In sci.electronics.repair Bee wrote:
Thanks for the history, but that only revealed the poor quality in design
where the other components could not stand the strain and eventually failed.

I clearly stated in which cases not the design but _only_ the quality of
components was to blame (11AK19), and in which cases both were to blame
(ONWA). In the third case (11AK16) it was indeed just a poor design.

Yes, I do remember reading something like that in the Wireless World. This
must be 20 years ago. Or, was it a Mullard/Ferguson chassis? Anyway, I
have come to the conclusion, actually about the same time, that big names
meant nothing. Poor design is time and again the villain, and provided that
is controlled, as, for example, in TV where the design is now mature, an
electronic equipment from a small company can be as good as, if not better
than, one from a big one. Not accepting this fact is sticking the head into
sand, and giving away good money at the same time.

The fact: equipment from a small company can be as good or better than
that of a large company. I agree 150%. I do not regard budget
manufacturers as Onwa or Vestel as small companies (they aren't), just
as budget ones. Repair history seems to agree with that fact. Of course
name brands have managed various screw-ups as well, but they do not tend
to make that a habit. I appreciate you sharing your background. Some of
the facts I see every day may be hard to judge from your angle, but you
do at least have all the basic knowledge.

Having said this, I do like repairing Onwa TV sets with the mentioned
capacitor trouble. It is a pretty standard repair and actually makes the
set more reliable than it ever was out of the factory. Mounting quality
105 degrees electrolytics in such a manner that they are as far from
heat sources as possible will solve large part of the unreliability
issue. Some other blown components need to be replaced, but nothing
special there most of the time.

Also, something that should not be overlooked: overall quality is going
down in all brands (including the name brands) as far as I can tell.
This is only because of cutting cost. This has been very apparent the
last few years, especially in VCRs since mechanisms are even more prone
to premature faillure. After having cut every possible cost, every
manufacturer (Philips being the last in 2002) sourced out their VCR
production to no-name brands. Before that, the level of reliability was
already down so far, that for most brands you could not notice the
difference.

Thinking about everything we both wrote, I tend to say, maybe it is not
the difference between name brands and no-name brands anymore after all.
It's the difference between budget and non-budget equipment. Competition
might not always be a good thing. Of course this difference did start
some time ago with people believing things made more cheaply could
perform equally well as the then usual more expensive equipment.

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Met vriendelijke groet,

Maarten Bakker.