On Tue, 1 Dec 2015 09:47:28 +0000, lordgnome wrote:

You are right there. The consumer stuff that Japan kicked out in the
60's was un-repairable rubbish. The problem was that it was very cheap
and did work for a while - long enough to spell the end of at least one
quality manufacturer of domestic radio in Britain.

On the other hand, I recall handling some very well made Japanese
electronic instrumentation at the time.

Its all down to specifications.
You get what you pay for.

The Japanese manufacturers were under going radical re-arrangements
after WWII.
After the WWII, MacArthur (sp??) and Co were in there getting the place
back up & running. Some specialist people from America were brought over
to give advice to manufacturers and with their help and guidance things
got moving again.
The results were not bad at first but the industry went about learning
what it was doing wrong and correcting itself through self-monitoring
and awareness and corretions.
They learned and adjusted to become a world beating source of high end
products.
Meanwhile back in Europe and America the same methods that were helping
Japan improve were largely ignored until it became obvious that Japan
was actually passing them by.