The new dynamic in speaker pricing

I've been looking into Von Schweikert a little bit and I can't believe some of their prices. I'm sure they're great speakers, but the Ultra 11 costing $350k to me is ridiculous for a brand that doesn't seem that well known. Even the Gryphon stuff costing close to $100k seems insane. I guess there is a market, but are the speakers that good? Or is the carriage leading the horse?

 I don't feel its a trend. There has always been uber expensive options in every facet  for those that can afford them. Does a Rolex really tell time any better than a Timex? A fool and his money are soon partying...

Put any of these upper six figures speakers in an average room and my bet is my $18,000 speakers in the house of stereo will make them sound silly. Meaning you would be better off spending low six figures in building a proper listening room first before spending your money on top level speakers. If you can do both, good for you.

There are many billionaires in this world. They do not blink at paying a million for some "state of the art" speaker system. And when they are standing there talking to one of their billionaire friends they need to say well I stole them for a million. My question is what did it actually cost to build million dollar speakers....!

Of course they are not worth the price they ask for but theres no other way to obtain these speakers so audiophiles will continue to buy them. If one speaker company charges $10k, the next will charge $50k and so on. The prices have continued to rise over the years and soon we will be seeing speakers costing tens of millions of dollars that are made of wood. There will always be someone that can afford em so the hoodwinking will continue in the foreseeable future.

While I appreciate the attempts at humor, the question that maybe should be asked is how superior are these speakers to the more common place offerings that most of us have heard? Is it possible that these ultra speakers can bring the very well heeled audiophile a lot closer to the sound of the ‘real’?

Rocky the Squirrel to Bullwinkle: "You don't have to be a squirrel to be nuts!"

There's one born every minute.

We are very near the end of Civilization.

Take a look at the new issue of The Absolute Sound, you will see offerings from, among others, Magico, Wilson, Tidal, Kharma. Plus a larger number of manufacturer's with speakers in the $150-$500K arena.

What are some of these 'good number of speakers' costing $700K and up? I've not seen all this gear advertised and/or sold (except for one online retailer I've seen who does have gear in these ranges on their website) so I can't say much about the trend in speakers being to sell them for over half a million dollars.