be intentional on B&O's part, as this is possibly not meant as a serious listening speaker, but more of a party speaker to grab the attention of everyone in the room (both sonically and visually)?  As with the A1, the sound has a pace and depth that belie the small size of the speaker and pricing is (by B&O's standards) competitive.

Kind regards, Steve.

Steve at Sounds Heavenly:

I must admit to being quite surprised by the tone of the new Beosound 1 when I first heard it, as the treble is noticeably prominent.  However, I wonder if this may be intentional on B&O's part, as this is possibly not meant as a serious listening speaker, but more of a party speaker to grab the attention of everyone in the room (both sonically and visually)?

The marketing materials for the "original" Beosound 1 weren't that of a serious listening speaker either. And from how other's have described the interface, perhaps this is a "party" speaker where multiple people can interact with it throughout a get together.

Steve at Sounds Heavenly:

due to my poor Danish, I couldn't get the spelling right to be able to find them in any online searches!

Hi Steve !

Have a look there --> http://archivedforum2.beoworld.org/forums/p/13283/115219.aspx

The rundspreder seems to be designed for treble, hence B&O made another speaker for middle tones, the "mellemtone".

TWG:

Even the chinese people do not want those stuff made in China! Guess why...

Because they have new money, and thus expensive stuff made Elsewhere is always better than anything domestic that all your neighbours can have.

A friend of mine had to go to China several times when he worked for Harman to supervise the setup of manufacturing facilities. He said that you have to really watch them to make sure you get what you want, but the reasons are not always what you might think. Some Chinese businesses/business people are indeed trying to do things sloppy and cheaply, we've seen the horror stories about wallboard that outgasses and corrodes wiring and pipes and is toxic, dog food with melamine put in to boost measurements of protein content, trick the measurements that killed dogs, etc.

But, with the people he dealt with anyway he never found evidence of that, they wanted to do a good job producing what Harman needed, but didn't always understand as it was a new business for them. They were making raw drivers, tweeters particularly. They were still hand winding voice coils, he told them they needed to move to machines for that. They wrongly assumed it was just a matter of how many voice coils they could wind, quantity of product, and suggested they just hire a few more workers. He explained to them it wasn't how fast they could turn out X number of voice coils, but that hand winding resulted in too many rejects due to variations that were inevitable with hand winding, and the reason was to tighten tolerances and reduce waste. The people he was working with over there immediately understood when he told them the reason, and acquired good automatic winding machines.

I have found it's not wise to always assume you know the reason for problems with a country's products, there can be more reasons than you think.

For everyone who is upset that B&O produces things in China please make sure you throw away your iPhone. It is also made in China. (Some iPhones were made in Brazil so that might be OK with you.)

If you want a B&O TV does it upset you that the panel is no longer made in Europe? Probably not. 

The fact of the matter is that for most (non satellite level) technology the state of the art is in China. It is no longer in Europe or the US. 

Look at the sim slot on a new iPhone. There are not many manufacturers in Europe who have the ability to machine things at scale at that level or tolerance.

And I would be hard pressed to call B&O 'greedy' look at their financial results. They are barely surviving. Maybe they are making the wrong business choices, but I would not call them greedy. 

Here is to hoping the new generation of managers are successful 

P

 

The point is that the visible part of the TV etc should be produced by B&O and not FOR them. I don't have an Apple phone but as they are pocketable their finish is not as precious. 

Duels:

I would say it's slightly different. "Swiss made" is the definition or minimum standard of a quality watch for many people. It defines the whole industry. I don't think the same is true for Denmark and A/V equipment. If Denmark was the spiritual home to all other high quality A/V businesses too then I'm sure B&O would be manufacturing everything their too but at greater cost.

It's not greed to try to reduce a cost base to make profits. It's good business sense.

I'm sure some will disagree and may not buy B&O made in China (and that is their prerogative) but I suspect not enough to justify transferring production back to Denmark.

 

It simply is NOT a good business sense. It just clearly shows that the management of B&O is not able to run the company in a profitable way. And instead of solving those problems in a good way, they just play "management bullshit" and do the typical things like outsourcing and not caring about the quality declining. Why do they do it? Because they don't know the right way which is a shame and they don't think sustainable enough.

tournedos:

TWG:

Even the chinese people do not want those stuff made in China! Guess why...

Because they have new money, and thus expensive stuff made Elsewhere is always better than anything domestic that all your neighbours can have.

I don't think that a Bentley is worse than another car based on the fact that it is domestic for british people. ;-)

No, the chinese know very well what is quality and what not and they don't trust their own companies!

Simonbeo:

B&O is perceived as a Danish brand and I believe the provenance is important. To charge the premium for the assumed source and pocket the savings does not seem to have integrity. I spoke to a member of the Alessi family a while back about their guidelines for sourcing their goods from places other than Italy and they were prepared to pay a little bit over the odds to avoid passing off non-Italian goods as being from their lakeside factory. The new Fiat 124 Spider is a Fiat rather than an Alfa Romeo as its produced by Mazda in Japan. 

Thank you, another good example.



A big and important topic which seems often overseen is the completely different way of thinking between us and chinese people!

You'll never hear a "no" while doing business with them. They always tell you that everything is good but they change product specifications without reviewing and your knowledge etc. They don't care the most about contracts etc. They built a second factory without your knowledge to copy your stuff etc.
You have to keep things like this in mind as it can save you a lot of trouble.

I've worked and lived a few months in China and had enough insight.

In the long run there's only one side who gains profit from outsourcing: The chinese.

We give the chinese all of our know how that was built toughly over decades of research and development just as a present and they can only laugh about us being so dumb! In the end the know how is transferred and then we are dependent from that country. Congratulations! 

There are enough companies that are producing their products in their home country or at least in Europe and I honor and support that with buying it. Yes, it can be a little more work but it's certainly not more expensive.

 

Ok TWG. You know best.

Duels:

Ok TWG. You know best.

At least we still have humour.
I'm just an advocate of domestic manufacturing and R&D and after my experience during living and working in China it's just strengthened.

 

TWG:

At least we still have humour.

Indeed we do.

TWG:

Duels:

Ok TWG. You know best.

At least we still have humour.
I'm just an advocate of domestic manufacturing and R&D and after my experience during living and working in China it's just strengthened.

 

Make Denmark Great Again!