@hilde45 At CAF I met the owner/designer, talked with him at length about the special drivers that he was using, and heard the demo speakers. They were very impressive. Search the forum and you'll find a bunch of threads with satisfied Bache owners. For a while he was putting pairs on the 'gon. Don't know how lockdown has affected him. Evidently, proximity to Brooklyn and ability to audition in person is preferable.
Speakers that are a great value!
I’ve been researching off the shelf speaker drivers quit a bit lately and smaller speaker companies as well. I’ve been finding that companies like Fritz, Salk and Tekton offer incredibly well priced products. I’m finding that with certain models, there really only appears to be small profit margin. I understand that when you buy large quantities of drivers, you can get a small discount but still.
For instance, I’m seeing speakers that sell for $2000 might have $700 worth of drivers in them. When you add in $100-$200 worth of crossovers, $100-$200 in cabinets, $50 for miscellaneous components like binding posts, damping material, wiring, solder or connectors you come up to around $1200 worth of raw components. Now add in labor to construct the boxes, possibly put veneer on them, solder and put together crossovers, install drivers and then ship the speakers, the value is really quite good. I haven’t even talked about obtaining the woodworking tools to do such a product, rent on a building, utilities on that building and the labor costs if you have any employees.
My point to all this is to open a discussion and to help people understand that there may only be a $400 profit margin on a $2000 pair of speakers. I think that these are an exceptional value at full asking price and that should be taken into consideration when thinking about buying speakers from these manufacturers.
I sometimes hear that these speakers are overpriced and that the value is not good and I would tend to strongly disagree!
For instance, I’m seeing speakers that sell for $2000 might have $700 worth of drivers in them. When you add in $100-$200 worth of crossovers, $100-$200 in cabinets, $50 for miscellaneous components like binding posts, damping material, wiring, solder or connectors you come up to around $1200 worth of raw components. Now add in labor to construct the boxes, possibly put veneer on them, solder and put together crossovers, install drivers and then ship the speakers, the value is really quite good. I haven’t even talked about obtaining the woodworking tools to do such a product, rent on a building, utilities on that building and the labor costs if you have any employees.
My point to all this is to open a discussion and to help people understand that there may only be a $400 profit margin on a $2000 pair of speakers. I think that these are an exceptional value at full asking price and that should be taken into consideration when thinking about buying speakers from these manufacturers.
I sometimes hear that these speakers are overpriced and that the value is not good and I would tend to strongly disagree!
Showing 4 responses by twoleftears
There are speakers that in the way they are constructed and priced represent an intrinsically good value, and then there are speakers being offers in crazy deals that end up representing good value. Occasionally, the two coincide. https://www.musicdirect.com/speakers/wharfedale-denton-80th-anniversary-bookshelf-speakers-pr |
Sigh. Another thread nearly derailed by kenjit. Remember: what we're talking about here are not just good-sounding speakers, but good-sounding speakers where it's really demonstrable that you're getting real value for money, not some ineffable built-in value. Fritz and Bache are model examples; add in the extra cost of fine cabinetry, and Salk is too. Think about all those other threads where people wail about the cost of the raw drivers vs. retail cost of the speakers. |