Taters, I've paid dearly for due diligence. When I finally swore off the high-end (I should say high-advertised) stuff was when I paid air-fare to fly the Vandy dealer over here to "adjust" the 5AC speaks, drove 90 miles each way to the airport and back, bought him lunch, the whole smash. He spent all of 10 minutes with some Radio Shack gizmo to "centre" the Vandies and the rest of the day trying to push some $8k speaker cables on me. We did a swap-out with my Blue Jeans and I found myself, in my own damn living room, apologizing, that I could not hear a difference. Then I had to drive him back to the airport. Took me about a week to realize I was very angry, and started looking in to how this stuff is made and through the channels it is sold. Like I said, find out how hard it is to talk to the guy who actually makes the stuff, and deal directly with him/her. It has cost me at least 50 large to realize that for under 10 grand you can get the best sound out there, American built, and it will just tickle your ears.
Sorry man, it's not funny... but I did laugh.
This is why I try to never buy from a dealer. There are some very rare excellent dealers, but they are indeed very rare.
Back to the original topic - there are way too many speaker manufacturers out there, given the size of the high end market. So what's happening is that prices are much higher than in any other industry (relative to the cost to mfg). It's the only way for a speaker mfg to try to survive on such low volumes. You simply don't need 100+ manufacturers of $20K+ speakers. And there certainly are that many around.
After a visit to Oswalds Mill Audio (OMA), I realized how big of a rip off this company is. They are actually just a contractor - none of the design and engineering is actually done in house.
When I researched the drivers in their speakers, and spoke to some other members on forums, it became clear that their margins are 10X. Which is obscene, especially since they sell direct.
Their Mini speaker, for example, has $300 worth of drivers (I actually bought them myself). The Mini retails for $26,000. You'll get about 20% off as a "special, rare" discount. Even allowing for a generous profit margin and the design and materials of the beautiful enclosure and simple crossover, there's no way that this pricing makes any sense.
What I also did was look at OMA AC1 speakers (base price $108K), and use the original vintage RCA field coil drivers that even OMA doesn't use. Even OMA claims that the field coil RCA is the best midrange driver, and their AC1s use a step-down non field coil RCA driver. These drivers can be purchased for about $2500 on eBay, for a pair. I paid about $7500 for perfect pair of the field coil version. In total, I ended up spending about $30K on a speaker that even OMA would admit is better that their $108K model.
And it was designed and built by an expert. He received about $15K for his time and materials, and he's happy. The other $15K went on drivers. OMA spends less than $5K on the drivers of their $108K model, and then hires designers and builders that are no less competent than ones you can find yourself.
Summary - Saved $70,000 and got a better product.
YOU should become your own 'underground' speaker designer.
Research, read, and talk to the community.
Then hire a company to design and build the speaker for you.
Most vendors are not inventing anything new, they are taking the same tech and designs that have worked for nearly 100 years, and repackaging it, then slapping on a 10X margin.
Some vendors truly have interesting tech (e.g., MBL, Acappela horns with their ion tweeters, and others).
Why give someone else 50% of your budget when you can go direct? Give your money to the people actually doing the work, the ones who actually innovate. Not a middle man.
