I think all of us want something "cool" and like owning "cool audio gear". How many would buy a pair of MBLs if they could? Quite a few I would imagine. It would be fun to own a pair and invite your friends over. Plus if you have a big job you’d probably need to escape to your man cave and turn them up and just sit amazed how good it sounds. If you can afford them, why not?
That being said, every company has a personality. I work with ATC, they are very practical down to earth people who want to build super low distortion speakers because their customers (pro and home) really respond to that. They don’t invest a lot of money into image, marketing or exotic cosmetics that obviously appeal to many. The price their product on what it costs to make, plus a margin that pays the bills and enables them to compensate and keep very good employees. They aren’t trying to "beat" anyone, they just do their own thing and guarantee themselves a future though solid engineering of a small number of new products that solve more problems in pro, or extend performance in consumer.
Other companies are kit builders, using mostly OEM sources to "package" parts together to build an appealing package, usually with a focus on cosmetics and often with significant marketing budgets. If you see a lot of ads and promotions, you know where that money is coming from: product. These kinds of companies usually have a leader with a vision, and everything is oriented on that vision (even if it's technically questionable) . They may even be big enough to order special "built for them" OEM parts, or have some unique tech inside (DSP) that addresses an issue or two.
Still others are some combination of both, with talented engineering and good OEM sources of parts and products they need to build "their vision". It is upon the end user to try and figure out what the company is about, what they build in house versus what they buy, and judge the value based on the price, and the value based on performance. A good marketing program can alter this perception, promoting some performance issue or focusing on some angle or spec that looks good compared to others. Some of us respond to that angle, and buy based on that. If you get sold on horns, you have a limited number of companies that do that well in the horn "micro market".
There is almost zero sense in the high end of "what other people are doing in product". One high end company probably pays no attention to competitors, as this is a task left to larger companies with staff to devote to such efforts. So if you are Gold Peak (and all the brands they own) you study the market, find a niche, engineer a product that speaks to that niche, build it, test it, market the hell out of it. if you are ATC, you try to improve your product- done. You hope people find it!
Each company has a unique formula to their business and pricing is rarely a strategy in and off itself, it’s usually a choice based on what it takes to make it worth building. Pricing becomes more important as a strategy as you get larger and want to appeal to large groups of people when "Steps" are important (one at $100, a better one at $200, even better one at $400, etc). In this case you work backwards- what can I create for $400 vs $200 and make money on both so I can stay in business?
Brad
