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[John Roberts {JR}]

Paul Bell wrote on Mon, 13 September 2010 09:49

I would think that with the high volume, long hours, low pay and not so great treatment of assembly line workers in China manufacturing plants would make the workers not really care about what they are doing. It’s just another component coming down the endless line that he/she has to do a few jobs on in a specified time frame and then onto the next one to do it again. For like fourteen hours a day. It could be a mixing console circuit board or a calculator circuit board. In a British or US assembly line of say Midas, QSC, Rane or APB, the products are all pro audio and the workers know the gear and are proud of what they do and are treated better and happy about what they do. Unlike their under compensated and under appreciated counterparts in Asia, they enjoy it. I would rather have a product made by people who enjoy what they do and are proud of their work. As the original Venice ended up being made in China, and the recent association of Midas and Behringer, I would’ve assumed the new VeniceF would had been made in China on a Behringer line. I think it’s a good thing that it’s made in England. HOWEVER, as production ramps up, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s production shifts to China.

I always wondered who actually believed all those Mackie ads with smiling workers...   They were probably happy because they were being paid to stand around smiling, instead of inside working while the photographs were shot.

While I've spent more time inside US factories than Chinese, my sense from my limited exposure there is that all factory workers share a common motivation, a paycheck. They both take a degree of pride in rising above the lowest level worker, but leave most of that at the door.  

There is a slight difference between a very small business with single product line, where the factory workers will over time absorb some product knowledge, but even mid sized companies soon outgrow that. Even with that, it is still far more reliable to fully define the product in manufacturing instructions, and manage that closely.  

I wouldn't be worried about where any product is built, as much as how rigorous their factory follows BOM and assembly instructions. Of course the original design and design philosophy always matters far more than how something is assembled. Poor assembly discipline can hurt a good design, but the best assembly practices will not make up for inferior parts and inferior design.

In my experience it is very possible to get good and bad quality product from any country.

JR

PS Hon Hai... the very large contract manufacturer in China that became newsworthy for workers who thought they could fly (and building apple products), is now developing a new manufacturing district in the poorer northern region of China. They plan to employ something like a million workers there. You can argue that they are doing it so they can pay those workers less, than their current workers (true), but it will be a significant standard of living improvement for those new workers.  I expect within a decade to see contract manufacturing shift to Africa, as China and India will run out of workers willing to be the cheapest in the world.

[Charlotte Evans]

As an ex-assembly worker for Trident Audio I can say that all our "Made in England" products were absolutely assembled, built and tested in England using products sourced from the UK, USA and Asia.
Everything was soldered by hand...no flat-bed automation (at least in the 80's   ).

A friend of mine used to do the same job at Soundcraft. All in-house too by hand, then they started using PCB assembly automation but the desks were still built in England.

I believe that if there is any outsourced assemblage of (for example PCB's) done, the parts are then sent to the UK to be assembled in the product with final QC.

Saying that "is it totally English?" is a bit pedantic really   of course not.  ....the parts are the best quality, for the best price from wherever in the world for that product!

[Tom Manchester]

Paul Bell wrote on Mon, 13 September 2010 00:42

Good question. Perhaps it was chopped by the Uli bean counters

So much for having a nice slender case for a board of only 16 channels.

[James Drake]

Tom Manchester wrote on Mon, 13 September 2010 21:56

Paul Bell wrote on Mon, 13 September 2010 00:42 Good question. Perhaps it was chopped by the Uli bean counters So much for having a nice slender case for a board of only 16 channels.

gonna need extra long gooseneck lampy things?!

[Christian Tepfer]

Charlotte Evans wrote on Mon, 13 September 2010 20:42

As an ex-assembly worker for Trident Audio I can say that all our "Made in England" products were absolutely assembled, built and tested in England using products sourced from the UK, USA and Asia. Everything was soldered by hand...no flat-bed automation (at least in the 80's   ). A friend of mine used to do the same job at Soundcraft. All in-house too by hand, then they started using PCB assembly automation but the desks were still built in England. I believe that if there is any outsourced assemblage of (for example PCB's) done, the parts are then sent to the UK to be assembled in the product with final QC. Saying that "is it totally English?" is a bit pedantic really   of course not.  ....the parts are the best quality, for the best price from wherever in the world for that product!

I don't want to shake "made in England" but that's exactly what I mean. PCB's are maybe the most significant portion of a simple analogue desk. It's meaningless what quality the parts are, they are not english. To be honest one should say "designed and assembled in England", maybe. Something like this...
Whatever. I don't care much about where a product is made, except for a few food related examples. Like milk, it should come from within a few miles of my home.

[Paul Bell]

Tom, I'll bet a cold beer that on the 16* channel version, the plastic hips come off and either there's racks mounts hidden underneath or they're in the box it came with.

Christian, for this or any electronic appliance, is every single component used in it's assembly available from manufacturers within the UK? If yes, how expensive will the final product be?

We all wish our toys were made locally but in this world, the best we could hope for is that they are assembled and tested locally with the best components sourced worldwide.

* Because I don't consider this a 16 channel console....

[Kristian Johnsen]

Oh, man how it's annoying
when an oversized picture
makes it necessary to scroll
back and forth in order to
read a thread.

[Caleb Dick]

Paul Bell wrote on Mon, 13 September 2010 15:25

* Because I don't consider this a 16 channel console....

It's not, it's an 8ch with some stereo inputs.  

[Andy Peters]

Christian Tepfer wrote on Mon, 13 September 2010 14:14

I don't want to shake "made in England" but that's exactly what I mean. PCB's are maybe the most significant portion of a simple analogue desk. It's meaningless what quality the parts are, they are not english. To be honest one should say "designed and assembled in England", maybe. Something like this... Whatever. I don't care much about where a product is made, except for a few food related examples. Like milk, it should come from within a few miles of my home.

So what makes you think that there are no PCB fab houses in the UK? Or assembly houses?

-a

[DanDraper]

had a look at plasa...

Looks very interesting... official line on price point was
"no more than the original venice"

You can multitrack all the channels. and assign individual returns to the channel strip.. you can even use the firewire as an insert point.. (waves??)

laid out nicely and apparently has the eq section from the xl3..

all in all very nice

[ProSoundWeb Community]