HEGEL - Is it really made in Norway ?

"when made in Japan meant cheaply made" - Japan solved that by instituting rigorous controls and testing.  For cameras at least, there were J.I.S. stickers on them.  Today, japan rules the camera industry (tho Leica and Zeiss are still there and making high end lenses for Japanese cameras... and some items are made in China or Thailand for japanese manf.s)

BTW, the US used to be a high volume manf. of cheap, shoddy goods - in the mid to late 1800s, for both furniture and cloth or clothing.

Most valuable brand in the world is Made In Germany followed closely by
Made in Japan .
Made in USA  doesn't mean a lot outside USA .

randy-11,

This is clearly a pattern -- from shoddy to superior. Of course, it can take decades to make the transition. But I think we should watch carefully the emerging trends in Asia. The movement eastwards portends a lot of changes in the future. I think this could have a positive impact on the high end audio industry. Because, with lower production costs in China and its satellites, there is a lot of wiggle room for discounting high end products.

Agreed, but low labor costs won't last long and have already changed quite a bit.  Most labor will be done by robots in a few years anyway.

Whether China will set up something like JIS would be the biggest near-term effect on quality.

Another thing about China - if you suddenly need 10,000 engineers for a project... they can be on site in a week.  Even India can't match that (yet).

Greed will rule no matter where something is made or sold .