It puzzles me that you can chastise Bang & Olufsen for being too well made, while a few months ago you chastised the iPhone for its inevitable, possibly planned, obsolescence. It doesn’t seem so much that you hold consistent positions, but rather practice the cheapest brand of wisdom: universal skepticism. That’s quite fine and we should count ourselves blessed that the internet has over-democratization punditry and criticism to the point that it no longer need be informed, simply produced. Bravo.

Quite honestly, all of my televisions are Bang & Olufsen. Not one was made more recently than 1987. All are constantly mistaken not only for modern televisions, but cutting edge at that. And they’re tubes! What matters truly, and any futurist worth his escape pod should agree, is not only that products remain working, but that they remain relevant. That’s admittedly a tall order for electronics where consumers are conditioned to accept disposability even in their high dollar purchases, but not an impossible one. What is truly stunning about a 25 year old audio video system is not that it is still running, but rather that anyone cares. Certainly a system that old gives little access to digital music, certainly isn’t high definition and by no means accepts contemporary means of connectivity, but this and countless systems like it are invited to overstay their useful welcome in well considered homes across the planet. They have long since paid for themselves and remained relevant, not in a general sense, but in a personal sense as their sound & picture quality form an emotional bond that “middle end” products could never hope for.

I would be a nervous futurist if the comments to my column consistently made me look this foolish.

Cheers.

A Bentley Continental’s steering wheel takes 8 hours to hand-stitch. Vertu craftsmen train for YEARS before being allowed to assemble the phones. Sometimes, good products simply aren’t good products unless they come with a good story.

And I do agree that there are plenty of products in the middle ground that are the best bang for the buck.

I had a friend with more money than sense who was looking at speakers that were $10K a pair, he was convinced that this is what he should buy, I suggested a pair of Phase Tech 9.1’s at $2k, and he looked at me like I was crazy.

Well he managed to get both set of speakers to his home, the $10K pair and the $2K pair, he bought the $2k pair. Was there a difference? Yes, maybe, who knows. Where the speakers were positioned in the room probably made a bigger difference, in the end it was not worth the $8K difference.

Google this for lots of fun examples in stereo equipment alone:
stereophile site:randi.org