Japanese technology withheld over the years

[wyoming777]

I used to teach English near Kobe, and I remember a store at Motomachidori that had stacks and stacks of old silver, several shelves of it. That was before I knew old stuff was cool so I walked out with some Yamaha 5.1 thing and Sony speakers:drool:. I remember being wowed at all the cool tech in DenDen Town in Osaka, my friend's automatic, programmable, computerized toilet/bidet (with buttons in Japanese, so if you didnt know which button to hit you could get a very nasty surprise.
Minidiscs were very big at the time, so I got very into those, and still have a couple hundred of 'em. I do remember being completely ignored as a customer a couple times at smaller stores, even though I knew how to be polite, so I'm not surprised a serviceman was denied service. I loved the people but a lot of them were pretty xenophobic.
Everyone had to have the latest thing, and no one had room to keep old stuff, so often it was just thrown away on "sodai gomi" (large trash) day. Old TVs, stereos, bikes, whatever, was left out on the curb. Lots of scavengers (me included sometimes). Got some sweet golf clubs/bag and a microwave, but never scored any audio. I'd sure love to go back, if just to pick through the trash. Sorry for waxing nostalgic.

 

[theophile]

I used to teach English near Kobe, and I remember a store at Motomachidori that had stacks and stacks of old silver, several shelves of it. That was before I knew old stuff was cool so I walked out with some Yamaha 5.1 thing and Sony speakers:drool:. I remember being wowed at all the cool tech in DenDen Town in Osaka, my friend's automatic, programmable, computerized toilet/bidet (with buttons in Japanese, so if you didnt know which button to hit you could get a very nasty surprise.
Minidiscs were very big at the time, so I got very into those, and still have a couple hundred of 'em. I do remember being completely ignored as a customer a couple times at smaller stores, even though I knew how to be polite, so I'm not surprised a serviceman was denied service. I loved the people but a lot of them were pretty xenophobic.
Everyone had to have the latest thing, and no one had room to keep old stuff, so often it was just thrown away on "sodai gomi" (large trash) day. Old TVs, stereos, bikes, whatever, was left out on the curb. Lots of scavengers (me included sometimes). Got some sweet golf clubs/bag and a microwave, but never scored any audio. I'd sure love to go back, if just to pick through the trash. Sorry for waxing nostalgic.

Many people don't quite realise how the Japanese(not all but a high majority),despite having a liking for the better western goods and services,consider all other people as second ,third or even fourth class(or lower....).
They regard humility as a virtue,so they are not going to shove it in our faces.However to their way of thinking,the fact remains that others are simply not as good as them.
Please don't take this as Japanese-bashing,it's not.
I am from a country with a bloody history of indiscriminately murdering other human beings because their skin-colour marked them as 'inferior' and 'savage'. :nono: :tears: :thumbsdn:

My point being that the cream of the gear was possibly being 'reserved' for 'Japanese-Only' consumption.
Let's redress the balance,and revel in these select items.
They are very,very,good indeed. :yes: :thmbsp:

I don't know whether some of the things I've said in this post will be seen as controversial,but I've said them only because it does have a bearing on the topic of the thread,and one possible reason for it.

 

[Dr FET]

Ah yes and theree's the Japanese saving face issue that crops up too.
In Japan everything is about how accurately engineered and how the company looks in the Japanese community.
For example Hitachi produced massive amounts of electronic components in Japan in the 70's , they had a sillicon wafer fabrication plant within thier engineering department. So they could produce and test anything they wanted, and did.
Does anyone remember the Hitchi single output FET amp ?
Yep one of thier principal transistor engineers designed and made a limited mount of Single FET output devices for thier high end amps. the silicon die was emense , the transistor package looked like a T03 on steriods ( roughly 10 times the size)
You can look into any Sony TV from the 70's and it'll have Hitachi parts in it.
So does JVC , et,etc,etc.
The Japanese where in thier industrial rennesonce and they kept a lot of the best stuff for themselves.

 

[wyoming777]

...and where else can you go and have a nice lady passing out whiskey samples in the grocery store?

 

[kamagong]

Some very good additional points were made in the last few posts. There is a healthy high end market here, but it is a small percentage and a niche market that is being filled by niche companies. I think most people understood as I did that we were talking about high end pieces made by big companies, so I do not disagree with anything that has been said.

With respect to those big companies, it is one thing to sell a product you make locally through a big direct dealer network. It is quite another undertaking to export it. Every SKU has to be created in a system, shipped, warehoused, service manuals provided in a foreign language, spare parts stocked, not to mention the additional hurdle that electronic companies face with voltage conversions and electrical standards certification.

Even if the company knows they could sell a fair number, it might not be anywhere close to enough to make it profitable. So they are not really witholding products because they do not want us to have them, we just don't make it worth their while of going to the considerable trouble of marketing them here.

i tend to agree with this. market forces playing their games..
just curious, what ground breaking technologies were withheld from the rest of the world?
if we are talking about TT, CDP, DAC, Amp, Pre, Speakers, etc..
quality of the TOTLs yes, but technology? :scratch2:

 

[Dr. Music]

i tend to agree with this. market forces playing their games..
just curious, what ground breaking technologies were withheld from the rest of the world?
if we are talking about TT, CDP, DAC, Amp, Pre, Speakers, etc..
quality of the TOTLs yes, but technology? :scratch2:

My guess is that there is more great technology within the US being withheld than we ever missed coming outa Japan.