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high end speakers are overpriced

An mdf box with drivers with an acceptable finish can cost as little as a few hundred bucks. elac debut 2 and B&w 607 and dali spektor 2 Q Acoustics 3030i are all a few hundred bucks.

If you replaced the drivers with scanspeak illuminators and added an extra piece or two of mdf for more bracing it would cost only several hundred bucks at most. So the total cost would still only be $1k for state of the art speakers. 

However you find these same drivers in bookshelf speakers costing between 5k to 10k, perhaps even more. 

As you can see, it is perfectly possible to produce state of art speakers for well under $1k. It is greed that excludes many audiophiles from enjoying the beautiful sound quality of these higher quality speakers.

In conclusion, do not buy high end audio again. Just save youre money and make your own, just like Mr Erik squire and others have done. 
kenjit

Showing 3 responses by millercarbon

millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
Speakers are hard to get home for audition. One of the few I was able to get in there was some very highly regarded Vandersteens. Which is redundant, since it seems pretty much all of them are highly regarded. Which certainly was not my experience. The one pair I had cost more than what I had, looked worse than what I had, was built once you looked under the grill rather tacky all of which would be fine if they sounded better, which they did not. My best most reliable audio bud of the time agreed. Detail, dynamics, tone, imaging, you name it, just not there. 

So mark the calendar kenjit, on Vandersteen at least we agree.
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
yes but why consent to being swindled? you are complicit if you turn a blind eye and encourage this activity. It will not stop unless we all boycott them


Just who exactly is being swindled? And who exactly must we all boycott? Exactly, as Walter White used to say. Tell me, exactly, who?  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIhmRf3tA78  Figure it out. Let me know.

millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
Enough! Ship your best speakers here kenjit. Keith and Deborah can drive down and hear them. Mike and the half a dozen from Portland can come up and have a listen. Heck even Mike Lavigne can join us. Why not, you've been dissing everything under the sun, we're all eager as can be to finally hear what its all about. I'll write the whole thing up. And just so we both have some skin in the game, if even ONE of them prefers your speakers to mine or Mike's then I will pay shipping costs both ways.  

Put up or shut up, as the saying goes. 
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