Marten Coltrane Supreme
Marten Coltrane Supreme reference level loudspeakers | Full range | Boulder, Colorado 80304 | AudiogoN - The High-end Audio Community
For real? How does anyone come up with a price like that even if it were $40k in parts?
Marten Coltrane Supreme reference level loudspeakers | Full range | Boulder, Colorado 80304 | AudiogoN - The High-end Audio Community
For real? How does anyone come up with a price like that even if it were $40k in parts?
It's self-reinforcing isn't it? In most people's mind, there is an idea of how the free market operates: a supplier always charges the lowest price he can, in order to undercut the competition while maintaining a profit; people are rational and only pay what something is demonstrably worth. At the upper end of a market, however, this can be turned on its head, so by asking a huge price, the manufacturer creates a legend. They may never sell any at the full price, but the cachet rubs off on their lower priced ranges, and they may also draw in a vulgar millionaire or two.
Cheating on income tax more likely although I suppose it pays to have the right rich parents
Not at all if you're a retailer or speaker manufacturer, then they start around 100$ a piece.
I'd put the number of rich people who got theirs from dead relatives rather than earning it themselves at well over 90%, in the UK closer to 99%.
Of course cheating on income and inheritance taxes comes with the territory.
Not to mention the way that their dead relatives acquired their $$$$. Here in the USA we have several "trust fund" offspring who's ancestors became rich via less than honest living. Geeee - do I sound bitter?????
I've met a few millionaires, and I never noticed any strong correlation between IQ and wealth. Not saying that rich people are stupid - simply that they aren't genetically much different than the other 99%
One thing I *have* noticed about millionaires is that they often pride themselves on having the best. Due to this, I've seen millionaires purchase items based solely on price, using the logic that if it costs more it must be better.
For a loudspeaker vendor, this can be a powerful tactic. Instead of selling a hundred speakers with a 50% markup, it may be easier and more profitable to sell ten speakers at a 10,000% markup.
It would seem so ludicrous if we all couldn't identify the drivers as a common device or the enclosure was anything but a simple box. Personally if I was an eccentric millionaire I would at least want something that was a one off in the design in the least and had some hand made devices that were unobtainable by any means from any other manufacturer. So what should I charge for a pair of speakers that are made from two 500 pound pieces of solid granite machined as one piece for the main body? I often wonder about that, just go for the sky and hope for the best, or have some intrinsic value that can be justified by the design and production cost. I do have those solid blocks just haven't finished all my devices yet. Any takers...........
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Here in the UK 6 or 8 of the ten richest people belong to the nobility, the richest being the Duke of Westminster.
Their ancestors, like all nobility, got rich by running what was essentially a protection racket.
One of the richest families in Germany, the Krupps / von Bohlens, got their loot by supplying big guns to various german kings for over 400 years.
Their ancestors, like all nobility, got rich by running what was essentially a protection racket.
One of the richest families in Germany, the Krupps / von Bohlens, got their loot by supplying big guns to various german kings for over 400 years.
CHARLES,
got any of their phone numbers in your little black book...........Just kidding. Yes the rich have always had a set of families that preserve not only their wealth, but also their power. How about De Beers and all the diamonds in warehouses keeping the prices artificially high. The meeting every year of the wealthiest people in the world is not to get together to have a few beers and shot pool. They do manipulate the worlds powers, and no I am not a conspiracy theorist.....
got any of their phone numbers in your little black book...........Just kidding. Yes the rich have always had a set of families that preserve not only their wealth, but also their power. How about De Beers and all the diamonds in warehouses keeping the prices artificially high. The meeting every year of the wealthiest people in the world is not to get together to have a few beers and shot pool. They do manipulate the worlds powers, and no I am not a conspiracy theorist.....
Simple solution: Inheritance tax for everything worth more than £1 million should be not just 100 but 105%.
Things are actually worse in the US as you have the lowest social mobility of any industrialized country. Italy and the UK make up the 'top' 3 AFAIK.
PS: I'm worried we might get close to politics now so I'll shut up.
Things are actually worse in the US as you have the lowest social mobility of any industrialized country. Italy and the UK make up the 'top' 3 AFAIK.
PS: I'm worried we might get close to politics now so I'll shut up.
Someone posted a picture a few years back of a guy who had the entire area under his patio shaped into two huge horns. Maybe 30 feet long each. The enclosure was easily able to house a very large sedan. Too bad most of us never get to see or hear the final outcome when unlimited cash meets outrageous ideas.
The blind listening test is still the most useful way to screen out the obsurd. Though most will not enter such a test. Go figure. I will continue to live on my meager income and build what is most practical for me.
Oh to be rich.
Tad
The blind listening test is still the most useful way to screen out the obsurd. Though most will not enter such a test. Go figure. I will continue to live on my meager income and build what is most practical for me.
Oh to be rich.
Tad
Smart move. Let's keep it to audio, everyone.
Is there any data that backs your notion that trust fund babies are the primary consumers of high end audio or are you just combining one group of people you don't like with another likewise and making them one?
The reason I ask this is that every rich guy I know who owns high end gear is self made.
John
The reason I ask this is that every rich guy I know who owns high end gear is self made.
John
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