I believe that the Germans, the Japanese, the South Koreans and quite a lot of Americans would take exception to that statement.

From other things I've read through the years, this summary makes a lot of sense to me.

As I've posted a while back ago, Outlaw should have had the 978 contract designed in the US and manufactured in China if they wanted to reduce costs. A good example of this strategy would be OPPO Digital Inc. of Mountain View (CA) with its excellent success using this approach since about 2004. Other overseas examples that have also successfully used this approach for about a decade are Cambridge Audio in the UK and Vincent Audio of Germany.

At the very least, the software design and integration, which is highly critical and a major source of issues for this type of project, should have been done in the US. That's probably Outlaw's biggest mistake. Then again, I believe that not sticking through with the Inkel deal was also a major mistake. The South Koreans, while there are varying levels of business corruption everywhere, are not the Chinese.

If we were talking about Cars, then I wouldn't have said the best products in the world were manufactured in China. Germanany (by a large wide margin over anywhere else), Japan and South Korea still take the lion's share for quality in my opinion, with the USA a very distant fourth, and then only with respect to companies headquartered outside the USA.

Oppo is a chinese company BTW.

Sometimes things are not as simple as they seem at first sight. If you pay close attention to what I wrote above, I intentionally and specifically wrote: "OPPO Digital Inc. of Mountain View (CA)". At no time did I mention where OPPO is based or headquartered nor did I ever state that it's American corporation. OPPO Digital Inc. of Mountain View (CA) and OPPO Electronics Corp. Ltd. of Dongguan (Guangdong) China are holdings of BBK Electronics Corporation Inc. based in Guangzhou (China).

The point I was making is that the OPPO players are mostly designed in the US and manufactured in China and that likewise Cambridge Audio in the UK and Vincent Audio of Germany use the same approach and that Outlaw could have followed the same road map.

BTW, give America a little more credit. Intel, IBM, AMD, TI, Analog Devices, Motorola, Marvell just to name a few, are all great American companies that design and manufacture some of the most complex electronic and ICs in the world. Where they manufacture them these days is another story, often setting up plants overseas to reduce labor costs and increase profits for the share holders, all at the expense of American jobs. The same phenomenon has also occurred in Europe. Ironically, western countries have created and given this manufacturing and economic edge to China.

Oppo is a diamond in the rough. I think they're based in Shenzen (near Hong Kong). They've got a marketing arm in the US and do their manufacturing in China. So in this case you've got a forward thinking Chinese company with an eye towards quality (instead of lowest price point), and a clever group of marketing folks in the developed world. How clever? Clever enough to cut a deal with Lexicon to essentially take an Oppo DVD player (in its entirety), place it in a slightly bigger chassis, and sell it for a multiple of the cost of buying the exact player from Oppo.

http://www.audioholics.com/reviews/trans...xicon-outside-1

That's quite a bit different from a fabless western company scrambling to find a cheap manufacturer for their next widget. I'm sure Peter has decades more experience than I, but the last couple of years of watching Outlaw (after being a big fan and customer for years) leave me scratching my head. This is not the way forward and is likely to be fatal to their aspirations of being a gateway to the audiophile world. I hope they are able to keep the lights on, but I remain skeptical of this outcome.

Best,

There are a lot of good things that come out of China. It's just the amount of quality a company wants to have in their product that brings out the total package. China can build Oppo digital and also builds Proctor Silex.

Germany has great cars but definitely overpriced for what you get. Thanks but no thanks. Eight year old BMWs are discarded since once they begin to need repair out goes your money. U.S. automobiles are much better than they were in the past and getting better. They still have a bit to go but they are in the right direction.

Oppo got their products out so now it's Outlaw's turn to get that 978 out or it's curtains.

I think Oppo does a bit more than just marketing in Mountain View CA. When I visited their headquarters to pick-up my BDP-83, they had a whiteboard where they were mapping out and discussing an upcoming product design. They also had several engineers in the building. Very small place, but it appears they definitely had an engineering department as well.

And none of the complicated and best known ones manufactured in the USA. In addition to wafers and packaging being done overseas (China, Taiwan, Thailand, etc.) those companies are also largely international with engineering talent spread all over the place. But that's moot, because I also said nothing about design, but about manufacture. Plenty of goods are designed in the USA and built in China.

The world leading consumer electronics company, Apple, headquartered in Cupertino California with offices all over the world, has the majority of its products manufactured in China, with some components sourced from other countries, also primarily in Asia (Korea, Japan, etc.) Some quantity of their mobile offerings are now also built in Brazil - likely with components all shipped from Foxconn in China.

These world-class product are not only *not* made in the USA, they are not possible to build in the USA today.

Sure, there's corruption in China. There's corruption everywhere in the world to varying degrees. I don't think that has anything to do with the ability to make a quality product.

With regards to BMW if you haven't owned an 8 year old BMW, it's not fair to comment. I have, and the previous comment is about repair costs is BS.

Boy are you WRONG. Intel, IBM, TI, and Analog Devices still do most of their wafer fabrication in the US. Yes, packaging is offshore, but the "high tech" stuff itself is still very much here.

Just one example:

http://download.intel.com/newsroom/kits/22nm/pdfs/Global-Intel-Manufacturing_FactSheet.pdf

But why? Are Americans less capable or less productive than the Chinese? Because like I said earlier, salaries are higher in the US therefore also making manufacturing costs higher in the US. A global corporation's responsibility is to maximize its profits for their share holders and they'll go manufacture their goods wherever in the world it makes the most economic sense.



Indeed, as I initially said, there are varying levels of business corruption EVERYWHERE. If you think that business ethics or corruption doesn't have anything to do with the ability to make a quality product as you say, consider the following examples that could very well apply to Outlaw's situation. If your electronic design contractor (ODM) makes questionable design shortcuts with the intent to reduce the development cycle because he figures he can make a quicker buck that way or because he may have another larger contract coming up from a more important client, don't you think that this will have an impact on the quality of the design itself? And if you don't, you're fooling yourself my friend. What if the supply chain manager buys lower quality capacitors, transistors and other components while pocketing the cost difference, don't you think that the finished product will be of inferior quality? Then like Ritz says, try suing them in a Chinese court... good luck!