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

[cotdt]

I agree.

[Pano]

Owning an ugly pair of Altec A5 (that started life as A7) I too, fully agree.

However, there are from time to time some amazingly well built and beautiful speakers on these pages. I've been lucky enough to see and hear a few. Truly high class.

[ScottG]

Originally Posted by Pano

Owning an ugly pair of Altec A5 (that started life as A7) I too, fully agree.

And in the right circumstance they can sound fantastic.. but DAMN, they *aspire* to ugly most of the time.

Two wardrobe-sized loudspeakers in Battleship grey , it's what every woman wants in their living room this season.

-considering Murphy's law, if you did really try hard to use better materials, a much better aesthetic, etc.. it would probably end-up sounding like sh!t.

[tomtt]

.



well.


maybe like this -

Originally Posted by john curl

People often forget that the designers,
themselves, have to make something,
and the person who sells it, let's say, retail,
has to make something,
and then there are the company costs like the manufacturing building, storage, etc.,
telephone, building alarm service, electricity, etc. etc.
This drives the cost of a lot of audio components up, and/or profits down.
This is where 'promotion' even selling a story, much like Mark Levenson often does, helps to get the extra sales that can make a company a success.
I KNOW that just making the best product I can make and trying to sell it at a reasonable price does not 'cut it' and that is why I never returned to manufacturing products after I closed down Vendetta Research.
I KNOW that making a world class audio component can become outrageously expensive, just because we want it to be as 'perfect' as possible, both sonically and visually.
We fight it every project.
Now many of you might think that all you need to do is a circuit sim to design it, and a little time to build a prototype, well that will get you a 'hoopty' but NOT a race car. '-)

Sound Quality Vs. Measurements

[fatmarley]

I was told by a hifi dealer that THESE are "near world class" - The designer been tweaking them for a long time since I was told that, so perhaps they really are "world class" now?

[JMFahey]

I should note that Dealer markup often accounts for almost 50% of the cost,

It's much worse: there is a *long* chain between actual/real/original (pick your label) maker, the one that gets grease in his hands, or paint, or gets covered in sanding wood dust, etc. , and yourself.
Plus, every stage pays taxes.
I commercially make amps and speakers from scratch (as in starting with sheet metal ) and know that original parts and materials cost may be 10% of what the end user pays.
Sound real unfair, but it's the way it is.
Now Internet is helping skip some steps of that long unefficient chain.
As in: directly selling through EBay.

[lolo]

What is the highest profit making car company? Porsche..
You do not do high end for the sake of making things look nice, or glorify beauty, it's a business plan, with it's own strategies. I am no high end specialist, but it seems to me that often these monsters are based on overengineered principles, overpriced and wasted materials. The problem is that nowadays, you have to overdo it otherwise you are commercially dead.

One thing to remember is that sound is made only of variations of pressure at the eardrum..

People buy with their eyes, and unfortunately, they often also listen with them. And yes, over 50% of the cost goes in the distribution process. Often ignorant sellers take as much as the maker, how fair is that?

[gainphile]

Of course there are more than plenty of loudspeakers which are DIY and also "world class" finish! example:

[lolo]

Well, french audiophiles find them ugly.. doesn't it say a lot about the country?

[gerben00]

About aesthetics, i might have strange taste but 99% of the so called high end marketed stuff looks like bad taste posh crap to me. Even worse, even if i would get it for free i would pack it and sell it as fast as i could;-)
One other reason to diy!