General Forum

Re: B&O Price rise again?!

GuyHui — Fri, 21 May 2010 08:56:56 GMT

I agree with the points Lee made above, and at the same time, I don't agree with what BenSa said.

In fact, I have the right not to be satisfied with a B&O product if this one does not offer the level of standard that is expected.

Furthermore, I am free to critize B&O in a constructive way when the situation is justified.

And on top of that, I LOVE the Brand and feel optimistic when looking at the new BV10 46.

Cheers,

Guy

Re: B&O Price rise again?!

Clakke — Fri, 21 May 2010 04:39:51 GMT

Thank you Lee. I support everything you write above. Very well put.

Might add that I think that too much concentration of B&O shops could, in the future, lead to that nobody have heard of them.

Good Day

Clakke

Re: B&O Price rise again?!

9 LEE — Fri, 21 May 2010 04:21:00 GMT

BenSA:

I have to say for Lee to say that B&O should be bought by another company....for me is very disappointing. To complain about the brand, yet make a living from them to me makes no sense what so ever. Adverts on Ebay, professing B&O Tv's as amazing...yet to complain about them on Beoworld is having double standards. I know I might be coming across as harsh but I'm tired of endless complaints.

I think pretty much every dealer I know complains about the brand these days - so there are a whole load of us with double standards.

Most Bang & Olufsen products, when they work properly, are indeed amazing. Some are overpriced junk when new (in my opinion) and some are absolutely worth every penny.

When an Avant DVD was twice the price of a Sony, it made sense - and people bought in droves. The name got around, the dealer network did well and got bigger, B&O made a good profit - and everyone was happy. I'd like someone to explain why this successful business model was ditched?

I also said to Kalle Hvidt Nielsen when he first took over that as technology was changing so rapidly, wouldn't it be good to make the TV's 'modular' so that if a new screen, chassis or whatever came out - it could be upgraded (at a cost). This would make splashing out over £7,000 for a 32" LCD a little more palatable, plus it would give the salesman something in his armoury to help justify the price. I was told that this was the plan - and kept getting fed a 'one technology platform' line which made sense at the time. I've not seen this yet, but i keep my fingers crossed in the hope it will emerge and be fantastic.

Now, forgive me if i'm wrong but a large majority of people who buy B&O as adults grew up in awe of the brand. If i had a pound for every person that said to me 'i'm buying B&O because i remember it when i was a child - i went round to my friends house and i just saw this hi-fi / TV and thought "one day" and i always promised myself it' - or 'my parents had it all through my childhood, and i always promised i'd have it too'

The list goes on and on - but it's all about recognition of the brand. If the end user market gets smaller, less people become aware of the brand - and in the long term less people will buy. It's an ever decreasing circle that's being propped up by price rises. In 10-15 years i sincerely hope the next generation of affluent individuals won't be looking at a new piece of B&O and saying 'Bang and Who?' - never heard of them.

I'm also talking about peers here. Wether you admit it or not, half the joy of owning a supercar, powerboat or other luxury item is the fact other people like it too. It can often help you justify the purchase to yourself !! Driving a brand new Aston Martin down the road, you get admiring glances and people thinking 'nice Aston' as everyone knows what an Aston Martin is. They see them in garages, friends of friends own them, they read about them and see them on the road. This is because despite being ultra-premium, they sell in number - but imagine if only a handful of people even knew what an Aston Martin was as hardly anyone bought them and few people actually saw one?

Yes, you can argue about brands like Zonda, Spyker et al - but given the choice, most people would plump for an F430, 997 Turbo - and they do.

I may not have put all of that properly, but i hope my point has at least got across in essence.

Lee

Re: B&O Price rise again?!

Dave — Fri, 21 May 2010 02:31:31 GMT

scootinnc:

I have a 2009 Aston DB9 convertible and when my battery went dead from sitting in the garage at our lake house

Lifes tough sometimes isn't it!

Re: B&O Price rise again?!

scootinnc — Thu, 20 May 2010 21:03:25 GMT

I have a 2009 Aston DB9 convertible and when my battery went dead from sitting in the garage at our lake house, they came out to the house, picked up the car, took it back to the shop 2 hours away and replaced the battery. Then they checked everything out and put it back on the covered truck and delivered it to the lake house.........all for free. That is the type of service I expect from them and I would expect nothing less from B&O.

Re: B&O Price rise again?!

linder — Thu, 20 May 2010 18:18:32 GMT

Jaff,

I think you have nailed the problem. It is software and certification testing of that software. There is no doubt there is a problem. A long time ago in the mid 80's, the software or more correctly firmware on my MX5000 tv was done by replacing a chip. Replacing a chip is an expensive thing to do. Today they use flash memory.

I have managed several outsourced software projects and many times they were a nightmare. I have no idea what the problem is at B&O but it needs to be improved. To be fair, this is a problem at some of the largest tech companies including the highly respected Apple. Many car companies are in the headlines over these same issues but not Aston of course.

Re: B&O Price rise again?!

burantek — Thu, 20 May 2010 17:41:34 GMT

TripEnglish:
You have to think of the nay-saying as more akin to movie criticism than brick tossing. Movie critics don't hate movies, they love movies and want good movies to be better and bad movies not to exist!

Well, there you have it! Perfectly put, Trip!

BenSA:
Like a previous poster has said, there is a big anti-B&O sentiment on this site and if I happened to come across this site as a novice to B&O products I would say that B&O must be a load of crap. Buy a Sony tv, get apple Tv or whatever and be happy!! Most of the flat panel tv's are crap anyway so whats the big deal! Instead of trying to find positives, its always negatives.

OK... now you are going to really think that I am a hypocrite! Full disclosure: I own four B&o TV's to include a plasma!

To give a fair shake to the products I bussed last night, let's take another look at them and come up with something constructive!

1.) BV7: SW

2.) BV10: Problems w/ the panels direct from SAMSUNG

3.) BS5: SW, specifically updates

4.) BC5: SW

OK, so the general trend is problems w/ SW. We all know already that SW has been and still is an issue for the company. Nothing new here. So, let's look at it a different way... What is the first thing that grabs your attention w/ B&o? First and foremost (for me) is the visual impact... (i.e.) design. Modern era B&o (post JJ's arrival) has been successful and remains so based on this... not very often that any product has universally been described as hideous! OK, so where am I going w/ this? What if we thought about the SW the same way that we do about the aesthetics of the products? What I am trying to say is B&o retained outside designers and hit "home run" after "home run" for decades! Why not outsource the SW development to well established SW coding companies? Allow the designers to interact w/ the coders and commonize not just the code itself, but the GUI (base it on the BS5 graphics). Let the designers handle the looks, let the coders handle the 0's and 1's, and let B&o handle the manufacturing management and unification of all the aspects that make up the final products... the "home runs" will return!

P.S. Though I hate censoring, I picked up my bricks!

Re: B&O Price rise again?!

linder — Thu, 20 May 2010 17:26:37 GMT

TripEnglish:

burantek:

Guys, guys, guys...

Don't confuse enthusiastic complaining about poor business practice(s) with anti-enthusiasm of the brand and the products!

I wouldn't be here if I didn't love the brand, the history, and the products. Trip and I seem to share a common pleasure in pushing each other's buttons from time to time... nothing more / nothing less!

As far as the topic... something tells me we will revisit it again and again and again... why? Because we care.

Burantek has a point. You have to think of the nay-saying as more akin to movie criticism than brick tossing. Movie critics don't hate movies, they love movies and want good movies to be better and bad movies not to exist!

(Plus, I agree with a lot of these guys more often than they'd think but play devils advocate for kicks).

Burantek does have a point. There is a lot of brick tossing though.

Re: B&O Price rise again?!

TripEnglish — Thu, 20 May 2010 17:16:04 GMT

burantek:

Guys, guys, guys...

Don't confuse enthusiastic complaining about poor business practice(s) with anti-enthusiasm of the brand and the products!

I wouldn't be here if I didn't love the brand, the history, and the products. Trip and I seem to share a common pleasure in pushing each other's buttons from time to time... nothing more / nothing less!

As far as the topic... something tells me we will revisit it again and again and again... why? Because we care.

Burantek has a point. You have to think of the nay-saying as more akin to movie criticism than brick tossing. Movie critics don't hate movies, they love movies and want good movies to be better and bad movies not to exist!

(Plus, I agree with a lot of these guys more often than they'd think but play devils advocate for kicks).

Re: B&O Price rise again?!

BenSA — Thu, 20 May 2010 17:02:27 GMT

DrDimitris:

BenSA:

To me its just seems simple, if you don't like it, think its over priced, don't buy it. I find that the forum has become a very negative place almost anti-B&O.

I completely disagree with you. It is a very unique and friendly website for people who trully get excited with B&O products for decades now. It needs i think no more than common sense to understand that the company loses its path. Unfotunately the mass production of TV and HiFi sets from other companies should have raised B&O standards. We all love BV10, BV7, and all the new stuff that are produced. Don't you think that apart from the incredible design they should offer you a product that behaves as it should and extra-ordinary after sales service??? Well guess what!! They have new products that fail to meet even the standard requirements of other TV sets. I want to stay on B&O side. But clouding issues, software conflicts, lack of after sales service {BEO(who)CARE(s)}, and many more problems that arise to customers that pay lots of money.....it is just not so B&O any more.

For me and i believe for others any new product of B&O that comes up and shines to our eyes from now on passes a test period for X months to unfortunate Beta-tester clients till we decide if we want to buy it. No more MKI,II,III,IV and so on. I am fed up with it.

I never said Beoworld isn't friendly and not unique.....the help I have received from this forum is amazing. I just don't understand how people can't understand that when it comes to TV's its a very difficult and tricky market. Its very important for B&O to think very carefully on how they want to approach the current situation they find themselves in. They need to make the right decision, not a rushed decision. Like a previous poster has said, there is a big anti-B&O sentiment on this site and if I happened to come across this site as a novice to B&O products I would say that B&O must be a load of crap. Buy a Sony tv, get apple Tv or whatever and be happy!! Most of the flat panel tv's are crap anyway so whats the big deal! Instead of trying to find positives, its always negatives. B&O will never be perfect, will never do things a 100% like we want because just like any other company they are run by humans who are flawed. B&O will never sell cheaper Tv's so there's no point in even discussing that. If you think that their prices are ridiculous don't support them.

I have to say for Lee to say that B&O should be bought by another company....for me is very disappointing. To complain about the brand, yet make a living from them to me makes no sense what so ever. Adverts on Ebay, professing B&O Tv's as amazing...yet to complain about them on Beoworld is having double standards. I know I might be coming across as harsh but I'm tired of endless complaints.

Re: B&O Price rise again?!

Clakke — Thu, 20 May 2010 15:23:16 GMT

TripEnglish:

Do you really think that B&O should offer a lower price integrated TV than the BeoVision 8? Or is it that you'd like there to be a wider variety of sizes in the various price brackets?

Quite frankly, YES. I think the best candidate is... BV8 itself. It has been out for a while now. The normal procedure with electronic equipment is to lower the price after a while. It does not get any better considered the competition. If they introduce a new version of BV8, they can go back to the high price for that one. The old one could still be sold a good while at a lower price, just like iPhone 3G and 3GS.

B&O is going in the wrong direction with the prices. The product is not as good as it was when introduced.

Good evening

Clakke

Re: B&O Price rise again?!

jk1002 — Thu, 20 May 2010 14:45:40 GMT

I disagree. I have lived in a NYC shoe box, there is space for BL3 and a BC2 or BS5. They need to take further swings at digital music. BS5 alone is not enough.

Re: B&O Price rise again?!

Tod Daniel — Thu, 20 May 2010 14:22:40 GMT

B&O seriously need to make an iPod sound dock (B&W Zepplin?). You only have to look at the young, afluent professionals in the cities with their stylish bijou apartments. We havn't the size for loudspeakers however, I feel a top quality sound dock would really reignite B&O. I would certainly upgrade to one! I've been a fan of CD since 1984! However, since I got my iPod last year, i've never used CD since my poor little BeoSound Century seems to be very redundant these days!

Come on B&O lets have decent sound dock and some quality entry level 32" below 2.5K televisions!

Definately agree with having B&O in other showrooms. I used to love it when thery were in Selfridges and Harrods!

Re: B&O Price rise again?!

burantek — Thu, 20 May 2010 13:31:55 GMT

Astons... I have had three over the years ...still listed in the AMOC registry.

NEVER had a problem -nothing, zip, nada, except a little run-in with a tree... but that was my fault!

Re: B&O Price rise again?!

linder — Thu, 20 May 2010 13:29:34 GMT

DrDimitris:

linder:

Since cars are often used as examples here I will mention a car that I think is too expensive. I would really like an Aston Martin but I honestly can't afford it. Its not that it is overpriced because they seem to be doing well. I just don't have the money for sometime like that. Maybe overpriced and not in budget are the same thing.

If you know anyone with an Aston Martin that waits his software update to solve issues on his brand new car let us know...

You have touched on a problem that Bang and Olufsen should make as their number one priority for fixing which is software updates. Good point!

I actually don't know anyone with an Aston Martin. Where I live, parking is a problem. I would have to spend $50000 for a garage space which makes it even less affordable.

Thanks,