Chuck(G) wrote: Eastern European labor doesn't have the 35-hour workweek and pay scale that Germany does and there's the specter of Far East production on the horizon:
http://www.joseph-sternberg.com/
Hungary has no instrument brands with a reputation in western Europe. Yet the extremely high level Hungarian orchestral tradition must have encouraged an environment of skilled instrument technicians.
The discrepancy between west and east salaries is nothing new. Already around 1970 a music store in Flensborg just south of the Danish border took in repairs of brasses and woodwinds without having a repairman in the store.
Instead the owner loaded his van once a week and drove to Budapest unloading at a Hungarian repair shop. He then reloaded the van with the completed repairs delivered the previous week.
Even with the costs of the 24 hours+ roundtrip this scheme was attractive for the customers, the German dealer, and the Hungarian repairmen.
And Flensborg is not any ole town in a brass context. Even after WWII there was a production of brass instruments there. I think the owner's name was Schmidt (meaning blacksmith and a very common name on both sides of the border). The grand old man of Danish brass repair and re-construction, Herbert "Horn" Petersen, apprenticed at that factory in Flensborg.
As for the far east aspect: already in 1999 one of the best known tuba designers (and quality controllers) of our time told me in a phone talk, that the conglomerate he was associated with had productions made in China. Not yet satisfactory enough to carry a western brand name but hastily improving.
There still are no Chinese instruments out with names related to that company, but the German brass market is flooded with Chinese instruments carrying funny names. We chide the Chinese, but maybe they more often are working to Western orders, than we know.
However the Chinese have a major problem in their way of basic thinking: like the Muslims they find it all right to cheat anybody not being one of their own.
We have had main problems with Chinese restaurants keeping the hygiene standards set by the authorities. They smile and bow, but whisper: "**** the paleheads!". I know! I have been there and even have got one of them out of jail. He was not guilty on the given account.
Hans Pizka, like him or not, is a major brass authority closely related to the tuba designer mentioned above here. He has supervised Chinese horn production.
His experience is, that for the Chinese workers at a horn factory, their workday was not about getting something done, but all about the social experience of getting a maximum of chatting.
The ideal way of turning a rotor out of stock brass is to do it in one seamless operation. However the Chinese found out, that it was easier to turn the rotor axis 180° in the middle of the process. Very effective numberwise, but not ensuring seamlessness and a true alignment of the bearings at each end.
Pizka and a western engineer pointed that out to the foreman. Bow and smile! And an immediate correction of the process.
A control visit the next day revealed, that business was carried out as usual. Not even a single production advise had been followed. Basically speaking to Chinese is like speaking to women, just to illustrate the magnitude of the problem. Not a sexist statement, but a sociological observation. I live in a nation, where a state employed male lawyer is as rare as an amateur tubist playing in tune. The results are horryfying.
OK, I have danced along a few tangents, but the smart ones among you will read right through the escapades down to the main point.
Klaus