Why hi-end speakers are so expensive? Only Bill Gate$ has hi-end at home?

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Two wardrobe-sized loudspeakers in Battleship grey :eek: , it's what every woman wants in their living room this season.
Which is exactly why I built my own listening room. I can put whatever speaker I damn well please there. My wife is allowed in on an "invitation only" basis. I can also cover the walls with acoustic treatment, no worries.

Aurora, I remember that website, would be fun to find it again. A trip around any big audio show such as RMAF will find you plenty. :D
 
Yes,I love DIY for all these reasons.
This year alone has allowed me to see how 2 well known companies have buit there speakers with cheap *** drivers and sold them for alot of money.
$11,000 speakers using a $30 mid and $20 tweeter.....wow
$48-$63,000 speakers using $100 drivers......just gets to ya!

And I see that company that sounds like Bagico????(LOL) Has modified Morel woofers and charge over $100,000.Maybe we will not get the exact same SQ but at 1/10th the cost and using powerful drivers,I love my own creations.
Although,none of mine are small.....5.5CF are the smallest and now I am doing a pair at 24CF each.
 
Yes,I love DIY for all these reasons.
This year alone has allowed me to see how 2 well known companies have buit there speakers with cheap *** drivers and sold them for alot of money.
$11,000 speakers using a $30 mid and $20 tweeter.....wow
$48-$63,000 speakers using $100 drivers......just gets to ya!

And I see that company that sounds like Bagico????(LOL) Has modified Morel woofers and charge over $100,000.Maybe we will not get the exact same SQ but at 1/10th the cost and using powerful drivers,I love my own creations.
Although,none of mine are small.....5.5CF are the smallest and now I am doing a pair at 24CF each.

What about the 1.2m dollar CNC Machine Bagico uses and the factory they are housed in ....

free!!!...:(

Sounds like sour grapes and bad audio , a bad mix...:)
 
I am obviously a little different from most of you.

When I look around my workshop, I see dozens of inductors, capacitors, resistors, and sundries. I shutter to think of what I've spent on all of these.

I think of my 'testing' laptop, and the hundreds of hours I've spent fine tuning, tweaking, and 'let me just try this' configuration.

I think of the hundreds of hours I've spent reading hundreds of threads getting to the bottom of 'what should I do'.

I think of the hours I spent on my first 'box', let me try this, let me sand that edge, let me try this on the inner walls, let me, let me, let me.

I love my speakers, I love my speakers, I love my speakers. I have to keep telling myself that, because in the end, I should have just bought what I could afford, and listened to music.

Now let's see?. I want to market my speakers?. Go to a show; $5,000.00 minimum, and that's if it's in our home town. Advertising?. Don't even want to hazard a guess. Now I need to hire someone to 'help build, shine, polish, perfect, package, etc. etc. etc..

AND I have to do all this while still going to work.

Folks, we love being DIY'ers, but we are, obviously, all a little sick in the k'noggen.

My closet's are perfectly organized, I know where everything in my home is, remind you of anyone?.

Where's my medication?.
 
it's been said before, both here and in other places, I've said it... if ur going to spend "stupid" money on speakers, it makes good sense to spend money on getting a bigger room first.

Once you increase the size of the room, the time of the first reflection is increased, and this has a substantial positive effect on the "space" and the "sound stage". Perhaps this is the single greatest improvement one could possibly make. Assuming that the speakers also have enough SPL capability for the room this is a major benefit.

It can't be understated how big a plus this is...

These speakers: http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/189377-5-way-project-tapped-bass-mids-tweeter-big-boy-system.html previously mentioned, imo are in far far too small of a room for them to really "play" as they might.

Most of us are handicapped in this way. :(

So for the "stupid money crowd" a big room is the right first investment, IF you want great sound.

_-_-
 
Wrong and maybe:)

Wrong - my wife and the 5 way horns co-exist very nicely.
She likes listening to them. She plays piano and sings and is complimentary of the playback they create.
We do have a music room for them though. The lounge is hers;)

Sorry for the following ramble, but I thought some context necessary

I do not know if they are world class though - certainly I like the sound better than pretty much everything I've heard. Other good 5 way horn systems are few and far between to get around to listen to though.
A fair few hifi enthusiasts have heard them and report to like them... Some have even mused with possibly starting down the horn path.

I do not know the dealer in question. Perhaps they heard them at Scalford (run what you brung show), where they sounded all right but the room was challenging shall we say. They weigh about 425kgs all up, We had a long wheel base Transit to get them there.

They are still in tweaking phase and always will be, I hope - that's the hobby part of it for me.

Since Scalford there have been crossover, amplifier, compression driver and several horn changes. I have settled on tractrix and smaller Hyperbolic bass horns and to my ears they sound better than ever. The tractric perform slightly better over the conicals I made, but slightly is enough.
Getting the grouping closer also improved things in my room but a venue as large as Scalford it would not matter that much.

After getting the basics right I have started experimenting further with drivers - gets expensive but no where what a commercial 5 way would cost - Cessaro gammas for example are reported to be iro 260000 euros.
There really is only one way to skin the cat with 5 ways...

I have further driver and DSP crossover tests to come, Vitavox s2 and the DIY DSP X/O here in DIY audio, for example - It gets expensive but its incremental. The horn community is pretty close knit so some loaning goes on...

To make them commercially - well say the basic parts cost ~$10000. Labour perhaps the same or more for a truely exotic eye catching finish.. Then mark up perhaps $40000 or more retail. Trouble is you would probably not sell enough. So you have to have several cheaper models - single horn and bass box, perhaps 2 and 3 way horns for say $10000 dollars up. Your 5 way system then has to sit right at the top as flagship and cost whatever...
you would end up taking it to shows like Munich and selling a very few a year i would think. Not a life I want.

But I think DIY sound can be world class at probably every price point you could name. We have such an advantage of evolution time, free labour, sharing of methods on the internet, availability of used parts or ones from the classic era of horns that are just not viable commercially + it's more fun.

A bigger room - well perhaps one day, but for now I enjoy them where they are. It's only 5.5m x 4m with a slighly vaulted ceiling but they do make an involving sound.

I'm sure those horns sound fantastic but there is no way a woman lives in this house. ;)
 
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Speedysteve7, I apologize for using your very nice system as an example for what I was saying. It was more aimed at presenting a perspective relating to the very high cost of some speaker systems. For example in most places - if you have the lot size one could add a rather decent sized attached or detached room/building for the same cost. Or build up and open the top of the house, etc... That's what I was getting at.
 
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