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Is it possible for a high end manufacturer to overprice their goods?

Having just read the interesting and hyperbole laden review by RH of the new Rockport Orion speakers in the latest issue of The Absolute Sound, one thing struck me..

is it possible in the high end for a manufacturer to overprice their product ( doesn’t have to be a speaker, but this example comes to mind)? I ask this, as the Orion is priced at $133k! Yes,a price that would probably make 99% of hobbyists squirm. Yet, the speaker now joins a number of competitors that are in the $100k realm. 
To that, this particular speaker stands just 50.3” tall and is just 14.3” wide…with one 13” woofer, one 7” midrange and a 1.25” beryllium dome ( which these days is nothing special at all…and could potentially lead to the nasties of beryllium bite).

The question is…given this speakers design and parts, which may or may not be SOTA, is it possible that this is just another overpriced product that will not sell, or is it like others, correctly priced for its target market? Thoughts…

128x128daveyf

Showing 2 responses by james633

james633
912 posts
 

They looks sweet and I am sure they sound good. Luckily there are lots of good speakers coming out around the $5k mark for the new younger people if they are interested. While I have not heard them speakers from arendal sound, Mo Fi and even the new marten Logan motions are probably all 99% of what most people need. 
 

I added up my system the other day and I somehow have $50k worth of gear. If you would have told me I would own $50k worth of gear I would have laughed and said that would be dumb…. But here I am. So I guess if you have it you have it and if you can afford $133k speakers the price is not an issue. A $5000 purchase might be a bigger stretch for the average family.  

james633
912 posts
 

Daveyf,

interesting I got into speakers around 2002 in college and things were already pretty expensive. The Wilson Sophia came out and I think it was around $12k at least by the time I noticed it.
 

Interestingly as I have made more and more money in my adult life speakers just keep going up equally. By the time I was ready to buy Wilsons from both an interest and from an income standpoint they were on the Sophia 3 and it was $16,700, unless you wanted a different color then it was somehow $19,000???  Then today the Yvette (Sophia successor) is what $28k. So compared to my first engineering job out of school I make 2.6 times more now and Wilson have gone up 2.3 times in price. 
 

it is all pretty crazy to think about. I blame suckers who buy over priced stuff without a proper A/B test. I have no problem with people spending any amount of their money on anything but I don’t believe a lot of things are actually better and are just different. 

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