What is happening with some makers?

[Richard Allen]

I have to say that I don't care! If British companies can't make competitive products at competitive prices then they deserve to go to the wall. It's nothing to do with being patriotic though. We live in a competitve world and as a country we have to build businesses that can survive in it.

Chris

Totally agree with you Chris. However, how do you counteract an artificially 'deflated' price in order to gain market share?. Simple answer, you don't. This happened around 8 years ago when a guy brought me a 300B integrated amplifier. I costed the bits and they were more than the amp was selling for. Trade price I thought but then the guy told me it was retail!!. I haven't a hope in hell unless I do like for like but somthing like that as a loss leader is one hell of a lot to swallow.

You say British businesses should compete. I agree but the playing field should be level. Pointless anyway because without the infrastructure left behind with the China exodus, it won't happen. But yes, you're right.

 

[Richard Allen]

:clap:

Modern cars seem to break down very quickly, usually electrical and very expensive!!!

Sorry but this is cobblers, I'm 40, I remember the amount of problems my dad had with his cars (brand new company cars replaced every 18 months) when I was growing up, no end of problems (including watching our luggage bouncing down the road in the Dartford tunnel after the boot on our Triumph 2000 flew open as it was always doing).

Compared to that I've had one brand new car, 57 plate Astra, the heater didn't work when I got it but that was replaced, free of charge of course, in about an hour, other than that it gave me no problems. I've since owned 2 1 year old Saab 9-3s, one of them failed with an expensive electrical issue but not until I'd put 175,000 miles on it in 3 years, which I don't think is a bad exchange. Other than that no issues.

I do get pissed off with misty eyed "enthusiasts" who insist old cars were far more reliable. They aren't. I left the Practical Classics forum after one idiot tried to claim, in all seriousness, that that winter (which hadn't been particularly cold) his old banger was the only car on his street that would start without a jumpstart and that every "modern" owner had had to call the AA out to get them going. I like old cars but that kind of pathetic hyperbole is just ridiculous.

:clap:

 

[hoopsontoast]

Modern cars seem to break down very quickly, usually electrical and very expensive!!!

Sorry but this is cobblers, I'm 40, I remember the amount of problems my dad had with his cars (brand new company cars replaced every 18 months) when I was growing up, no end of problems (including watching our luggage bouncing down the road in the Dartford tunnel after the boot on our Triumph 2000 flew open as it was always doing).

Compared to that I've had one brand new car, 57 plate Astra, the heater didn't work when I got it but that was replaced, free of charge of course, in about an hour, other than that it gave me no problems. I've since owned 2 1 year old Saab 9-3s, one of them failed with an expensive electrical issue but not until I'd put 175,000 miles on it in 3 years, which I don't think is a bad exchange. Other than that no issues.

I do get pissed off with misty eyed "enthusiasts" who insist old cars were far more reliable. They aren't. I left the Practical Classics forum after one idiot tried to claim, in all seriousness, that that winter (which hadn't been particularly cold) his old banger was the only car on his street that would start without a jumpstart and that every "modern" owner had had to call the AA out to get them going. I like old cars but that kind of pathetic hyperbole is just ridiculous.

Without going too OT, reliability is different in cars.

Older cars can be more reliable in terms of fixing them yourself, where a lot of jobs could be done by the 'home mechanic' where as most if not all newer cars wont even let you diagnose a problem without a Dealer Computer.

Speaking as someone who has owned 4 Triumphs and my only other car has been a 'Metro' from '96, reliability to me means it might need the occasional jump start, or little fiddle here and there but it does 12k+ miles/year in all weathers needing only new tyres and an alternator (that I fitted myself) in three MOTs.

Of course its not a brilliant car, but it does the job :rofl:

 

[hone_u2]

I think there are a lot of companies that still maintain their quality standards, because they only do what they do best, focus all their attention on the few products that they make and make them well, and don't compromise or try to reinvent just to stay ahead in the game (quite so pointlessly as in the cell phone industry).

I think there are a lot of British companies that still have the same rigour and culture that made them famous at the start of their existence like ATC, PMC etc. I think the quality of their cabinet construction, the finesse, durability, and overall design is still of the same quality (In my opinion). Innovation is good when it's marketed with the same quality as the previous products, personally I really don't care if ATC come out with a portable dock line like B&W or the likes to stay ahead in the modern fewer boxes and integrated game, because what they make is sturdy and reliable, "install and enjoy your music" quality types.

I think everything in the corporate World is about packets of emphasis, you choose to do certain things well, like sound quality, internal design, and maybe compromise on the build quality on the outside or not give as many inputs and outputs, it would be utopian to think a company can perfect every aspect of a product! But as a customer, I really hope that companies at least aim to do few things well against a lot of things with many compromises...

 

[CJSF]

Modern cars seem to break down very quickly, usually electrical and very expensive!!!

Sorry but this is cobblers, I'm 40, I remember the amount of problems my dad had with his cars (brand new company cars replaced every 18 months) when I was growing up, no end of problems (including watching our luggage bouncing down the road in the Dartford tunnel after the boot on our Triumph 2000 flew open as it was always doing).

Compared to that I've had one brand new car, 57 plate Astra, the heater didn't work when I got it but that was replaced, free of charge of course, in about an hour, other than that it gave me no problems. I've since owned 2 1 year old Saab 9-3s, one of them failed with an expensive electrical issue but not until I'd put 175,000 miles on it in 3 years, which I don't think is a bad exchange. Other than that no issues.

I do get pissed off with misty eyed "enthusiasts" who insist old cars were far more reliable. They aren't. I left the Practical Classics forum after one idiot tried to claim, in all seriousness, that that winter (which hadn't been particularly cold) his old banger was the only car on his street that would start without a jumpstart and that every "modern" owner had had to call the AA out to get them going. I like old cars but that kind of pathetic hyperbole is just ridiculous.

Cobblers???? . . . personal experience and observation 'old son'. When I talk to friends/associates who are successful, fancy cars, and expensive white goods, they often speak of the problems (usually expensive) they are or have had. A mechanic friend tells of the electrical problems he sees, he says, 'the electrics just aint up to it' . . .

Cars break down, white goods fail, have done, will do, mechanical parts wear, agreed, old classics were and are a pain, (I remember my fathers company cars, always a problem in the winter), but nothing a spanner and hammer cant fix. Modern cars can be a nightmare if . . . when . . . the electrics start playing up. Expensive, a problem to track the fault down and have you tried to work on a modern car, takes all day to get at the bones of it, and you are stuffed if you have not got the special tools and computer.

Give me an old style pre computer car, 'it will go wrong', but I can fix it, on the side of the road if necessary!

No, I dont drive an old car, mine is on an 09 plate but it is fairly simple and the local friendly garage 5 minutes round the corner does not throw their hands up in despair when I go round . . . fortunately only once a year for a service so far. Previous motor was of the same manufacture, fairly simple too, it did 205,000 miles before the first major problem, a worn out fuel pump called a halt to proceedings and that was my fault, I used reclaimed oil as fuel for 6 months, not one of my best moves, £1400 to fix, more than the car was worth, got that on trade in.

Modern electronics can do amazing things, but seems to me they aint man enough for the job . . .

Sorry folks, back to topic . . .

 

[JakBurn]

Quality of goods last twenty years?

It's Chinese Manufacturing, It's called Build down to a Price, They won't say NO! to a customer.

Can you build it for this Price?

Yes

How about this Price?

Yes

and so on.

Was Looking to get somthing Manufatured over there, and I was asking ridiculass Prices, and the worst response i Got was a three second Pause!

 

[Covenanter]

I have to say that I don't care! If British companies can't make competitive products at competitive prices then they deserve to go to the wall. It's nothing to do with being patriotic though. We live in a competitve world and as a country we have to build businesses that can survive in it.

Chris

Totally agree with you Chris. However, how do you counteract an artificially 'deflated' price in order to gain market share?. Simple answer, you don't. This happened around 8 years ago when a guy brought me a 300B integrated amplifier. I costed the bits and they were more than the amp was selling for. Trade price I thought but then the guy told me it was retail!!. I haven't a hope in hell unless I do like for like but somthing like that as a loss leader is one hell of a lot to swallow.

You say British businesses should compete. I agree but the playing field should be level. Pointless anyway because without the infrastructure left behind with the China exodus, it won't happen. But yes, you're right.

The playing field has never been level of course. In the past this country has taken advantage of conditions being in our favour so it's kinda hard for us to be too upset when others do the same.

I do have great sympathy with manufacturers competing against those with a much lower cost base. The answer, which you will, is quality, product and service. People will pay more for a top notch product.

Chris

 

[Sospri]

I have to say that I don't care! If British companies can't make competitive products at competitive prices then they deserve to go to the wall. It's nothing to do with being patriotic though. We live in a competitve world and as a country we have to build businesses that can survive in it.

Chris

If your employer told you they'd found someone in China who could do your job for 50% of the salary would you and your family deserve to go to the wall or would you just decide to be competitive and take a salary cut of half?

I'm not interested in supporting British companies as such but I see the importance of British jobs. If we sit back and shrug our shoulders then there will be no jobs left and no one to pay into the pot.

+1

 

[jonathanRD]

I have to say that I don't care! If British companies can't make competitive products at competitive prices then they deserve to go to the wall. It's nothing to do with being patriotic though. We live in a competitve world and as a country we have to build businesses that can survive in it.

Chris

If your employer told you they'd found someone in China who could do your job for 50% of the salary would you and your family deserve to go to the wall or would you just decide to be competitive and take a salary cut of half?

I'm not interested in supporting British companies as such but I see the importance of British jobs. If we sit back and shrug our shoulders then there will be no jobs left and no one to pay into the pot.

+1

I have a manufacturing background and have been made redundant a few times. On one occasion I was on a funded training course with 15 other people. I was the only one who had managed to get a job. They all had fantastic manufacturing experience - fitters, engineers, production planners, etc - I sat there one day feeling quite dismayed at how much experience was going to be lost to British manufacturing. Some really great guys, but you could see the resignation in their eyes.

 

[Richard Allen]

I have a manufacturing background and have been made redundant a few times. On one occasion I was on a funded training course with 15 other people. I was the only one who had managed to get a job. They all had fantastic manufacturing experience - fitters, engineers, production planners, etc - I sat there one day feeling quite dismayed at how much experience was going to be lost to British manufacturing. Some really great guys, but you could see the resignation in their eyes.

It's downright despicable. The maths are easy. We buy more than we sell, we go bust.

You can apply for an enterprise funding grant over here ( EFG ) but the amount of red tape and hoops you have to jump through is untrue which makes them nigh on impossible to get. Go to China, say " Gimme money for a new venture" and it's a lot easier than here.

If all the components were made in this country then it would be easier but a lot of the intermediate electronics etc are made in the far east due to cost even though it's going in a British piece of kit. It's already been mentioned about counterfeit bits and I suspect that if you did a batch test that's where the problems would lie.

We've got to have a re-think and be given the financial incentives to go with it otherwise we will stay ' The Nation Of One-offs'. Crazy. Oh!, and go bust in the process.

 

[Covenanter]

I have to say that I don't care! If British companies can't make competitive products at competitive prices then they deserve to go to the wall. It's nothing to do with being patriotic though. We live in a competitve world and as a country we have to build businesses that can survive in it.

Chris

If your employer told you they'd found someone in China who could do your job for 50% of the salary would you and your family deserve to go to the wall or would you just decide to be competitive and take a salary cut of half?

I'm not interested in supporting British companies as such but I see the importance of British jobs. If we sit back and shrug our shoulders then there will be no jobs left and no one to pay into the pot.

Competitive markets are uncomfortable. Unless you think it is possible to close down markets using tariffs or something similar what exactly are you going to do about it?

It's not a matter of shrugging shoulders. It's a matter of looking at realities and deciding the best way forward. Some British manufacturing is doing well right now, cars for example. Ok they are not British owned but they provide jobs and bring money into the country. They have found a niche and do it well and most importantly cost competitively.

In consumer electronics British companies need to find similar niches. If they can do that then they will survive. I suspect that has to be at the top end of the market because there quality is the most important factor not price.

Chris

 

[MakkaPakka]

I'm a consumer - I'll buy British products and encourage others to do the same.

 

[Native_bon]

I would have to say, I mostly agree with Paul @ Rega.

People (in general) post on forums without much thought for the effect it might have.

What anyone posts, is then publicly searchable. So if I had an ongoing issue with a component, and posted in the middle of it being sorted out by the manufacturer, I would have a different opinion compared to the result (could be positive or negative).

The very few times I have had a faulty item, the last thing I would have done is go on a public forum and talk about it, especially so if it was in the process of being resolved with a dealer/manufacturer.

Online forums and 'personal reviews' tend to lean towards either people who are very enthusiastic about a product, or very negative. You never really see many posts of the people in between who are happy but dont feel the need to post, I.E. the vast majority of customers.

In response to the OP, I dont think at all that products are not as reliable, its just we know more about the ones that are. So in the past, before the wide use of online forums, your experience and knowlege of products was mainly down to your local dealer, friends/clubs or magazines, so a very small (relatively) cross section of the buying public.

So when you have a very isolated issue with a product, it becomes available to a wide audience, weather good or bad.

Hifi is SO reliable these days, I can have a Tripath based amp that consumes barely any power and gives of no heat, left on 24/7 and left in a cupboard, a cheap Blu-ray source for £50 that plays any format I would wish to play, even streaming.

And on a personal note, I wont hide my admiration for Rega as a company, always had first class service with them and one of the few companies that have a ethos and stick to it. I very much adore their speakers having had a fair number of them now!

If items of the same company keeps breaking dwn then that is lack of QC. It will then be sure to be reflected into any search done online. If you have good quality control then you have nothing to fear.. A companies reputation is not hampered by a few problems but only when it keeps occurring over and over again.

 

[Sospri]

Yep me too,

My system - Naim, Rega, Spendor, and it sounds amazing....................

 

[pauln]

I'm a consumer - I'll buy British products and encourage others to do the same.

Me too - where possible and if the quality is there I don't mind paying more for it however quite often there is simply no British made option. If not British then Commonwealth > EU > Far East > China.

Call me a patriot or worse if you want, I don't really give a ****, but I believe that we must look after our own folk first.

 

[Kamikaze Bitter]

Buying British is great, but the product needs to be built to a decent quality. I have a friend who bought a new TVR, back in the day when TVRs were still being produced. In 6 months it had to go back a dozen times. In the end his patience snapped - I think it was when the differential went for the second time - and he let the dealer feel the full force of his dissatisfaction. The dealer replied – and my friend swears this is true - “Sir this is a hand built British sports car, you can't expect Japanese mass produced quality”.

Having said that I owned a Rega turntable for years, with no problems. Great design and great sound. One of my best ever decisions was not to upgrade to a LP12, because I couldn't hear £1,500 worth of improvement. Or much at all actually.

 

[stevebrock]

I will no doubt buy another Rega product, I like the miniamlism and bang for buck!

Give me a Brio R over a Naim 5si any day! I have heard both side by side and IMO the Rega suited me better!

Yes I listened to the Naim last week side by side with the Brio - no contest

 

[ifor]

Quite why people buy, for example, Lurpak, when we have a struggling dairy industry, I don't know.

and bloody Danish bacon too!

 

[ifor]

Quite why people buy, for example, Lurpak, when we have a struggling dairy industry, I don't know.

and bloody Danish bacon too!

 

[ifor]

I'm a consumer - I'll buy British products and encourage others to do the same.

+1

 

[nima]

At risk of sticking me head above an unwelcoming parapet, it seems that people are very quick to post their opinions and "problems" on line prior to giving a dealer and or a manufacturer the opportunity to investigate aforementioned "problems"

For example, the Elicit R problems that Steve claimed, we have been unable to replicate in at least two of the units, we have not even had the opportunity to comment privately about the Saturn R, let alone address the "problems"

It seems at every turn there are people who are very happy to criticise and the www gives them the platform to vent their spleen however inaccurate or biased that may be. I would absolutely defend peoples rights to comment about their experiences but with this freedom comes a responsibility that increasingly appears to being ignored with a preference for the Warholian 15 minutes of fame that the world wide web and various forums grants.

Paul Darwin

Rega Research

This post is sooo wrong on so many levels, I can't even begin to argue with false arguments and twisted logic in this reply. For me, this post is the last nail in Rega coffin. I am a little upset at the moment, I might change my mind in a few days or weeks, but let me tell you, Mr. Darwin, you've just lost a customer for a Brio-R + Saturn-R (perhaps even some speakers and prospective customer for Aria in the future). And my first real Hi-Fi revelation were lovely and incredible (and inredibly lovely) Rega Kytes. Sorry, I might be a little mad at the moment.

 

[plastic penguin]

I will no doubt buy another Rega product, I like the miniamlism and bang for buck!

Give me a Brio R over a Naim 5si any day! I have heard both side by side and IMO the Rega suited me better!

Yes I listened to the Naim last week side by side with the Brio - no contest

That's great. I am genuinely pleased you like the Brio-R so much. No question Rega produce quality gear, and it suits your taste so much. Just that when I had the Apollo CDP the toploading mechanism was a pain and the SQ didn't have enough midrange depth for the Leema and MAs. Whether that's improved by the PMCs, I couldn't say. The only thing I know is my current combo is staggering. And the amp and CDP was less than your old Elicit-R.

 

[chebby]

I'm a consumer - I'll buy British products and encourage others to do the same.

+1

Expensive 'Scottish' woollen goods?

 

[stevebrock]

I am genuinely pleased you like the Brio-R so much.

Its a stop gap, I have an offer of loaning a Croft Integrated - I think it will wipe the floor with the Brio - the cash back on the Elciit R has been earmarked by the missus so it won't be immeadiately.

 

[plastic penguin]

I am genuinely pleased you like the Brio-R so much.

Its a stop gap, I have an offer of loaning a Croft Integrated - I think it will wipe the floor with the Brio - the cash back on the Elciit R has been earmarked by the missus so it won't be immeadiately.

That's fine if you can find an amp will give reliability with SQ. For the timebeing it's great the Brio has been a port in a storm, so to speak.