What makes an expensive speaker expensive


When one plunks down $10,000 $50,000 and more for a speaker you’re paying for awesome sound, perhaps an elegant or outlandish style, some prestige ... but what makes the price what it is?

Are the materials in a $95,000 set of speakers really that expensive? Or are you paying a designer who has determined he can make more by selling a few at a really high price as compared to a lot at a low price?

And at what point do you stop using price as a gauge to the quality? Would you be surprised to see $30,000 speakers "outperform" $150,000 speakers?

Too much time on my hands today I guess.
jimspov

Showing 3 responses by inna

Well, I guess latest smartphones that sell for $800 cost no more than $50 to make. Most things are way overpriced, but then again many people are overpaid or simply make money by doing virtually nothing. Sad but not really surprising. For some $100k is almost a pocket change, and there is quite a number of people like that.
Having said that, I do think that really good speakers should and have the right to be quite expensive. But $100k ? Give me a break. You can buy a sure path to American citizenship for a little over $500k, and you won't lose anything in the end, it's investment. Now that's cheap. Going to be a million soon, as I heard.
But...if you have a very big room and listen to orchestra and want great sound - cost of the speakers and amps will be much higher. Other than that, $100k for the entire system is more than enough, in my opinion. In used prices this would be, say, $55k. Still a lot of money but within the reach of many.