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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…

daveyf

Showing 3 responses by mikhailark

mikhailark
386 posts
 

Very few goods are priced as 'cost + small margin'. Goods are priced at market - as high as buyer may be willing to spend. So sure. Just look as Porsche tax 

mikhailark
386 posts
 

And I bet 90% of buyers will put them in their expensive houses with glass floor to ceiling windows and zero acoustic treatment

mikhailark
386 posts
 

@daveyf - this is the only way they can survive. Too few customers. Young folks buy $500 active system at Amazon and it sounds pretty good (facing my desktop active speakers with ribbons right now). Also, young generation is much better educated in computers and won’t buy $$$ ’Ethernet filters’.

There are more buyers of Porsche than speakers. So manufacturer calculates how many they can sell, then take expense, divide by production and get the price. Need 2 million a year to run the company, but can only sell 200 speakers? Well, $10K it is then.

My local high end gear shop has small room with "budget" gear (that's $10K+ items) and several rooms with $200K systems. People driving up in McLarens shop there now.

IMO, more interesting is used market. There you can see actual prices people are willing to pay. I am getting $10K MSRP speakers delivered tomorrow. I bought them for $3K basically like new.

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