So, Air pods Max?

[bigboss]

Have you ever heard a salesman say 'this is the coveted made in China version. Much better than the USA/UK/Japan/Taiwan version!' Of course not lol. And there's a good reason for that.

Yes, the reason is the image problem in the eyes of customers. China will make anything to the manufacturer's spec and quality. Problem is that most manufacturers use China to cut their manufacturing costs drastically and also lower the quality. As Paul said, the customer has an image that products made in USA or Britain are perceived to be better quality than those made in China, which may not be true. Is there any evidence that Levi's made in USA is of better quality than those made in China? The higher price is due to labour costs in the US.

You are unfortunately a minority. Buying second hand stuff supports no manufacturer and encourages no one to build high quality products or those that can be repaired. Apple has seen that if its products are repairable easily, you're holding on to their MacBook for 8 years and not buying anymore of their products. Pioneer would not have stopped making TVs if customers gave fair share to custom quality products. Kuro was the best TV at the time, leagues ahead than anything else out there. But they were losing money on every TV they sold, trying to find buyers buried in the sea of cheaply made TVs. It's us who have encouraged manufacturers to go cheap which spawned a throwaway society.

If you really want to reverse this, the only way is to buy well engineered products brand new and sell them on within couple of years to buy more of them brand new. Otherwise, good quality products will cease to be made. Or change the mindset of a throwaway society and have repair facilities which are easily accessible.

I still remember in 2004, I bought a bag from Argos for £6.04. the buckle broke within a month. So I went to a local repair shop who quoted £10 to replace the buckle! I was shocked; he said that's how it is now. It's cheaper to buy a new product than repair it. I went back to Argos to swap for a new one. Without doubt, the perfectly good bag with a broken buckle would've gone to landfill.

 

[Longchops]

Yes, the reason is the image problem in the eyes of customers. China will make anything to the manufacturer's spec and quality. Problem is that most manufacturers use China to cut their manufacturing costs drastically and also lower the quality. As Paul said, the customer has an image that products made in USA or Britain are perceived to be better quality than those made in China, which may not be true. Is there any evidence that Levi's made in USA is of better quality than those made in China? The higher price is due to labour costs in the US.

Name me one product that the Chinese make better than the Taiwanese, the Japanese, the Americans or the British. You can't do it because there isn't one. Everything they make is inferior. Never superior. Its got nothing to do with perception, its fact.

Is there any evidence that Levis made in the USA are better than that made in China (or bangladesh I believe). Well lets think about this logically. Do you expect a 12 year old child that is chained to the floor, fed a bowl of rice a day and beaten senseless every time he makes a mistake is going to produce work of better quality than an American seamstress with years of training and a good education? Its very simple. Good workforce = good products, bad workforce = bad products.


Apple have a choice. They know there are plenty of people that won't let go of their 8 year old MacBooks and 5 year old iPhones. So why not sell them parts? A new battery perhaps? Recycle the old one too? There are very few companies that don't run parts departments and apple do it purely out of spite. They'd rather have nothing if they can't flog their new product. Its just not acceptable in 2020. Its not me that needs to reverse my shopping behaviour to enable a greedy corporation to increase their profits, its very much the other way around, and while I admit they do make good products, they are all horrendously over priced and their attitude stinks.

 

[bigboss]

Name me one product that the Chinese make better than the Taiwanese, the Japanese, the Americans or the British. You can't do it because there isn't one. Everything they make is inferior. Never superior. Its got nothing to do with perception, its fact.

Is there any evidence that Levis made in the USA are better than that made in China (or bangladesh I believe). Well lets think about this logically. Do you expect a 12 year old child that is chained to the floor, fed a bowl of rice a day and beaten senseless every time he makes a mistake is going to produce work of better quality than an American seamstress with years of training and a good education? Its very simple. Good workforce = good products, bad workforce = bad products.


Apple have a choice. They know there are plenty of people that won't let go of their 8 year old MacBooks and 5 year old iPhones. So why not sell them parts? A new battery perhaps? Recycle the old one too? There are very few companies that don't run parts departments and apple do it purely out of spite. They'd rather have nothing if they can't flog their new product. Its just not acceptable in 2020. Its not me that needs to reverse my shopping behaviour to enable a greedy corporation to increase their profits, its very much the other way around, and while I admit they do make good products, they are all horrendously over priced and their attitude stinks.

Apple products are made in China, and apart from your coloured perception, nobody will say its products are inferior. In fact, cost of ownership of iPhones is the cheapest in its class, due to high resale values.

As I said, China will make items to spec. If the manufacturer says to use quality products, they will use quality products. QC is still maintained by the manufacturer.

You're mixing things up with labour conditions. Ethical manufacturers will audit workers' conditions. At the end of the day, you have a choice to support those manufacturers or not if you have doubts about work conditions. It's consumers who demand cheap products that results in cost cutting somewhere; either work conditions or quality or both. On one hand, you say that you won't spend much on headphones, but the budget you have can only be satisfied in China or countries with cheap labour.

Apple isn't a trillion dollar company for no reason. This is capitalism, whether you like it or not. It's only when people won't mind paying top dollar for quality products made in countries with strong labour laws to protect work conditions, that the situation will change. It will come at a price.

 

[bigboss]

Have a look at B&O products. I've got B&O H95, simply the most beautifully made headphones and sound amazing too. One of the most expensive headphones in the market. Just touching it oozes quality. Where is it made? China. Name one product that's better built that B&O H95 headphones, regardless of where it is made anywhere in the world.

 

[Paul.]

I’m actually using an iPad Pro at the moment, lightroom with the pencil 2 is brilliant. I only dig the MacBook Pro out when I need complex filters in photoshop, iOS photoshop is a good foundation but not quite finished yet. So soz, I did value thinness and glue. I wouldn’t dream of lumping my MacBook Pro along in an already heavy camera bag but I can with the iPad quite happily. I may get an M1 Mac mini in the not too distant future, those things are hench!

I wouldn’t worry what sales people say, most of them will say anything. I think the polished stainless steel bezel on the iPhone 12 pro max is the perfect example of quality made in China. You can argue it’s poor value if you like but can you hold one in your hand and say this is poor quality with a straight face?

 

[Paul.]

That reminds me, i assume the photo thread didn’t make the cut when this place got switched back on? I can’t seem to find it. It’s a shame but I guess it would just be full of dead host links now.

 

[Longchops]

Have a look at B&O products. I've got B&O H95, simply the most beautifully made headphones and sound amazing too. One of the most expensive headphones in the market. Just touching it oozes quality. Where is it made? China. Name one product that's better built that B&O H95 headphones, regardless of where it is made anywhere in the world.

I know B+O products well. I had a TV that broke and couldn't be repaired, and have a pair of headphones that look pretty and cost a fortune but don't sound very good. Never rated them tbh, always thought they were premium priced but mid range performance at best. It sounds like you prioritise the looks over the sound from what you say, horses for courses I guess

If you want an example of non-chines headphones maybe try Grado. Hand made in Brooklyn for over 60 years. If I was going to buy a pair of boutique headphones I would buy from them purely because of that. You don't stay in business for that long if you make junk do you. I believe this website rates them very highly and has done for many years too.

 

[Longchops]

Apple products are made in China, and apart from your coloured perception, nobody will say its products are inferior. In fact, cost of ownership of iPhones is the cheapest in its class, due to high resale values.

As I said, China will make items to spec. If the manufacturer says to use quality products, they will use quality products. QC is still maintained by the manufacturer.

You're mixing things up with labour conditions. Ethical manufacturers will audit workers' conditions. At the end of the day, you have a choice to support those manufacturers or not if you have doubts about work conditions. It's consumers who demand cheap products that results in cost cutting somewhere; either work conditions or quality or both. On one hand, you say that you won't spend much on headphones, but the budget you have can only be satisfied in China or countries with cheap labour.

Apple isn't a trillion dollar company for no reason. This is capitalism, whether you like it or not. It's only when people won't mind paying top dollar for quality products made in countries with strong labour laws to protect work conditions, that the situation will change. It will come at a price.

My perception is coloured by experience. I buy, sell and repair electronics for a living. You can tell me all day long how amazing china is but the reality is anything from that country goes in the bin at the first sign of trouble. And trouble is all but guaranteed.

Compare that to a UK company like Mission, for example, who will gladly service a 40 year old amp for you. And when What Hifi test it against the new model, they agree it still sounds ace. Because its well made. China will never be capable of making such things. Not in a hundred years.

I've got plenty of equipment that is over 40 years old. Amplifiers, effects pedals, synthesisers, you name it. Had a chinese synth turn up today, brand new and has 3 faults. Thats the sort of quality you get from china unfortunately, and it doesn't make much of a difference what the brand is.

Low cost labour = low quality products

 

[bigboss]

I know B+O products well. I had a TV that broke and couldn't be repaired, and have a pair of headphones that look pretty and cost a fortune but don't sound very good. Never rated them tbh, always thought they were premium priced but mid range performance at best. It sounds like you prioritise the looks over the sound from what you say, horses for courses I guess

If you want an example of non-chines headphones maybe try Grado. Hand made in Brooklyn for over 60 years. If I was going to buy a pair of boutique headphones I would buy from them purely because of that. You don't stay in business for that long if you make junk do you. I believe this website rates them very highly and has done for many years too.

It's very clear you're not aware of B&O pedigree and its innovations. Your comment "You don't stay in business for that long if you make junk do you." is interesting, because B&O has been around for 95 years!

You really need to read up about B&O. We're so used to cheap stuff from China or South Korea that we fail to appreciate the value of a small Danish company whose focus is high end and the support it offers (for 10 years beyond product shelf life, often longer). Please read about its pedigree. There's a reason why they've survived for 95 years despite world war and economic downturns.

If you read their history properly, they were manufacturing every single component that went into their equipment, all in Denmark. Their products hardly broke down. There are members on here who have B&O products for 30+ years and still working. It is unfortunate they had to stop making smaller components due to economic downturn and rise of cheap Chinese goods in the market.

We all complain about Chinese monopoly in the market and how British brands like B&W are making their speakers in China.....but we do not have the right to complain, when we ourselves don't support our European manufacturers.

 

[Longchops]

It's very clear you're not aware of B&O pedigree and its innovations. Your comment "You don't stay in business for that long if you make junk do you." is interesting, because B&O has been around for 95 years!

You really need to read up about B&O. We're so used to cheap stuff from China or South Korea that we fail to appreciate the value of a small Danish company whose focus is high end and the support it offers (for 10 years beyond product shelf life, often longer). Please read about its pedigree. There's a reason why they've survived for 95 years despite world war and economic downturns.

If you read their history properly, they were manufacturing every single component that went into their equipment, all in Denmark. Their products hardly broke down. There are members on here who have B&O products for 30+ years and still working. It is unfortunate they had to stop making smaller components due to economic downturn and rise of cheap Chinese goods in the market.

We all complain about Chinese monopoly in the market and how British brands like B&W are making their speakers in China.....but we do not have the right to complain, when we ourselves don't support our European manufacturers.

No I'm not aware of their 'pedigree', but this is exactly what I'm talking about. My experience of the company is overpriced jerry built junk bought by hipsters and poseurs. I wasn't born 95 years ago so I must have missed the glory 'made in denmark' years. All I know is TVs that break after 5 years and headphones that cost a fortune and sound no better than something you could get for 1/5th of the price. How could I advocate them based on that! I consider them the same as apple, innovative, stylish, but overpriced, badly made and unreliable. Who cares what they used to be, but if they have a legacy they certainly didn't build it in china thats for sure.

My experience of B+O comes from the 90s. To be fair this was a terrible time for electronics in general, and they certainly weren't the only manufacturer to make cheap, ghost-built junk during this period,. It was like a technological race to the bottom, with everyone pointing their ships at the new world, with its impoverished and easily enslaved people and rubbing their hands together with glee at the potential profits and they simply didn't think or care about the damage this would do to their reputations.

This was the era that gave us the MP3 remember. And then the focus shifted onto making things small and pretty. Not good, just small. And B+O were some of the main culprits of this degenerate engineering, I recall. Maybe thats why all their shops disappeared

btw 10 years is nothing. if you can't support your product that long you really are in the landfill business. Even elon musk supports his products longer than that, and he runs the most valuable landfill company in the world

 

[bigboss]

I'm actually disappointed at your ignorance about the world's oldest electronics brand, especially what happened to it during the second world war. They're a brand with high integrity. They built every small component that goes into making a product, in Denmark until the 2007 economic downturn forced it to look at alternatives to survive, as most customers were attracted to cheap Chinese products. Your comments about quality is not backed by any evidence. Name one electronics company that supports its products beyond its shelf life. 10 years is just an example. B&O products from the late 60s are still repairable, which until now I considered was in line with your ethos.

Vintage Bang & Olusen Repair | BEO Repairs

Vintage Bang & Olfusen Repair | BEO Repairs | Repairing and Servicing vintage Bang & Olfusen, in the UK and around the world.

www.beorepairs.com

Here's B&O history for you:

B&O History - Watt Integration

Bang & Olufsen, the world's oldest home electronics company, has a great history of passion, pride and persistence (more about that last one later) seldom equaled. Here are some fun facts in B&O History!

wattintegration.com

And another one about the company:

Home

B&O celebrates its 90th birthday. We go behind the scenes to see what makes the company tick.

www.whathifi.com

Personally, I have a huge amount of respect for the brand and have admired it since childhood.

Your double speak is also confusing. The budgets you talk of favours China.

There's no point in arguing with ignorance, so I'm out.

 

[Deleted member 2457]

There used to be a B&O shop just down the road from where I live it was part of Technosound which once featured in the WHF mag. I sometimes wondered in there while a demo was on in the main part of Technosound but one thing I regret now about as I never demoed any of their products. The speakers to me looked bizarre in their looks but I would love to know what they sounded like.

I have owned some B&O headphones though and I did like them but they were only about £150 dramatically reduced on Amazon.

 

[Longchops]

I'm actually disappointed at your ignorance about the world's oldest electronics brand

I own one of their products. Whatever they went through in WW2 doesn't make it better. I don't like it and think its overpriced for what it is and that is my opinion, whether you like it or not. You think their headphones are the most beautiful thing ever and also sound ok, which is yours. Its horses for courses.

I have a similar opinion of Apple to that of B+O. Form over function. Sure, the iPhone was a game changer, but remember the first 3 models were rubbish and had no 3g, the 4 used to drop signal when you held it (Remember the classic Steve Jobs 'well don't hold it like that then!') the 4s used to flip all your photos upside down, the 6 used to bend like a banana phone and had a poor battery, the 7 had no headphone socket and thats when the dongles started appearing......

If we can put our rose tinted spectacles down and look at these critically these are not really very good when you think about it. Like why would you design a headphone socket out? That just smacks of opportunism and greed.

I think if you buy into apple you are buying into a perception of luxury. You are paying for a fashion accessory. If thats what you want fair enough. But there's very few products they make that provide value for money in my opinion. And I think where they buy their labour is a big part of this, because the products are quite often of low quality.

 

[Paul.]

Have you considered that working in repairs you may have a distorted view of things? Maybe you only get to see the Friday afternoon specials 😂

 

[Longchops]

Have you considered that working in repairs you may have a distorted view of things? Maybe you only get to see the Friday afternoon specials 😂

Well yes but my pessimistic view of mass produced electronics is really no different to the view point that everything apple makes is fantastic. Or anything China makes. The balanced view of course is somewhere in the middle. Sometimes yes, sometimes no.....

My point is if you are handing over hundreds or maybe thousands of pounds for chinese made electronics maybe its time to pause and reflect because from my personal experience the quality of their work could make that a risky investment.

 

[Sliced Bread]

Don't worry what others think, none of their business.
If you wanna wear your pink headphones, you wear them, Candy Floss head.

Apple AirPods Max review

What Hi-Fi? Awards 2021 winner. Apple’s first on-ear headphones justify their huge price tag

www.whathifi.com

Lol 😂

 

[Deleted member 116933]

I’m actually using an iPad Pro at the moment, lightroom with the pencil 2 is brilliant. I only dig the MacBook Pro out when I need complex filters in photoshop, iOS photoshop is a good foundation but not quite finished yet. So soz, I did value thinness and glue. I wouldn’t dream of lumping my MacBook Pro along in an already heavy camera bag but I can with the iPad quite happily. I may get an M1 Mac mini in the not too distant future, those things are hench!

I wouldn’t worry what sales people say, most of them will say anything. I think the polished stainless steel bezel on the iPhone 12 pro max is the perfect example of quality made in China. You can argue it’s poor value if you like but can you hold one in your hand and say this is poor quality with a straight face?

I have the new mac mini and its an awesome little machine you get a lot of power for the money, Runs Sketch adobe CC just fine, Premier is a little funky, it even has the power to run 4k window in after effects amzaxing. Id Ai Ps Xd all fine running emulated. Wacom is running fine after a little fight, had to load In the drivers manually in to the accessibility security for it to register an input without a security warning.

And chews through fuji medium format files in lightroom classic no problem.

All while remain cool to the touch and silent!

Poorly made china rubbish it isn't this thing will stand the test of time. and there cheap enough that when it dose finally throw in the towel I can get another without sweating a 5-10k price tag. Ill then use this one as a media server.

All the machine a graphic designer needs to be honest

 

[Paul.]

Sounds promising since I mainly shoot wildlife I don’t tend to take many photos this time of year so I will see how things are going are in a few months.

I just edited a full shoot I did earlyier in the week and lightroom for iPad is a game changer for me. I’d gotten so fed up with my post workflows it was putting me off taking pictures. Chipping away at it on the sofa with a tablet and pencil was so much more fun than chaining myself to the desk (that I’m currently at all day anyway working from home)

 

[Sliced Bread]

Yes Lightroom for iPad / iPhone is great, although I can’t seem to get the optics corrections working with my Fuji pics.
That to one side I think it’s great.

 

[Deleted member 116933]

Yes Lightroom for iPad / iPhone is great, although I can’t seem to get the optics corrections working with my Fuji pics.
That to one side I think it’s great.

Those would be baked in so no need to apply.

 

[Fahad]

Is there any evidence that Levis made in the USA are better than that made in China (or bangladesh I believe). Well lets think about this logically. Do you expect a 12 year old child that is chained to the floor, fed a bowl of rice a day and beaten senseless every time he makes a mistake is going to produce work of better quality than an American seamstress with years of training and a good education? Its very simple. Good workforce = good products, bad workforce = bad products.

Not sure if you had referred to the working conditions in China or Bangladesh in those statements. While I can't vouch for the working conditions in China, I can tell you that there is no "Holiday in Cambodia" situation going on in Bangladesh. Child labor is taken very seriously. A lot of those factories supplying to companies like Levis are built like 5 star resorts. You are welcome to visit Labor is cheap in Bangladesh, true. But cost of living is also not that high.

Media is quick to highlight a few unfortunate incidents which are the results of some greedy individuals but such people exist all over the world.