hi all, i've posted my thoughts on the b&o forum and am now re-posting it here just to share my point of view. pls feel free to disagree and share yours too ; p

Looking at the current b&o products i feel that profits is their main priority nowadays. the material they used now are unlike those of old where alluminium is generous and of high workmanship. plastics is the main component now due to lower cost? speakers are mostly covered in fabric and bv 8 mainly plastics if i'm not wrong. 
the bs 6 and dvd 2 are rebadging of other company's products and just slapped the b&o logo to charge a high price. 
be careful though, don't live in past glory and alienate your loyal supporters... not all b&o supporters will show unquestioning faith in all your not so fantastic new products and your pr machine can only do so much. after all it's the quality of your products that speak the loudest. 

I fixed the font!

Don't completely agree. I think some products are rebadged - the BS6 being a case in point but it has also been recased in nice materials and the electronics have had a make over.

Other products like the Beo5 shows true flare - the buttons on the screen have to be experienced - better in operation than the iTouch if not as useful as it is only one way. The Beocenter 2 is a lovely bit of manufacturing genius - touch sensitive aluminium! The Beolab 3,9 and 5 are not all plastic but plastics are used where these make sense. Plastic can be a very good sound deadening material - Pentas are really one big lump of plastic and the baffle of many of the large passive speakers are also plastic due to its sound absorbing qualities.

The lower end products have always been made from cheaper materials - think MX TVs , Beocenter 2200  etc.

I know where you are coming from - I love the era of the Beogram 4000 - wood and aluminium - best of all , but people don't want that now.

Good post though!

(The DVD2 is difficult to defend!) 

give me a beosystem 8000 any day over the current stuff !

the receiver still looks like it came from the bridge of the enterprise - amazing stuff 

although i do think the bv9 and bl5 are pretty stunning bits of kit and will be future design classics up there with beogram 4004 ( ok , maybe that's pushing it ! :) ) 

hi again, always a pleasure read your posts peter ; p

i always love those products that you've mentioned.. bc2 is a fabulous piece of fusion of art and technology. and those before have never ceased to impress me. but i'm looking at the current trend and that's what disappoint me.

with cheaper materials but the price doesn't equates to quality. granted it's a brand thing and that's part of the appeal  but i really wish they will come out with better quality products in the future.

dvd2 is crap in my opinion. ;)

regards 

Re-badging video recorders is an old B&o trick, the Beocord V3000 is a dead ringer for a Hitachi machine, then they didn't even bother to change the casing. Also look at the powerlead on a V6000, I bet it will say hitachi. Re-badging is a useful tool for a company of B&o's size, it allows them to increase their product range and meet the needs of their customers in a cost effective way, How much do you think a DVD 2 would cost if B&o had completely developed it themselves? £2000, £3000? Would any one pay that?  

As for cheap materials, I was fitting a DVBT module to a customers beocenter 6 26 a couple of weeks ago, the customer works in the plastics moulding buisness, and he was beside himself looking at all the elaborately moulded parts on the chassis, and kept on about how expensive tooling for this would be , especially on the scale at which B&o would be doing it. As for Beovision 8 - the point is it costs less than beocentre 6, or beovision 7, how? Cheaper materials!

Build quality is changing, service periods are reducing, but whats the point of making a product which can be serviced for 18 years after you stop production, in todays electronic goods market where most products are only made to last between 5-7 yearsand formats are changing more rapidly.  B&o's build quality is still streets ahead of the competition. 

They don't always get it right, DVD2 is a bit of an odd one, I think they got he user interface all wrong, and of course no digital tuner, and officially no support for STB's. (although the guide plus feature works a treat with STB's even thoug B&o don't want it to be used).The main problem is what you do when you go to digital, it won't work any more - even if you have a dvbt mod in your TV.    

I will agree that B&o are more interested in profit, and so they should be, they are after all a buisness. The survival of their buisness is very important to their customers and those of us who make a living out of it -

Mark 

 

  

beocentre:

Re-badging video recorders is an old B&o trick, the Beocord V3000 is a dead ringer for a Hitachi machine, then they didn't even bother to change the casing. Also look at the powerlead on a V6000, I bet it will say hitachi. 

Bet it won't! Grundig maybe!! (Typical smart comment from a moderator!) But I do agree with you. Lots of bits of B&O use other manufacturers' parts - all the cassette decks with the exception of the 5000, all the TVs use other make tubes and screens. Clearly B&O cannot make these items themselves so they buy in what they think is best. Some products are a bit too close to the original - the V3000 being an excellent example. With the VCRs, sometimes the models were actually despecced rather than added to! 

Those who were lucky enough to have been in Struer to visit the factory know B&O still pays a huge amount of attention to detail and quality.

I do not mind too much if they rebadge some products, as long as they customize them enough to integrate well with the rest. The DVD2 is a good example of a product that does not!!

Rather than rebadging a hard Drive/DVD recorder, which confuses the customer as it is cheaper than the HDR2... they should have rebadged a DVD/HDDVD/Blue Ray combo player...

A player, as opposed to a recorder, does not need a two way AVL. It is because B&O has not implemented the two way AVL in the DVD2, but only a one way, that it does not behave like a truely integrated B&O product; it cannot lock the channel on the TV, it cannot schedule the DVB-T tuner, etc...

p.

 

Personally I have no problem with B&O using other components. Some components are just too expensive to be produced by a small company like B&O. Without third party components there probably wouldn't even be a B&O today...

The key to success is in my humble opinion careful selection of these components. And their products really should have a unique B&O appearance (design, tactile materials) Last, a good user interface is also really important. Clearly the Beocord V3000 just isn't a real B&O machine. And DVD2 is a mistake.

And the Beosound 6? I appreciate that B&O uses it's own algoritm to get the best sound. And I like the finish of the cabinet as well. But the design is too close to the Samsung counterpart. I'm pretty sure that it has the same user interface as well, although in this case it's not a real problem because it's very easy to operate.

Sum up: I want that little bit extra. That's what I'm paying for. If B&O needs third parties to make their products, so be it. But I don't want other manufacturers to ruin the experience.

Here's my analogy: I can buy the same ingredients at the market as can a master chéf, but the likelihood that I can achieve the same result with them is slim. B&O's challenge is that in the digital age it's become a lot easier for many to edge in on their "master chéf" territory, and therefore also harder to be seen as outstanding -- but that's part of the game and as B&O enthusiasts we expect them to keep surprising us.

I'm totally on board with the surprise they have delivered with acoustic lens technology and to me that tells me the company is serious about perfecting the sound experience. I also liked the surprise I got when I saw and heard the BeoVision 8, which I now own. I don't agree at all with the comment about "cheap materials" on the BV8 -- and take a look at the white one out now.

But I agree with commenters who find repackaged components less satisfying - personally I would never buy the BeoSound 6. While I don't doubt that the sound is up to B&O standards, the thing itself does not stand out sufficiently from other digital music players.

BeoCenter 2, BeoVision 8, BL3/5/9, Advanced Sound System, the BeoSystem 3 picture engine and system integration all tell me the company wants to deliver.

That said, I wish BeoSound 4 was a DVD/CD player with surround decoding, serving as my BeoVision 8's audiomaster. I think B&O could deselect less - I doubt you can go on hamstringing your products in today's market. Which doesn't mean you have to overload them with features -- just consider your customer's expectations relative to previous brand performance and deliver to those.

Some of the brand surprises are simply rewarding, such as the kick I got out of connecting my BV8 to my BeoSystem 6500 and controlling both with a Beolink 5000 remote. One product from the late 80s, still going strong and looking and performing as new -- communicating with another product from 2007, sharing functions and controlling sound and sources! How many other electronics companies can show to that kind of integration and longevity in their product philosophy? And the two look as if they were designed for one another ...

 

 

beocool:

Personally I have no problem with B&O using other components. Some components are just too expensive to be produced by a small company like B&O. Without third party components there probably wouldn't even be a B&O today...

The key to success is in my humble opinion careful selection of these components. And their products really should have a unique B&O appearance (design, tactile materials) Last, a good user interface is also really important. Clearly the Beocord V3000 just isn't a real B&O machine. And DVD2 is a mistake.

And the Beosound 6? I appreciate that B&O uses it's own algoritm to get the best sound. And I like the finish of the cabinet as well. But the design is too close to the Samsung counterpart. I'm pretty sure that it has the same user interface as well, although in this case it's not a real problem because it's very easy to operate.

Sum up: I want that little bit extra. That's what I'm paying for. If B&O needs third parties to make their products, so be it. But I don't want other manufacturers to ruin the experience.

I'm in complete agreement here....I have no problem with B&O using 3rd party components

I have resigned myself (as a beosound 2 owner) that sometimes B&O will not make the best product in the market and I will stick to Apple for my ipods and when they get a 3G version out, an iphone as well....