The BS8 has all the right B&O qualities:

1. Design

2. Quality sound

3. Tactile and fun remote

4. Unique appearance

So...now the the boys in Struer have made a product at an attractive price point, all we Beoworlders can do is lament the materials origin?  I think that's coming a little late to the dinner party!

I bought two: One for my daughter's apt in Brooklyn, one for my office. They're replacing a Beosound Century and a 2500 system, respectively.

They have, IMHO, great sound, looks and the gestalt I covet from B&O. I rate the BS8 right next to my IPhone and IPad, which are also made in the same province of China., I believe.

Along with my bespoke Tom Davies custom eyewear frames.

No problem for me.  How 'bout you?

B

CHINA, CHINA, CHINA, CHINA !!!!

Sorry I had to say it out loud before it gets considered a bad word and censored

(opens door, peeks head in...)

(...closes door quietly, lets door gently latch, walks gingerly away away)

As said above, mention a post-70's B&o product that isn't largely produced in the far east.. and put together in a beautifull danish-manufactured aluminium box.

It's the final product that matters.

Mark Levinson, mentioned above, is both a good example and a sad case. Mr. Levinson is personally no longer involved, the company is owned be the Harman International Industries Group. Levinson left the company to manufacture under other brand names, and fathered the Red Rose scandal, which revealed that he had just renamed Dussun HiFi components, without making any change whatsoever to them beyond slapping Red Rose onto their fascia.

The products were hailed in the HiFi press, until the truth was revealed.

The ML products presently being marketed are just a nameplate for Harman wanting to pull a premium price point out of the market. Do not open, if you wish to keep your illusions intact.

Lessons learned:

1. Chinese HiFi disguised as Red Rose outperformed established brands.

2. The realities of manufacturing impose their own laws on listed companies, and management has to adjust.

3. Perception and reality often do not mix.

Manufacturing in "new" territories does not have to entail a step down in quality. Consider Skoda which has been told to tone down on their skills as they were coming off as too good in comparison with VW. You can spec manufacturing in China to a level that absolutely satisfies any discerning customer. The Chinese themselves are avid (obsessed) with luxury, and are helping create a strata of manufacturing likely to outdo anything seen since the age of the European Habsburgs, and the St. Petersburg courts of the Tzars.

The criticism of Made in China is misinformed. How B&O exploits the opportunity is of greater interest.

I can think of two good reasons not to buy product made , or containing components made in China -

1.  In protest against human rights issues,

2.  A firm belief that Europe (& the US) must hang on to manufacturing industry because ultimately it is a (or the) significant wealth producing mechanism for the country's economy.

Both are defendable, however, the person living by the above rules is likely to be living in a mud hut, he is most unlikely to have a TV, mobile phone etc., the kids wont have a iPod, Wii, PS3 or Xbox.......... the list is endless.

Given a similar kit of parts and similar process controls there is absolutely no reason to naturally expect a Chinese assembled product to be inferior to a Danish one - although the overall cost of productionm will definitely be less.

If the vast majority of the internal components originate in the Far East anyway I can't really see why who finally fastens the aluminium frame in place is such a big deal.

Puncher:

I can think of two good reasons not to buy product made , or containing components made in China -

1.  In protest against human rights issues,

...

Please, let's not allow this thread to drift into politics. It's off topic and will only end in tears - especially remembering that you don't have to go to China, we've had our share of atrocities happen in Europe well after 1989.

One of the reasons B&O will be having the BS8 made in China will be the availability of companies to do it. All of the large contract electronics companies - Flextronics, Foxconn, etc - are now almost exclusively based in China.

And it is an ipod dock, not a mainstream B&O product. Like the 2200s of old they are looking for a way to get new users to look at the B&O brand. That means addressing the ipod generation.

B&O cannot survive on the people using this forum (including me). They need new and younger customers. The BS8 is a way to do that and by outsourcing production to a contract manufacturer they are keeping their capital risk to the minimum. They also get access to a very flexible production system - if the BS8 is a success a contract OEM will be able to ramp up production much faster than B&O's existing factories could. 

B&O can probably make their traditional products much more cost effectively than Chinese firms. The BS8 is not a traditional B&O product.

To the post above.

Here's the Mark Levinson "Red Rose" version:

http://www.redrosemusic.com/affirmation.shtml

And here's the Dussun original:

http://www.dussun.com/english/v8.html

(The only perceivable difference was the price differential: from USD 900 to USD 7000.)

soundproof:

To the post above.

Here's the Mark Levinson "Red Rose" version:

http://www.redrosemusic.com/affirmation.shtml

And here's the Dussun original:

http://www.dussun.com/english/v8.html

(The only perceivable difference was the price differential: from USD 900 to USD 7000.)

 

Interesting, how much is the Dussun?

USD 900 ...

Interresting info Soundproof!

I have had my Beosound 8 for 6 weeks now. I am very pleased with looks and the sound quality.

I did requests a one with White frets but they came with violet due to B&O having some issues with the white material marking too easily.

I don't think the unit is over priced.

Mark

soundproof:

USD 900 ...

OK,

I think it was Goldmund who was caught doing something similar with a CD player.

bayerische:

soundproof:

USD 900 ...

OK,

I think it was Goldmund who was caught doing something similar with a CD player.

It happens all over the industry - you'd be surprised. Even the most 'trustable' companies do it...

Nowadays is impossible to avoid using Chinese goods. for example, 80% of the world's Christmas stuff is made in a single town in China.

I won't buy the BS8 for the time being because I don't particularly like it and don't really need it. But I think its sound is 100% B&O and can't understand why anybody blasts it because it's origins. When B&O dropped the use of fine wood and there were immediate adverse reactions, and here we are. 

If the BS8 is a below-par product, don't blame China, blame the specs and the QA that has to be excercised by B&O.

My 2 cents.

I believe in Goldmund's case they were up front about it, telling clients they were using the Pioneer innards in order to create a dvd-player - and their clients didn't want the player to be cheap (an Eidos player, if I remember correctly). Lexicon did the same thing when they declared they would be wrapping an Oppo BD83 with a Lexicon skin, at a substantial mark-up. They didn't make a secret of it.

In the Red Rose logo on a Dussun integrated amp case, it was different, and indistinguishable from fraud, when one considers how the product was described.

But that's not the point. You can get exactly the level of finish and quality you want from the OEM-companies that operate in the Far-East. For a company such as B&O, which wants to establish long-term customer relationships, it makes no sense to produce low-spec'd units. For instance, B&O have remained customers of the highest-spec'd Pioneer cd-player, where the mechanism is made with metal parts, because they wanted that quality inside their units. Very few brands in A/V have gone that path, and have preferred to use the cheaper plastic mechanisms, to make more money, making B&O a lone hold-out in that respect.

BeoSound 8 is an entry-level portable music capable unit that places itself in the upper echelon of such products - it carries the B&O logo and is made to B&O design spec's for form and function through a manufacturer which can deliver more inside an acceptable price-point. I really don't see a problem - earlier I mentioned BeoVision 8, of which I'm one very happy owner of one of the first generation sets. I knew it was made in the Far East as I bought it, and it didn't bother me one bit. It integrates perfectly with other B&O components and is designed like no other television on the market.

From direct experience, I know you can spec a product manufactured in China to absolutely outperform anything made anywhere else. Of course, I also know that certain brands exploit the ability to get away with outrageous spec'ing, in order to move more to their bottom line. Today, customers find out about such maneuvers in short order, the internet makes us aware of it, and we learn to choose wisely among the offerings on hand.

My take is this,

For years as a Bang owner and former employee, I bought into the notion, the idea, that the reason B&O was more expensive, better crafted and assembled was because real Danish people were behind the product. People who worked for the company with a passion. A passion for creating some of the best audio and visual products on the earth. I even have a book produced by the company loaded with pictures of employees assembling and crafting its products.

I think the idea that the products are being assembled by a contract manufacturer, for me at least, conjures up people making products as quickly as possible for as little as possible and without that same passion. Why would they?  It's a bit like an imitation of the real thing. The marketing may not reflect that, but the reality is different. And the question is, what has changed so much since the BeoSound Century / BeoSound 1? Has manufacturing in DK or CZ really gone up that much? Because the materials used on the BS8 don't look to be that expensive that this has made it so expensive to manufacturer that they had to look to China.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe people don't care anymore about where things are made. But I do. I wouldn't part with my hard earnt money for a Ferrari made anywhere but Italy - or Tag watch made in Russia - no way. I bought into the dream - it's part of me working damn hard for the thing in the first place, other wise I would buy a cheap copy from a market someplace.

Let me ask you this - if BS8 was made in China or made in Denmark and cost pretty much the same, which would you choose? Why?

All I am hearing is that people on Beoworld don't want Bang made anywhere but Struer.

I'm just wondering what HiFi product can be made in one place ... Assembled, yes, but made?

Maybe CDs, using this method:

It is impossible for B&O to defend its present distribution of dealerships with products made exclusively in Denmark. Simply can't be done. There would no point in having high-street stores if that was the aim.

If B&O is comfortable with going underground, just having a few bespoke suppliers of A/V that deal directly with superpremium customers, then the company can manufacture everything as some here imagine they should be doing, at Struer in Denmark. Even Aston Martin Lagonda is not manufacturing the entire car in Gaydon, Warwickshire ...

I thought B&O's sale of its Danish Electronics Factory to Flextronics was known here. Happened six years ago - pdf:

http://www.bang-olufsen.com/graphics/bogo/reports/BO_0310_FUK.pdf

Hardwriter:

One of the reasons B&O will be having the BS8 made in China will be the availability of companies to do it.

I first misread your sentence above - and in that incorrect form it gave another reason: availability of components. Industries like mobile phones are now ramping up production at such pace that availability of electronic components is a problem. Not just phone specific chips etc, but even components that could be considered commodities are often in short supply.

Large contrators like the ones you mention can handle this better, as they make large series of a wide selection of products, so they can allocate larger component orders at a longer horizon. Not that much chance of production stalling because some components run out in the warehouse or would have to be bought in at some insane emergency prices. If a smallish company was doing everything in house, it might be well left with nothing to deliver.

tournedos:

Hardwriter:

One of the reasons B&O will be having the BS8 made in China will be the availability of companies to do it.

I first misread your sentence above - and in that incorrect form it gave another reason: availability of components. Industries like mobile phones are now ramping up production at such pace that availability of electronic components is a problem. Not just phone specific chips etc, but even components that could be considered commodities are often in short supply.

Large contrators like the ones you mention can handle this better, as they make large series of a wide selection of products, so they can allocate larger component orders at a longer horizon. Not that much chance of production stalling because some components run out in the warehouse or would have to be bought in at some insane emergency prices. If a smallish company was doing everything in house, it might be well left with nothing to deliver.

True enough - as we move out of the recession (and after semiconductor manufacturers had cut back manufacturing capacity) we've been quoted delivery times of 32 weeks for microcontrollers and power mosfets etc. The volume manufacturers definitely get first dibs on available parts.

I have a few of those CDs!