Was premium quality an illusion?

[mark pirate]

Agreed, but a lot of the problems with both the Roberts and Hacker sets was the reliability of the components used.
Even the dreaded modules used in many Roberts sets would not have been an issue if they had used superior Japanese components!

Mark

[jjl]

Originally Posted by 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.

I have some sympathy with your view, but the fact is that manufacturers of electronic equipment really have no choice but to use highly integrated SMD components. The reasons are

Performance - shorter interconnects allow the use of higher frequencies
Reliability - the use of a few, highly integrated devices reduces the number of solder joints required
Packaging - fewer, smaller components allow PCBs to be smaller thus offering flexibility in the outward appearance of equipment
Cost - fewer, smaller components reduce the bill of materials cost of the equipment

I have some experience of this as I design industrial electronic systems for a living. I have recently been working on a project that uses a system on chip device that integrates CPUs, peripherals and a large FPGA all in a single package. Using this device has allowed considerable cost savings over my employer's previous approach and has reduced the number of PCBs in the system from 5 to 1.

John

[G6Tanuki]

Originally Posted by jjl

I have some sympathy with your view, but the fact is that manufacturers of electronic equipment really have no choice but to use highly integrated SMD components.

I'm sure that when ICs first came on the market here were sad people complaining that if a single transistor inside the chip failed, you couldn't just replace it and had to wastefully replace the *entire IC* instead.

[G6Tanuki]

It's interesting also to think about what constitutes a "premium quality" brand.

10 years ago everyone thought Nokia was a premium-quality GSM phone brand; they lost their way and vanished from the scene, with Ericsson [later to become Sony Ericsson] and Motorola following close behind.

5 years ago Blackberry was 'the' premium smartphone in the business sector; now when it comes to phones only Apple's got the aura of a premium brand.

10 years ago LG and Samsung were seen as 'cheap and cheerful' phones. Now, certainly, Samsung is seen as a semi-premium/quality brand.

The brand one generation sees as quality the next generation sees as a 'sad' brand.

[Paul_RK]

Originally Posted by unitaudio

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.

Well, the jury's still out on that: see http://www.bestelectrickettles.net/w...-plastic-free/ for instance. When I started wondering what I'd do in the event of failure of my round-about-45 year old Russell Hobbs K2, various preferences - visual and noise-related - together with a reluctance ever to buy anything at any price that wasn't likely to be around for a satisfyingly long time, led me to buy a new Burco commercial kettle. Close to £50, but it looks at home, boils quietly and without fuss, has no internal plastics and seems destined for a good long innings, while the K2 remains as a standby.

As has been said, there's quality and there's prestige. Hacker excelled in build quality, Roberts post-1960 in marketing. One of them survived. Overall reliability, though, is another matter and often comes down to individual components whose propensity for failure manufacturers won't have had any means of knowing at the time of their installation. Tandberg built superb radios in the 1950s, but surveying the world's marketplace for paper capacitors they settled largely on Hunts Mouldseals.

Sony have excelled at marketing and build quality is never disgraceful for the price point, but in my limited experience they've been at least accident-prone on the reliability front. A logic controlled cassette deck here (TC229SD) started switching randomly between functions every now and then, cured by replacement of the main logic IC: the first VCR I owned was a Sony and died in similar fashion at about three years old. Panasonic's world band portable radios from 20 to 40 years ago seem mostly to be still going strong, while various Sony models from the period tend to be in need of large scale electrolytic replacement and the flagship CRF320 succumbs sooner or later to nylon gear fracture.

General conclusion, premium quality was real enough (RGD/Murphy/EMI in the '30s, Hacker radio in the '60s, B&O's '80s TVs for a few instances) but didn't always bring the deserved benefits in reliability. It's still around in the domestic appliance field (Miele), but in matters audio-visual it seems more often appearance, ergonomics and reputation that are paid for than build standard.

Paul

[PJL]

Originally Posted by Radio Wrangler

I remember HP hired a quality control guru to come and present a course. He opened with an explanation of what the word meant, using a mundane example: He had once driven along a road past a broken-down Rolls Royce which was being winched onto a transporter. His Sierra, he explained, was the higher quality car because it was doing what it was supposed to do. The Rolls was the higher prestige car, even though it was not performing as required.David

Depends on your definition of quality, after 5 years the Sierra would be rusted away and on a scrap heap whilst the Rolls is probably still going strong in the middle east somewhere. (A bit like HP who were a respected innovations company who have tried to become a mainstream consumer market player).

For many products such as washing m/c and lawnmowers, consumer expectations include lifetime and a premium is paid for long term reliability provided by a 'Premium Product'. Electronics has become a 'fashion' industry with manufacturers encouraging rapid obsolescence. Combined with low raw materials costs and automated manufacturing, consumers do not see electronic items as a long term investment and either buy cheap or seem quite happy to pay over the odds for a 'label'.

[mark pirate]

I still maintain that you get what you pay for to an extent. My Laptop is a good example, I paid a premium price for a premium product. As it is the one thing I use heavily, I saw no point in buying a cheap flimsy model.

Eight years on it is still going strong and has had no hardware problems, it is used 7 days a week from morning to night. The only signs of it's constant use is the palm rest is now shiny and the screen is not as bright as it was.

One of my friends bought a new laptop around the same time, but a cheaper model, it only lasted around three years and had to be replaced, the second one is now having hardware problems, so enter machine number three!

On a cost per year basis, my expensive machine has actually given far better service at less cost

I am hoping it will last another couple of years.....

Mark

[Maarten]

Originally Posted by 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.

I consider fibreglass PCB's overrated in most through-hole-technology consumer applications. Maybe someone at Roberts was of the same opinion.

Of course I don't know their construction so they very well might have had more problems.

[russell_w_b]

Quality is relative and subjective.

[Radio Wrangler]

I had a GEC RC410 receiver, a very much premium set. One of the first HF receivers with frequency synthesis other than a Wadley system. No expense was spared, the crystal filters were amazing quality and a full set was fitted (this was an actual prototype and so was fully loaded with all options) The transformers were the best Gardners and so on. Unfortunately all the PCBs were SRBP and had absorbed moisture from the air and warped to the point where their edges did not engage with the card-cage the synth boards plugged into. Dodgy contact in their connectors were the order of the day.

What a difference FR4 glassfibre would have made!

The mechanical gearboxes and geneva-wheel mechanisms linking the synth programming switches were a work of art. It used decade switches and gears to make a PLL synthesiser operate like a VFO. If you've never seen one, there are pictures of someone's on the web.

David

[Ed_Dinning]

On a similar theme about SRBP boards, one well known British manufacturer of electric cookers produced a touch controlled cooker in the 80's. Top range model with vac fluorescent display for power level, triac control etc.
Trouble was that steam from cooking food quickly warped the SRBP boards as well as causing the touch pads to play tunes. It was not the customer complaints about this that got them withdrawn but a few chip pan fires when the touch controls and steam turned the pans on full!!

Ed

[McMurdo]

No-one's mentioned Planned Obsolescence yet! We expect cheap goods to fail because..they're cheap. But all manufacturers invest in Planned Obsolescence..at least in mass-market consumer goods. I like to regard a quality item as one in which its intended failure date is in keeping with its cost.

There was a story in The Setmakers about comparing the approach to quality and reliability between Philips and rival Ferguson, where a failed component at the end of line test would be sent off for analysis at Philips but simply 'thrown in the bin' at Ferguson.

There was an interesting programme (maybe 'costing the earth'?) on Radio 4 a few months back regarding this planned obsolescence thing. Apparently, PSU electrolytics are now selected & positioned in a hot or cold place according to how long the manufacturer wants the product to last. The quality control engineers at Philips must be turning in their grave!

[pmmunro]

Premium quality certainly existed in many once highly regarded electrical and electronic products.

Personal choice will depend on experience, but a prime example would be Tektronix oscilloscopes using vacuum tubes (they were from the US where valves are for oil). If you could afford one, the performance led the field and the construction quality was nothing short of beautiful and the manuals were a model of presentation and thoroughness.

In the same era, a number of British manufacturers of high class audio equipment are also worthy contenders.

What all of these, and other similar companies had in common was that each manufacturing company was dominated by an engineering personality; Tetronix - Howard Vollum, Wharfedale - Gilbert Briggs, Leak - Harold Leak, Quad - Peter Walker, Sowter Transformers - Dr Sowter. For all of them technical excellence was of primary importance, although commercial success shows that they also had a balancing business sense. I don't know which of them were private companies, but clearly they were not vitally dependent on their share price and the satisfaction of "investors" to whom they were little more than gambling chips.

Today, those which still exist have to satisfy entirely different commercial criteria and I would be very surprised if engineers have much say in the board room, if they are even represented. The products which now bear their name may, in a few cases, have benefited from component development in recent decades but many are just trading on the name.

An example of the integrity of these respected companies comes from a story told to me by a late friend who had acquired a Leak loudspeaker amplifier, second hand. When the amplifier was several years old, and long after the expiration of its guarantee period, the block paper smoothing capacitor failed and my friend sent an order, with a cheque, for a replacement. When the replacement capacitor arrived, the cheque had been returned with it and a note explaining that Leak did not consider it right to make any charge as the capacitor should not have failed. However, the second capacitor also failed after another year or so. Once again, Leak would take no payment and the third capacitor served for many years.

These examples were all specialist manufacturers with a relatively small turnover but similar business models can still be found of unquoted companies with highly respected products, and in many cases huge sales.

Notably, but not exclusively, some German companies have these characteristics. Their engineering is highly respected, but I have heard it suggested that it is in fact their accountants who are responsible for their success - the accountants keep to accountancy and leave the engineers to make the technical decisions! Look for companies whose principle directors have the title "Dr. Ing" or similar, in other countries. e.g Robert Bosch, Johannes Heidenhain - digital encoders, Hugo Mueller - Industrial timers.

PMM

[jjl]

Tektronix still make high quality, expensive instruments. I use modern Tek 'scopes in my work several times a week.
However, these days, Tektronix are owned by a large American conglomerate who also own Fluke among others.
It must be very much easier to make a well performing digital 'scope than it was say 20 years ago. The reason is that the display, memory and microprocessor that provide a large part of the experience of using the instrument can be and usually are off the shelf PC components. Specialist parts of the instrument are the front end acquisition electronics; amplifiers attenuators, A/D convertors etc. and of course, software.

John

[tony brady]

Originally Posted by McMurdo

There was a story in The Setmakers about comparing the approach to quality and reliability between Philips and rival Ferguson, where a failed component at the end of line test would be sent off for analysis at Philips but simply 'thrown in the bin' at Ferguson.

This was certainly not true at Thorn's audio factory in Newhaven. When I was an apprentice there part of my job at that time was to test and analyse various failed parts like cassette heads, Dolby ICs and tuning gangs to find out whether they were faulty or not and if faulty what the reason was.

[Martin Bush]

Hi all

This is an interesting discussion, and I've learnt a few interesting things.

I was particularly interested in some of the comments made about Roberts radios.

I'm sure what has been said about standards at a certain period in time is true. But as a new enthusiast I've picked up a few Roberts transistor radios recently because I liked the look of them and have been impressed with the quality compared to modern kit... I guess it's all relative.

I've got models that have been looked after and ones that haven't (bought on ebay from the 'I don't know anything about radios so I don't know if it works' people), and all so far have worked well - even the one that looked like it had been left in a potato sack.

I like how I can take them apart and how each dismantled piece has a bit of weight to it.

Knowing what I know now, I look at the modern sets from the same manufacturer in the local department store and I think to myself "They want £100 for that? they don't make them like they used to".

To me, now, you really are paying for the name and style.

Martin

[Radio Wrangler]

Tektronix and HP have changed. Their current products are nowhere near as repairable as their oder stuff. This is inevitable, due to changes in the whole electronics industry.

Agilent and Tek divested themselves of their semiconductor branches. Those branches then latched onto cellphones as THE growth area, and stopped being interested in such trivial markets as stuff for test equipment.

So the test equipment has to use industry standard parts, and those parts have split into a basic bunch of general purpose ingredients, and a range of super-impressive ASICs for consumer products with the production lifetimes of a mayfly.

By the time you receive your scope or spectrum analyser a lot in it will be already obsolete.

Software has converged on putting windows in the things and there have been cases of virus infection. I jokingly refer to 30 quid a year for Norton/Symantec antivirus as the 'Windows Tax' and we may need to stump up for every instrument in a lab if they get connected to a LAN, or people transfer files on flash sticks.

Back in the day, no-one knew that AF117s would have problems. Mr Hunts thought he baked exceedingly good capacitors. We have the benefit of 20:20 hindsight.

David

[Paul_RK]

Originally Posted by Martin Bush

I was particularly interested in some of the comments made about Roberts radios.

I'm sure what has been said about standards at a certain period in time is true. But as a new enthusiast I've picked up a few Roberts transistor radios recently because I liked the look of them and have been impressed with the quality compared to modern kit... I guess it's all relative.

Certainly is, but Roberts in the '60s were probably a cut above most UK manufacturers for build quality anyway, particularly as regarded the cabinets - just generally some way short of competing directly with Hacker. What will surprise many people who weren't around at the time, is that the price differential between Roberts and mainstream companies then was very small if it even existed: small wonder that their popular models sold as well as they did. Performance though was generally acceptable rather than sparkling, and adoption from the early '60s onwards of Mullard modules didn't help when it came to servicing the sets.

[cheerfulcharlie]

Originally Posted by G6Tanuki

I'm sure that when ICs first came on the market here were sad people complaining that if a single transistor inside the chip failed, you couldn't just replace it and had to wastefully replace the *entire IC* instead.

That happened around 1969 with RBM tv sets and its Plessey chip, meanwhile the same area in a Pye set was busy cooking its board with valves.

[GMB]

I think that one issue has been that planned obsolescence and avoiding warranty claims make an interesting balance. The trouble these days is that better control of materials and manufacturing processes has reduced the error in predicting life expectancy. The golden aim is for a product to break down the day after the warranty expires and this is now much easier to achieve (it happened to me with an HP laptop).

I have found that sometimes the "quality" items were not so good - and I think this comes down to volume pricing. This is particularly true today when some ultra-high volume production makes amazingly good devices that are ridiculously cheap. This has made the luxury versions less good value as they are not so popular so the volume benefit is not there.

There has always been an exception though - and this is where a new technology is marketed for the first time, where manufacturers are unsure about the product life so they get over-engineered to avoid getting a poor reputation or a lot of warranty claims. We have two examples of this - an early microwave oven that works as well as the day we bought it over 35 years ago, and the first generation of ceramic hob cookers which not only works as well as new but it actually still looks like it's new, again after a similar time.

My concern today is that the physical product will easily outlive the firmware. This has already happened to me on digi-boxes twice now. I can't see us paying big money for a top-of-range TV knowing it could be useless within a few years.