Why are Harbeth speakers expensive while its drivers are not.

Matt,
I can understand what you are saying, but if you have heard the Harbeth 40.1, I think you would feel differently because it 's performance is far superior to an older JBL, as nice as they may be.

Sorry for the mix-up Doug!
John 

Thanks ekikt. That's an excellent breakdown. We tend to forget all that is involved.

It's impressive when a company designs and builds their drivers in-house, e.g. Vivid, but in the end, it's the result that matters. Some designers make an art out of sourcing the best blend of drivers and the best crossover to couple them with. 

Grannyring is right. When the Monitor 40 got its first rave review years ago, they cost around 7k, now the latest version is over 14k. It wasn't that many years ago, and I should have bought a pair, but the point is that even then, they performed at a higher level than other 7k speakers, and if they didn't, people wouldn't be paying 14k now.