Was premium quality an illusion?

[G8UWM-MildMartin]

I vaguely recall the Thorn/ Ferguson TX10 chassis, though designed as a mass-market domestic television, using world- class components components, which the British industry had only just started to manage to produce, gaining the accolade of being "badge-engineered" for a Japanese company and being used in the broadcast industry as a monitor for less critical applications.
I can vouch for the quality, having my parents' one which has only had cooked/dry joints on the 12-V regulator re-soldered, and a new-type focus control fitted during its first 15 years, then after it was given to me I fitted a re-gunned CRT a few years later.
It was retired in favour of a Turkish Bush 2020T, which was of similar design and was, in turn, retired after 18 years, with just a few electrolytics replaced and eventually a resistor bodge to fool the auto-grey-scale into working with a tired CRT, in favour of a Daewoo 28" set made around 2000 that a friend had run hard for around 8 years before the frame output IC and associated electrolytic failed. It is now starting to dim, so will be the first to be scrapped, then the others will be "used up" in reverse order!

[Radio Wrangler]

The phrase "Paying for the name" has become part of the English language, and very often premium quality was an illusion. I like the bit about ordinary products and world-class marketing, it's so true in many cases.

I saw a company with a fabulous reputation for innovation change its way of marketing. Marketing has two phases: Firstly, looking at the market and deciding what to make, and secondly persuading customers to buy yours and not anyone else's. The flows of 'information' are inwards and outwards respectively.

What they did was to institute a rigid process. Inbound marketing had to see that a number of major customers all wanted the same thing, and that there was a consensus on the wanted performance. Only then could the start of development of a new product be authorised. It looked like a good improvement in control of the enterprise, it would reduce the waste in failed developments.

What it did was to ensure that products could only come out a year or two AFTER the customers had all identified a need. It takes time to develop something and to transfer to manufacturing. It guaranteed that new products could no longer have a delight or surprise factor. It ensured new introductions were very ho-hum.

Previously, the firm had done a lot of new product development by developing new technologies as a sort of blue sky research, and then asking what it could be turned into, it looked at existing products and asked what could be done next. It wasn't necessarily well-matched to the market, but it did throw up a lot of revolutionary products which were a lot more advanced and capable than the market expected. This was equipment which gave the user a sudden advantage in his business. It was a jump ahead of the competition and commanded a premium price, giving high profit margins. On the downside, there was a proportion of product developments which failed. Overall, the successes paid for this comfortably. It was said by then managers that if the project cancellation rate wasn't around a certain percentage, they weren't being adventurous enough.

A newer regime brought in process control with a religious fervour. In a lot of places this was good and manufacturing defect rates fell. Warranty costs fell. But applying rigidly enforced mechanistic control to inbound marketing and product development started to kill the company. When it was noticed that things were less rosy, they consulted thei industry standatd process control gurus, and the advice they received was that tighter control of process was needed.

The company still exists though the prestige name has gone, raided by a different organisation as it was perceived to have value. It is a small fraction of the size it once was. So is its turnover.

It wasn't all self-inflicted, there was an abrupt downturn in the whole industry, backed up several years later by a banker-induced recession, but an objective view would see that what was once the outstanding company is now just one of the pack.

In product development we became expected to use industry standard tools for everything, and this gave industry standard results. If a designer produced something with extra-good performance (whether or not it cost more) it was seen as wasteful and an assumption was made that he could have done something closer to target that would therefore have to have been cheaper. The designer would pay for it at annual review time.

Another change was to making employees compete for shares of a salary pot. Suddenly your competitors weren't the other companies, they were the guys at the next desks! Some people enhanced their share by becoming very careful about passing on knowledge to others. Some people enhanced their share by damaging others. It got nasty.

Premium quality was once not at all an illusion. Premium prices were earned.

Since then, most premium companies have cashed in on this by 'trading on their reputations' and making premium quality truly an illusion. It happened some time ago to Dynatron, it happened more recently in other branches of industry.

It's quite visible that the products of the old firm are still sought after. They worked well, their performance was excellent and still is even though they are decades old. The old stuff was less reliable than the new stuff, but it was an awful lot more fixable. The new products are definitely more reliable, but any faults outside warranty are devastating. Product lifetimes are starting to be defined by software compatibility, not hardware wear-out.

Once people were impelled to read "The soul of a new machine" by Tracy Kidder. Now it's "The 5-minute manager"

Think of the British motorcycle industry in the 1960s. Did the Japanese really kill it, or did it destroy itself? Then look at TV sets in the 1980s, it was a perfect parallel.

Did party X win the election, or did party Y lose it?

David

[Andrew2]

Originally Posted by mhennessy

A good friend used to have a high position in a company that manufactured goods for the supermarkets, and some of his stories are absolutely shocking. They made a significant loss on most "value" brand products (e.g. cheap toasters, kettles, etc), but made decent margins on the premium brands which sold for many times more than the "value" stuff. But the premium stuff cost no more to manufacture, and was no "better" than the cheap items in terms of quality and longevity.

Things are slightly different in other walks of life, but ultimately - as an expert said to me a few months back - it's about "reasonable products and world-class marketing". Quite sobering, really :-(

You only have to buy a Russell Hobbs kettle to see the truth in that. When I was in the trade, people would bring their RH kettles in for a new element and away the kettle would go for another few years. They kept them because they were good and the name was respected. A while ago we bought a new RH kettle from the supermarket and it was pretty poor. It was light and flimsy and after a couple of years it developed a leak. Not impressed. We replaced it with an 'own brand' one and this one now has something rattling about in the base.

[russell_w_b]

Originally Posted by Radio Wrangler

'The phrase "Paying for the name" has become part of the English language, and very often premium quality was an illusion...'

The British public are awake to this now. Why do you think Aldi has the likes of Tesco and Sainsbury's on the back foot?

[glowinganode]

At a slight tangent, what will replace the ubiquitous blue LED which seems to be used to symbolise modern design. Frankly I can't stand them, make my eyes go funny.
Rob.

[cheerfulcharlie]

Originally Posted by Karen O

Sony is a clear exception to my suspicions - I've never opened a Sony and had cause to shudder (or for that matter, a Phillips). The item in my OP was an early 80s stereo cassette recorder (NOT pocket type) but I can't recall the brand.

I always thought Sony was over priced, over complicated and thus over rated in comparison to its bargain bucket rival Sanyo.
I have many good old Sanyo products, years old, still going today and easy to fix if they are not. Sanyo put traditional tubes in their TV sets while of course Sony stuck with their yukky old Trinitrons.

With regards to Philips I always had the impression that their European products had been designed by some crazy professor of the type often depicted in films. However their UK designed G8 TV I thought was absolutely superb for its time.

[music-centre]

I bought a cheap supermarket kettle a couple of weeks ago and it is impossible to pour the water out at anything more than a trickle or it goes everywhere due to the design of the spout and top - just what you want with boiling water.
I have usually found you get what you pay for in electrical/audio equipment but cheap stuff is O.K for something that will see occasional use.

[Karen O]

I think much has to do with the unmaintainability of modern devices. Boards crammed with infinitesimal components are beyond my repair abilities and I suspect most peoples' abilities. As a result, things are rarely opened now so nobody gets to see the state of the innards.

If we truly want 'greener' products then governments must insist on products being modular and maintainable so that as little as possible is wasted. Trouble is, that doesn't fit with the current economic model of cheap products with a short life that get replaced at least yearly.

[AC/HL]

Two posts deleted, please see post 3

[Radio Wrangler]

Boards crammed with infinitesimal components, I can handle. I have a couple of Metcal irons, a small collection of stereo microscopes and a pair of steady hands.

I must get a hot-air soldering station one of these days. I've got compressed air in the garage so an ex-industrial Pace one would be good. I could even make my own nozzles.

It's the unobtainable parts that get me.

A lot of application-specific ICs have the lifetime of a mayfly. and only ever got sold at corporation contract levels anyway. Utterly irreplaceable.

Everything these days is full of such things.

The only response from the consumer is that if manufacturers make irreparable products, then never ever put more money into a thing than you'd spend on a disposable one.

It IS feasible to do surface mount repairs at home, but it isn't feasible to make replacement ICs.

David

[russell_w_b]

Originally Posted by Karen O

I think much has to do with the unmaintainability of modern devices.

Why do you need to maintain modern devices when they seldom fail? Isn't this why we've seen the demise of the TV repairman (and subsequently 'Television' magazine)? People's expectations are much higher these days and most would laugh at the quaint notion of someone coming round to the house to swap out a burned resistor or a dodgy tripler.

The genie is out of the bottle, and it's the consumer who freed him. He won't be put back!

[Bazz4CQJ]

Originally Posted by Radio Wrangler

Quality is harder to define

No; not for those of us who worked at Plessey (Caswell)!

Day#1, lesson#1;
Quality means adequacy for purpose
Reliability means continuing quality.

Of course, customers of Plessey in 1979 may have had much to say about these profound observations; I couldn't possibly comment .

B

Originally Posted by russell_w_b

Why do you need to maintain modern devices when they seldom fail?

But they do fail (SMPS capacitors are a big failure component, in both senses) it's more the cheapness of a new one that makes its less desirable to have something repaired. Another offset is the 'joy' of having a new item.

[unitaudio]

My mum bought a big, chrome RH kettle. It looked posh and cost £30. It lasted less than a year.

I bought an own-brand kettle from Wilkinson's. It's made from cheap white plastic and cost £4.78. It's now in it's 6th trouble free year.

That's perhaps an over-simplification of the point being discussed here though. Audio and video products are a bit more complex than a kettle after all. A kettle either works or doesn't. One kettle isn't capable of better quality boiling water than another. A DAB radio for example may work as designed but it could still be a disappointment. The user interface might be obstructive as we've seen in other posts or the sound quality may be lacking or the user may just get fed up with the thing muting out every 5 minutes, whatever make they buy or how much it cost. In such cases (supposed) premium quality is an illusion.

It wasn't always like this but unfortunately marketing models change and always, or at least so it seems, to the advantage of the manufacturer and not the purchaser.

Regards,
Paul

[wireful3]

Having decided it was not a delusion in the distant past. I am sure that paying a premium still provides a different product. Whether it is better value for money is really the question. Take an imaginary case of a standard model mini disc player, with a mass produced case that just plays discs, through a reasonable amplifier. A premium price might have produced a well built elegant machine with a long life, lots of remote controlled functions and outstanding audio performance. In the event most of this would have been pointless as mini discs are now obsolete.

Rapid redundancy these days makes it questionable whether producing a premium model with extra capability is ever worthwhile. Rapid change in fashion has a similar effect. Paying a premium for quality is now perhaps not so relevant either unless the quality is obvious externally.

One situation I can recall where a premium price did produce a worthwhile result, is the Roberts MB portables. Here essentially the basic set was given extra capability by adding a mains power unit. No doubt there are other similar instances.

This all tends to be obscured by badge engineering. Brands from companies that have ceased trading have been bought to enable a large mass producer to sell the same thing at different prices, just by changing the badge. Some people are quite happy to pay for exclusivity. I personally don't like this situation because I suspect many customers don't realise what is going on. I have to remind myself though, that it is probably no different from fashion dictating that avocado is the new colour for radio cases.

Being brutal about things, if a premium item is internally identical to the basic one but produces exactly what I want for the extra price why should I worry about the profit the manufacturer makes?

[russell_w_b]

Originally Posted by merlinmaxwell

But they do fail (SMPS capacitors are a big failure component...'

Indeed. But this 'Achilles heel' of modern technology (professional as well as consumer) is mitigated in part by by the use of 'wall-wart' or trailing PSUs that may be replaced relatively cheaply. I wonder if manufacturers appreciate this, hence the propensity to use this sort of PSU?

[vidjoman]

Wall warts. It's to save manufacturers having to submit dozens of different radio or similar models for safety testing. They only have to get a small number of warts tested and can then use them on any model they like. It's a cost saving.

[G6Tanuki]

I remember one brand of telephone in the 1980s that had a big lump of metal in the handset to give it a "heavy, quality" feel. People raised on 1950s-style Bakelite handsets expected a 'proper' phone handset to be heavy, even if the extra weight meant you got pins&needles in your shoulder after holding it to your ear for half an hour.

As to "buying the brand", an upmarket name doesn't automatically mean good quality: compare a late-model Roberts R707 to a similar-era, similar price-point Japanese radio from the likes of National or Toshiba. The Roberts uses cheap SRBP circuit-boards lashed together using individual lengths of bare copper wire soldered directly to the PCBs. A Japanese equivalent would probably use fibreglass PCBs, and have plugs/sockets for a [probably ribbon-cable] interconnecting loom.

Better design means better reliability *and* lower costs for servicing. But the Toshiba/National would be looked-down-upon by many prospective purchasers because it had a 'cheap plastic case' and lacked the "by appointment" badge on the front panel of the Roberts.

[mark pirate]

But the Roberts set would sound a whole lot better than the Toshiba!

The quality in A 707 is it's cabinet and audio. It is still one of the best transistor sets, along with the Hacker's of the period.

Mark

[G6Tanuki]

True; but you must admit the electronic construction-quality is appalling - the upmarket name definitely not being a guarantee of 'premium' construction in this case.