TerryM – My Leica M3 from 1967 is better built than a modern Leica M7 for example and you don't have to pay $5000 for a new M7 one but rather $1000 or less for a used M3. The point is many people think that build quality has gone down over the years. They were saying the same thing about build quality when mass production started in the 19

MartinW – I never said that every Chinese person works in a sweatshop but just look at the facts. The human rights violations are appalling, the working conditions are far from decent and the wages are horrible. The factory owners make millions, along with the corporations that outsource to them, whilst the workers get paid pennies. It creates

[quote user="moxxey"] [quote user="bayerische"] There's definitely the danger in the western world that we are given away our industrial economy "for free" to the Chinese, Brazilians etc. Time will tell. [/quote] Completely correct. I'd like everything to be made in Denmark, England and so on. It wasn't that

Bayerische – You have to remember that Norway is perhaps the most expensive country in the world and because the living costs are so high, so is the minimum wage. I have a friend who just works at a bar and he gets something like 20 euros an hour... It's not just manufacturing wage, but wages in general that are higher there exactly because

Jonathan – Do you not care if your manufacturing industry dies off? If your country has a trade deficit? If millions of people are out of work because of it? For B&O Struer was and still is for many of its products the base of manufacture, it helps the local economy and employment of Struer. I never said the Chinese were incapable of producing

Folkdeejay – Point duly noted and I agree with most of what you say. The guitar industry differs from speaker manufacturers though as there are a few established names with a few product lines... Although B&O isn't audiophile to most audiophiles it is a separate luxury high end manufacturer that focuses on more than just sound quality

Folkdeejay – I agree with you on the fact that sub-brands are not uncommon but not when it comes to luxury audiophile equipment as Bentleyman rightly said, it lowers the brand!. Fender and Gibson are brands for the masses whether they have professional equipment or not, they are not luxury exclusive brands. They are like Panasonic and Sony that

Moxxey – My dissertation was on how outsourcing manufacturing reduces control over the manufacturing process as you give up control to a third party. It was mainly however about how outsourcing manufacturing has caused a separation between rich and poor both in the developing and developed world. 10's of Millons have lost their jobs in the

Terry - I am not saying that the Chinese are not capable of producing products. This is obvious with Apple products which are not bade quality to say the least but they are low level consumer products. No offense but an HP Laptop with Logitech Speaker Lapdesk is not what I consider to be high quality equipment! When I speak of quality I don't mean

I would like to start out by saying that I was disappointed to learn that some bang and olufsen products such as the Beolab 4 and Beosound 10 were being made in China. Now I'm beginning to wonder where my Beosound 2 and Headphones from 2006 were manufactured? I can understand that the execs at B&O want to make their shareholders happy but I