The early made in Japan VCRs from the late 70s and early 1980s were built like a brick outhouse.
They weighed 3 times as much as the later built stuff for a reason.
Stereos such as Technics, Merantz and Pioneer were the best ever during this golden period of Japanese made home entertainment equipment.
Far superior to the plasticky Malaysian produced trinkets that are prolific in the charity shops today.
Very true what you say. I always seem to strike some smart-alec 18 year old whenever I am trying to offload anything old at a charity shop. Of course to the majority of 18-35 year old persons these days, everything old is basically just junk - to be despised and dispensed with as soon as possible. When one such smart-alec told me to take my hi fi equipment to the dump, I remarked that I will take it back home and remove all of the screws first, to which he simply laughed as if to say "Why bother?"
Most of the younger generations would say "the old stuff is too big and takes up too much room". The concept of space is evidently a big sticking point with today's youth, who are more often than not forced to live in caravans, small units or shared housing, and tend to move house frequently.
I was also told once by a 20-odd year old that "it costs too much money to store old stuff today". The new equipment is so much smaller and cheaper. So from that point of view it is easier to just throw it away. I have known young couples who have regularly thrown away perfectly good clothes, cutlery and crockery, simply because it had piled up and they did not have the time to wash it! In their mind it was far more practical and economic to just bin it and go to the shop and buy new stuff. As incredible as this seems, I know it to be true as I have seen it happen with my own eyes. In one case a young couple had binned some quality Royal Doulton crockery that had been handed down to them from their parents. They then went out to the nearest "cheapie" shop to replace it with Made in China "equivalents". They simply did not place any value on the brand name, having become so accustomed to throwing out anything that was used and old and dirty.
This is so different to the attitude of my parents' generation who always salvaged whatever they thought might come in handy some rainy day. They saved their money and saved everything that might have a use in future. If you owned a shed well really it cost you nothing to keep stuff. Today there is not the same concept of time and I am convinced that many of today's youth live entirely for the present. Generally speaking very few save anything, let alone money. Many see no real hope of owning anything like a house in the future, so they just live for the day. They see the past as the "old days", and will sometimes reminisce about these times, which were surprisingly just 2-3 years ago. LOL!
