Dkatz: I think you live in another world, one with unicorns and fairies and everybody hugging each other...

The rest of us live in the real world!!! Surely enough has been said on this topic!!

Dkatz for President!

B&O, show us your China factory! Show us the working conditions there!

alenvprekrsku:

B&O, show us your China factory! Show us the working conditions there!

Surely that's for the Chinese to figure out? Since when have us Westerners become judge and jury on how other countries sort out their lives? I don't want to point any fingers, but your Western life hasn't always been this way. You have very short-term memories. I'm sure Slovenia has had a turbulent past.

In the UK, as an example, it wasn't long ago we had workhouses (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workhouse). Dreadful conditions for many. But workers rose up and sorted out their lives. It took time, but it happened. Even in the 70s, unions were up in arms about their workers. Strikes galore. Now, really, are we in a position here in the UK? Has everything "improved" for the better? There are about a million (!) youth unemployed. Why aren't they in the factories? That's right, there aren't any as we all rose up and wanted a better standard of living! Oh the irony.

I do love the way Westerners live in their ivory towers, surrounded by their luxury B&O kit, telling other countries how they should be living their lives. We invade, we overrule, we talk about working conditions, yet conveniently forget our own history.

China will change, it will have the world's biggest economy in years to come. Consumerism has and will change everyone's lives (as it in in the States), workers will want more from their life and factories will move to other, more developing, countries. That's how it's always been. These places just move around the globe.

But it's not up to American's or any Western person to sit there and say their way of life is right - there are plenty of things wrong about most countries, including the UK. And it's going to get a lot worse soon. If the Euro collapses, I wouldn't be worrying about the working life of the Chinese...

Consider a small Chinese electronic assembly as an example, costing $6. Materials account for ~$4.50, meaning  ~$1.50 is for labour etc. Assuming this is paid at Dkatz's $1.65 rate, then adjusted for $25 and $55 rates this assembly would then cost from $27.23 - $54.50.

The company is out of business at a stroke!

Jonathan:

Dkatz: I think you live in another world, one with unicorns and fairies and everybody hugging each other...

The rest of us live in the real world!!! Surely enough has been said on this topic!!

I for one agree!

This thread is going nowhere, and I really do not understand beating down the BeoSound 8 quality-wise, be it sound or build. Amazing product for a reasonable price!

About outsourcing, in this case done by Apple to China, I can see why they cannot produce quality products:

http://www.apple.com/supplierresponsibility/

Conditions and standards are horrific! How dare they!

Since all outsourcing to China (or other "cheap" countries) is considered a no-no, which leads to bad quality, I suppose B&O -- a smaller company than Apple -- not known for its attentention to detail, material standards and level of craftmanship, has things much, much worse over there :(

/sarcasm

moxxey:

I do love the way Westerners live in their ivory towers.....We invade, we overrule, we talk about working conditions, yet conveniently forget our own history.

Indeed moxxey - I said something very similar way back on Page 2.

The West is in for a rude wake up call, imo - with a pincer movement of pressure - one one side from the developing countries who aspire to a "western" lifestyle, whilst on the other that very lifestyle is exposed as a self-financed, remortgaged, over-leveraged house of cards built on shifting sands.

There is a fine song called The Grand Correction by UK singer Chris Wood - I fear it is very true.

And here's one for anyone who thinks dealing in property is anything other than stealing from future generations

KMA:

Conditions and standards are horrific! How dare they!

See the middle-England Daily Mail and their current headline: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2092277/Apple-Poor-working-conditions-inside-Chinese-factories-making-iPads.html. And my favourite photo from this article: http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/01/26/article-2092277-11744962000005DC-6_634x423.jpg

But middle Englanders are quick to judge. We need to allow the Chinese to sort themselves out, embrace Facebook, enjoy a Starbucks, learn to love X-Factor, worship at the alter of an Apple Store, eat at McDonalds and figure what they are missing from their lives, without our interjection.

moxxey:

 We need to allow the Chinese to sort themselves out, embrace Facebook, enjoy a Starbucks, learn to love X-Factor, worship at the alter of an Apple Store, eat at McDonalds and figure what they are missing from their lives, without our interjection.

Darn...there was me thinking i'm English.....when afterall I'm actually Chinese!

I just found this article, which is slightly related to outsourcing, logistics, mass production, A***e, and especially design - it challenges the length of Dkatz's writings, and as a breath of fresh air to this discussion, actually mentions Bang & Olufsen

http://www.domusweb.it/en/design/portable-cathedrals/

There have been some very well thought out and sincere opinions in this thread.  Ultimately Beoworld is a Bang & Olufsen fansite and we are really only talking about the Beolit 12 and a few other products.  If the scope of outsourcing goes way beyond Beoplay products, we will have a completely different situation.  I noticed a review in ipodnn which is very favorable.  A significant number of people are being introduced to Bang and Olufsen in a positive way.  Except for Tue's dumb videos which are not well received, his strategy holds the promise of new customers and profitability for B&O.  Bang and Olufsen is largely unknown in North America.  I think it is amazing that Beolit 12 is being so well received here.

http://www.ipodnn.com/articles/12/01/26/new.premium.airplay.accessory/

Honestly I think most of us don't give a rat's ass about the working conditions of the Chinese, and yes Moxxey is right in that we all seem to have a very short memory.

My grandparents grew up poor (from both sides), as did my father, meaning his parents never made it to a comfortable life before they where in the retirement age!

They used to tell me about how hard life was when they where young, working for FOOD and SHELTER on the countryside at a farm. In slave like conditions. Finland wasn't yet industrialised back then, the farmers where basically local "kings". This is... some 70 years ago.

Today I sit here, with a very comfortable income, listening to a soundsystem costing an astronomical amount of money for the third world country person. My garage is filled with two nice cars. My biggest concern tonight is beef tenderloin or Lamb....? Amarone or Ripasso? The Chinese will surely want the same, but I won't start shouting about giving it to them now.

Our pre-and current generation made the change for us, I think the Chinese should lift themselves up. As moxxey says, I think most of the world is pretty finished on policing the world wether it's for politics or whatever, as we just seen a 8 year "vietnam" in Iraq. Not to talk about the economic problems we are facing here in the EU.

Even if my evening tonight is riddled with very few problems, what's to say what the future holds? 

Saying all this, don't mean I like to see B&O made in China. Not because it's China, but because it's not Denmark. 

The unemployment amoungs our youth is appauling! Where is it going to lead? There's no pride in being able to work with your hands anymore, nor is it any pride in working in the service industry.

OK, rant over, I'll concentrate on my Guinness and "the Bourbon Street Stompers".

linder:

I think it is amazing that Beolit 12 is being so well received here.

http://www.ipodnn.com/articles/12/01/26/new.premium.airplay.accessory/

Without turning this in to a Beolit 12 thread, I was over at www.trustedreviews.com this week (IPC Media) and they mentioned the Beosound 8 to me, completely out of the blue, with no prompting, nothing.

The Editor was talking about products they wouldn't normally review which they've been surprised with recently and the Publisher prompted him with "the superb new dock from Bang & Olufsen" and the Editor replied "yes, very good example, that is a great dock".

So, they are starting to get traction in to sites and journalists who wouldn't normally go near B&O. See http://www.trustedreviews.com/b-o-play-beolit-12_Portable-Audio_review and I quote "The sound is more powerful too. While the Beolit 12 boasts a sweet and smooth top-end, there's a decent amount of bass welly given the fairly small size of its drivers. This is certainly one of the best portable iPhone speakers of this size we've heard"

And that's a good thing.

Moxxey,

That is probably true but the mainstream high-end or hifi community still sees B&O as a lovely "looking" box without any innards to speak of...

I've felt like Don Quiote on many occations on the local HiFi forum in Finland. 

My cousin is has been in the HiFi industry (Importer) for close to 20 years. Amoung others he's the official importer of ELAC, Dynaudio, Moon Audio, Aurender, Silent Wire, etc... According to him the BL5's are the best speakers he have ever heard! 

The only ones "on par" are the Dynaudio Consequence ultimate edition, costing about 3 times that of Beolab 5. Not to mention the amps, dacs and CD/media players and wires...

The setup I heard them in this last autumn was about 100K euro worth. And I admit it was on par with the BL5's!

Try and get a "Hifist" to believe this is, impossible. 

Moxxey,  It is a great review except for the remark.....The usually-ostentatious Bang & Olufsen has gone all Bose on us.

We can now return to the outsourcing discussion.  I won't mention Beolit 12 again.

Audi is going to produce cars in Mexico.  Is that outsourcing also or does outsourcing only refer to China?

linder:

Moxxey,  It is a great review except for the remark.....The usually-ostentatious Bang & Olufsen has gone all Bose on us.

We can now return to the outsourcing discussion.  I won't mention Beolit 12 again.

Audi is going to produce cars in Mexico.  Is that outsourcing also or does outsourcing only refer to China?

Absolutely outsourcing. 

Hyundai, Toyota, Honda, VW, MB, BMW, Subaru, Isuzu, and Mitsubishi all outsourced to the US.  They called it globalization while we weren't looking.

Jonathan – We all live in the same world hence why we should all have respect for each other and not profit off other peoples poverty with near slave labour. We as consumers all have a choice.

Moxxey – I think we in the west learned our lessons, hence why Labour unions were formed. In the UK people were getting paid much better wages in the 1970s than they are in China today for labour. Many union workers even at that time were living fairly good lives. Actually until Thatcher tried to disband all the worker unions and close down all the factories, mines, etc... it was better for them. I recently watched a documentary on BBC about the shipbuilders, how England used to have so many cities that relied on shipbuilding and now those local economies have just dwindled and many of those areas are now abandoned all due to outsourcing. Perhaps the Health and Safety has gotten more strict nowadays but otherwise building ships is still a lengthy and laborious task. Britain built some of the best ships that the world has ever seen, yet the industry is dead now thanks to outsourcing. Ask any of those laborers most of them would love to go back to their old job and build those ships again, it was their passion and their livelihood!

You have to remember Moxxey that the UK is a democratic country, has been for ages. The fact that the Union Workers can rise up at all is a statement that it is a free country. In China if workers did that they would get fired. If they complained about the government, etc... they would be put in Jail. Britain hasn't been like that for a couple hundred years now. Even in the 19th century Unions were formed and people were up in arms about many things as far back as then!

Yes it is hypocritical of countries to complain about China's conditions, but only because they support those conditions by letting their companies outsource (again neoliberalism, Thatcher and Reaganism at work, liberalization of trade, etc...)

China already has the biggest economy in the world. That doesn't mean much to most of the people who live there. If nearly every company in the world produces billions of products with trillions in money being exchanged, of course China will become the worlds leading economy. It already is but it is not part of the OECD, and will not be for many many many many decades because it is not a developed country. In fact they don't try to portray themselves as such, in the UN for example they show themselves as developing in order to get help from other countries!

It wasn't so long ago before China and the UK/US and other countries liberalized their trade in the early 80s that everything was made in ones own country. Before that time almost all American products were made in America, same with British. Outsourcing was very rare for manufacturing in comparison to today. So NO, it hasn't always been the case that companies just move from one country to the next, in fact it's only been the case the past 20-30 years or so. The US and Europe talk about how China should liberalize whilst they themselves are overly protectionist about certain industries but the point is that if you look at every developed country, non of them have developed because of liberalization. In fact most countries have developed because of protectionism. South Korea's economy developed thanks to them not importing foreign products but instead building their own automotive, electronic and other industries before putting them out on the world Market. It was similar in Japan, and even the US. In fact the US government used to promote protectionism up until the mid-late 20th century to other countries in order for them to develop as they did. The reason China has the worlds biggest economy and is yet considered one of the poorest countries in terms of human development, etc... is exactly because it's done the opposite of Japan and Korea when they were developing!

Puncher – It depends how much they sell that product for. And obviously not all companies are out of business that produce in developed countries (including electronics). I can name thousands of electronic products which are produced in a developed country and the companies still make a profit. Look at Fujitsu producing some of their computers and other electronic devices (including motherboards) for the European market in Germany, in fact they chose a city near Munich in Bavaria which is the most expensive place in Germany for labour cost! Many of the laptops there are sold at a lower price than Apple or other competitors that produce in China! They still make a nice profit and have been there for many years! If you sell the product for $200 and it costs  $25 to make instead of $6 you are still making a decent profit of 800%! The fact that a company should be making a 3300% profit on a single product is proof of greed. If they need to make that high a profit to survive then there must be something wrong with the company. Also if Outsourcing was the only way to survive, then all the companies that don't outsource would have completely died.

KMA – You are sending a link to Apple propaganda on their website. Of course they are going to say they have the best standards, etc... That link was probably put up after all the scandal a year or so ago! It's to cover their asses...

B&O is known for its attention to detail if they produce it themselves. Hence why they made their own plastic and metals factory in Denmark! B&O does not make the BS8, nor the Beolit12, they simply design it and order it for someone else to make it for them. Even though they are a smaller company, their products are made at a company that produces electronic and audio goods for other companies at THEIR standards, not necessarily B&Os. It's like saying if you order a custom made shirt, you give them measurements, but if they are not the best Italian craftsman that have been doing it for 10 generations and have the best skill in the world, but instead someone that was hired in China that was taught in a month or so how to stitch the shirt and cut it, etc... the difference will be huge. That is my point! Why do people consider Kiton and Brioni the best in terms of tailoring craftsmanship? Because it was handmade in Italy by people who were tailors for many generations. For the same reason that peopled considered B&O the best for Audio craftsmanship that it was made and assembled by hand by Struer's own craftsmen and not by a huge assembly line with thousands of people mass producing hundreds of thousands of units for cheap. It's common sense that the quality and attention to detail will go down, even if it were made in Denmark it wouldn't be of the same quality as the higher end products because they wouldn't have time to pay as much attention to detail to the manufacture with the mass production of millions of units. To top it off if you have thousands of workers, how many of them will be extremely skilled at their job? Not likely that every worker, or even most of them, will have the attention to detail that people working directly for B&O have, nor the passion or pride for working for such as a company (as the workers in China do not work for B&O but for a Chinese company with Chinese wages and Chinese labour laws).

Tournedos – Thanks for the interesting article. The N9 is funnily enough made in Finland unlike the iPhone. Nokia tends to keep their production of their higher end phones (such as many of the E-series) and others in Finland. Here is a factory video of the N9 Production line in Finland: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwoGxrLZlAk 

I'm sure they still make a decent profit of it even though it is made with high Finish wages vs. lower Chinese wages! It's unlike most companies though. In fact I see outsourcing as more of an Anglo-Saxon and Scandanivian ideal in general than that of mainland Europe. Although many European companies outsource there are still many many many factories in Italy and France that produce high quality clothing items for example. France has hundreds of shoemakers, Italy has thousands, England has a dozen, and the US has one or two left! Why? Because the UK and US are much more keen towards outsourcing and cheaper prices, where as mainland Europe places a lot more emphasis on craftsmanship and quality. There are probably more French who would prefer to buy French leather goods and be proud of it than Ameicans for example.

Linder – Actually everyone I know, knows about Bang and Olufsen in the US. In San Francisco alone we have 2-3 stores and it's quite a small city with only about 500-700k residents. They have had stoes in the US for 20 years now and I have known B&O since I was a little kid because I would always go to their store. Perhaps a few people in the bible belt (probably who wouldn't even bother buying even a BS8 or Beolit12) don't know of this brand but it's been pretty famous here for near on 20 years!!!! In fact Bang and Olufsen has stores in really small suburbs as well and used to have one in Walnut Creek about 10 years ago where I live which has only about 64,000 people.  All this new range is doing is introducing some cheaply made and cheap looking products to spread the name and make a huge profit off of it. Somebody mentioned keychains and t-shirts of car companies, very similar in my opinion and lowers the brands image to an almost tackiness.

Moxxey – Key there is portable iPhone players. I agree that it is one of the best of those as well. But the fact that B&O made one is already a turn off for me. The brand has always been about high end high quality manufacturing. This is a different direction for them and like I said before, it really degrades the image of the brand. I don't know why that Journalist was turning away from other excellent speakers such as the Beolab series and instead only reviewing a Beolit 12, that's beyond me..

Bayerische – Great point on the BL5! This is my point about them and other B&O being good value for money. You have a hand assembled, amazing quality speaker with some of the best components and materials that sounds so crisp and goes through the most rigorous quality control. Then you have a Dynaudio which is also made in Denmark and costs 3 times more! 

Linder and Symmes – Anything is outsourcing if it's made by a separate company (made to order) for you, usually in another country. IE you outsource the work to someone else... In the car industry this is done usually for the local markets because of high import tariffs. Some companies such as VW, Audi and a few others will outsource their lower end models to Mexico for the US market and many other brands manufacture their lower end cars in the US. BMW's X series was designed and built in the US... I don't think it's necessarily the same because these companies have their own factories here so technically for me it's not outsourcing. BMW didn't ask GM or some other manufacturer to build the car for them, they went and opened their own factory and US HQ here!

Dkatz:

Puncher – It depends how much they sell that product for. And obviously not all companies are out of business that produce in developed countries (including electronics). I can name thousands of electronic products which are produced in a developed country and the companies still make a profit. Look at Fujitsu producing some of their computers and other electronic devices (including motherboards) for the European market in Germany, in fact they chose a city near Munich in Bavaria which is the most expensive place in Germany for labour cost! Many of the laptops there are sold at a lower price than Apple or other competitors that produce in China! They still make a nice profit and have been there for many years! If you sell the product for $200 and it costs $25 to make instead of $6 you are still making a decent profit of 800%! The fact that a company should be making a 3300% profit on a single product is proof of greed. If they need to make that high a profit to survive then there must be something wrong with the company. Also if Outsourcing was the only way to survive, then all the companies that don't outsource would have completely died.

The item I described is a $20 retail item, there is no option to sell it for $200. It is an item of engineering, it cannot be painted, veneered or anodised in an attempt to pass it off as somehow worth more. You can sell if for $20 or you can't sell it at all!

Also, although I didn't mention it first time as I thought the price difference was striking enough, in the west we couldn't actually buy the $4.50 worth of materials for $4.50!!! On this item I haven't done the excercise to cost it exactly but I would estimate an additional 10 -15% which would mean an additional $1 - $1.50 on the retail price.

The fact that B&O has struggled in recent years should be evidence enough that continuing as they were was not a viable proposition - they have to generate income - introducing ever more expensive product while increasing prices elsewhere was not working.

Dkatz:

You have to remember Moxxey that the UK is a democratic country, has been for ages. The fact that the Union Workers can rise up at all is a statement that it is a free country. In China if workers did that they would get fired. If they complained about the government, etc... they would be put in Jail. Britain hasn't been like that for a couple hundred years now. Even in the 19th century Unions were formed and people were up in arms about many things as far back as then!

You are joking ....

folkdeejay:

Dkatz:

You have to remember Moxxey that the UK is a democratic country, has been for ages. The fact that the Union Workers can rise up at all is a statement that it is a free country. In China if workers did that they would get fired. If they complained about the government, etc... they would be put in Jail. Britain hasn't been like that for a couple hundred years now. Even in the 19th century Unions were formed and people were up in arms about many things as far back as then!

You are joking ....

You sure? I thought is was a Monarchy.

bayerische:

Moxxey,

That is probably true but the mainstream high-end or hifi community still sees B&O as a lovely "looking" box without any innards to speak of...

 

I've felt like Don Quiote on many occations on the local HiFi forum in Finland. 

 

My cousin is has been in the HiFi industry (Importer) for close to 20 years. Amoung others he's the official importer of ELAC, Dynaudio, Moon Audio, Aurender, Silent Wire, etc... According to him the BL5's are the best speakers he have ever heard! 

The only ones "on par" are the Dynaudio Consequence ultimate edition, costing about 3 times that of Beolab 5. Not to mention the amps, dacs and CD/media players and wires...

The setup I heard them in this last autumn was about 100K euro worth. And I admit it was on par with the BL5's!

Try and get a "Hifist" to believe this is, impossible. 

I actually met your cousin, although only briefly... And I can confirm what he said about the Beolab 5's.

bayerische:

Moxxey,

 

You are also right.

 

You can't imagine the problems I have getting people to work for me. Working at a bar, or a restaurant isn't what young people think is "5exy", they know it's hard work.

Summer means a lot of work for me, and thus I need to hire more people, so most of my staff are "summer workers". It's getting harder and harder to get workers, as who would want to work at a restaurant? "I'm too precious" or "too high on the social ladder for that".

Even if the pay is very good for a 18-year old. 

So what do these 18-year olds do all summer when school/collage/university is off?

They are free! They live off their parents.

How their parents want to or even afford to support these young grown-ups is beyond me.

And the really funny (actually sad) social behaviour to me, is that in most of the cases the "I'm too good to do dishes" youngsters are from middle or lower-middle class families. The ones that actually work their butts off all summer are from middle-to-high or some are even from high classes! Makes you think what the uppbringing is to do with it.

The kids who can actually afford to jet-ski all summer at the summer house do the dishes, serve tables, work 12h days 5-6 days a week, and don't complain, as nothing is more valuable than work-experience! Whatever you might study or whatever your future line of work may be.

 

Sadly, this is true... For some reason a lot of companies I know have problems with getting young people get to work for them... And it's not like these companies are demanding the impossible. Still lots of youngsters are unemployed these days...

@Dkatz, I admire your intellect and ability to argue points ad infinitum.  Your response to my tongue-in-cheek (and accurate) comment was not without substance, though a tad simplistic and naive. That's cool, it fits my mentality.  However, when you can describe systems and interactions as well as you do data points, I will be really impressed.  Meanwhile, you ought to try your shtick out on CNET or Engadget and see where it goes: tougher crowd than a B&O one. 

I learned the best way to close a circular argument (from having teenagers past and present) is to find an example that shows the futility of continuing.  See if you can spot the irony here....Rolls Royce

folkdeejay:

Dkatz:

You have to remember Moxxey that the UK is a democratic country, has been for ages. The fact that the Union Workers can rise up at all is a statement that it is a free country. In China if workers did that they would get fired. If they complained about the government, etc... they would be put in Jail. Britain hasn't been like that for a couple hundred years now. Even in the 19th century Unions were formed and people were up in arms about many things as far back as then!

You are joking ....

I was going to reply too, but then thought "what's the point!".