Braun 1958 transistor radio T3 up close Dieter Rams minimalism product design celebrity worship

[@ScottGrammer]

Your discussion of the Braun thermometer is spot on. Many products of that brand (as well as B&O and a few others) are essentially unusable because there is nothing about their design that is intuitive. And God forbid that, like myself, you are in the electronics service business, and have to figure out how to take some of those units apart! But perhaps the worst examples of unintuitive and wrong-headed design are car radios which, rather than having a volume knob, force you, while driving, to navigate through menus just to turn them up or down.

[@collectornet]

Yes! It almost seems as if the volume knob is forbidden for some reason. Like in a design meeting someone brings up using a volume knob and the whole room erupts in laughter for ten minutes. "Hopelessly old fashioned" is my best guess as to why they refuse to use the obvious and best choice. And this goes back even earlier--and with volume knobs too. Factory and after-market car radios had, beginning maybe in the '80s, knobs that LOOKED like knobs but were really switches. You turned them to one side or the other bu that would just trigger to function to electronically run along, ramping numbers up and down for volume and tuning. You had to LOOK at the dial to see where you were instead of just being able to "feel" it the old fashioned way. So a person driving a moving car has to look over at the teeny, poorly lit LCD screen to tune or adjust the volume. Brilliant. One wonders how much needless destruction happened on the highways because of this "machine-first" design. Then... and now.

[@yotaiji012]

Ive been to the Munich Design museum, their Braun collection is insane.

[@ludwigsamereier8204]

OMG this set (or rather what was left of it) was a permanent resident of our kitchen drawer. Already a carcass, its bowels instilled in little Ludwig a lifelong interest in radios. Now an old man, I´d be happy to have this treasure in my kitchen table (dead or alive). Speak of the casing: I then had a different one. It was of light brown leather with holes in front of the speaker. With no lid on it. THANK YOU SIR for the memories 😊

[@collectornet]

You are welcome! Thanks for sharing your story.

[@petercarter9034]

Another nice radio in your collection, thank you for sharing

[@eddiejones.redvees]

Very simple but nice I love the colour

[@johnstone7697]

I have one of those, along with the ultra rare Braun TP-1 record player, radio combo.

[@collectornet]

Oh yes, I've seen one of those. A collector friend had one. I don't think he let me touch it!

[@thrillscience]

Bravo! So many new products are terrible. There's not one new television that my 90 year old mother can use. And even the simplest flip phone baffles her. Why not the old "UI" we had on wired telephones that worked well for 75 years?

[@collectornet]

Thanks! You're so right. And even if she could use a new television, could she even hear it? ALL the new TVs I've seen have the speakers pointing out the BOTTOM. The defining consonant and sibilant sounds are highly directional so aiming them at the floor is ridiculous. Older folks especially need those sounds aimed at them, not elsewhere. But then that's how they sell sound bars, isn't it? I feel bad for those who don't know the science of it and "solve" the problem by cranking up their TV volume just to compensate. But shame on the makers of these things who put their customers at such a disadvantage. I question two things. First do these companies know better? I wonder. The other question is, do they even care? I doubt it. The only input they hear from the public is in the form of focus groups, where THEY direct the questions, and in the form of surveys, which THEY write.

[@Advancedkid]

always prefer Japanse designs when it comes to radios and such. Braun *prounced brown, have / had nice wrist watches though. I have had a 1950's Braun wooden chassis tube radio and it was brilliant in both design and functionality. Nothing like these later minimalistic designs.

[@SangiTariq]

Great

[@ludwigsamereier8204]

O boy, I figure not only BRAUN loves over-engineering: "Look what we can do!" Maybe this thermo was devised by sick minds, who don´t know it. IMHO thermos should be devised by designers having a cold.

[@collectornet]

Have they NEVER had a cold? It takes empathy to understand the real needs of of the people for whom you are designing. I don't see how good design can ever come out of a lack of empathy. If they have to have a cold in order to empathize enough with their customers, then they lack the empathy necessary to ever be a good designer of products for people.

[@ronalddevine9587]

This reminds me of the luxury German car, Audi. For years this was pronounced AWDEE. NOW all of the sudden we hear OWDEE. No, I'll still say awdee, just like the movie star. I'm quite sure that the Germans pronounce American and British names their way. So for me, it will always be Brawn, and Awdee. BTW, do you find that radio attractive?

[@collectornet]

Oh yes, and Peking is now Beijing, etc. These things bear a passing resemblance to jargon--changing seemingly at random, and often with no discernible purpose other than to keep the uninitiated in their "place." On the other hand, there are things we always got wrong and should have known better. Ask a citizen of DuBois, Ohio where he lives and you'll see what I mean. There's a street north of Detroit (which is another French name which we entirely butcher), called Lahser. People I knew called it "Lasher." When I pointed out the discrepancy in the way they say it and the way it is obviously supposed to be said, they most emphatically did not want to hear it. As to the radio's attractiveness. I think I find its appearance exactly as it was intended to be, exactly "not unattractive."

[@Go4Corvette]

And if you run out of the disposable ear caps that goes on the end of that you are s*** out of luck, and I didn't see you put one on it so now you are in violation of code, lol.

[@collectornet]

Oh yeah! I see you are familiar with this gadget. I do have a few of those disposable plastic caps left. When they're gone, the whole thing goes.