Why are so many people trying to sell Harbeths?

Could be that many of their speakers have been and are over rated. Sam Tellig and John Atkinson of Stereophile seem to be in love with the company's product. The other reason is that the Harbeth sound appeals to a certain audience, and listener.

Sam Tellig would not be caught dead playing rock music or even jazz. he was strictly, and officially a classical music lover and elitist snob, and also automatically anoint the speaker with special status.

There is a continuing assumption in audio that great speakers "should" sound good on any type of music. I am not sure that is totally true in reality, though it is a noble and worthy goal to pursue if you are building these things.

I have to somewhat agree with the member about "Harbeths on sale". Interestingly, there was for a while a run on KEF LS-50 placed on the selling block. Maybe, reviewers over enthused about them. Or, maybe they are too analytical, and also don't have much bass. Nevertheless, I counted one day last month, approx. eight LS-50's on sale on audiogon.

What bothers me about companies like Harbeth is how they can justify retailing a speaker like the 30.1 for $12,000 plus. However, in the over enthused and less critical reviews world of hi-end audio, price too often predetermines the expectation of great value and high end performance.

Pcoombs,

I believe I read about the price in Stereophile about 2 years ago by Sam Tellig who just gushed and raved on about the sound quality. of 30.1

However, my memory may not be correct, but I am sure I saw it there. I guess you could google up Stereophile's reviews. or Tellig's off the cuff reviews.

Chrshanl 37. I may be looking for a new speaker, so I will check out Speaker Art brand which you noted; I have never seen ads referred to on Audiogon, or in the major audio mags. Overall, I am not sure I see your point

Harbeth gets more press coverage and therefore I assume sells more speaker which may (please note "I say my")result in more re-sales

To Pcoombs, I stand corrected, but I doubt it will make me judge them differently. I still believe they are unfairly priced. I have an entire spiel about overpricing speakers in high-end, but I will spare you and others. Does Harbeth make a model 40.1?? at that price??

Nevertheless, take a look at Devore's pricing; I am sure in his corral he has at least one $12,000 pair of boxes.

Some member needs to post a thread asking to list which speakers are in their honest opinion a rip off and possibly why so. Even a venerable company like Harbeth seems to be moving toward this list based on some of the responds I have read here.

I think such a list would help potential buyers rethink spending over $6000 and beyond for speakers. In addition, I think it is fair to ask manufacturers how manufacturing costs and residuals costs compute to the determine the final retail price of their speaker or speakers

Please don't insult the intelligence of some members like myself by floating the tired theory of "perceived value" Personally, I think that is crap and a spurious argument at best to empty ones bank account. Lastly, in mounting the above criticism, I don't think anyone who agrees is trying to tell you how to spend your money.

Roxy, I hardly feel it is appropriate to state my proposal as being silly. So, in your vaulted opinion, where does the glass ceiling end. You mentioned an older review of the Model 40 in ETM listing the speakers 7K which jumped to approx. $13,000 to $14,000. Geez, how did that occur, did Harbeth workers get an unexpected and large per hour raise. Elevated and run away costs of new materials; engineering design changes priced out in terms of hours of research and development, and special personnel.....or was it just old fashion " what the market will bear" or to say it another way, we need to dramatically increase profit margins by say 50-60% instead of a reasonable increase of 25%-30%

I don't know what Mr. Harbeth and his Board of Directors were thinking and neither do you. All we know is that the buyer will be required to pay for the item if he/she wants it.

Begator, No we need not get into a debate; I never liked any of the political, social, and this case, economic theories that came out of the Chicago School However, you can go back to Jeremy Bentham's utilitarian theory of value which was one of the sources the Chicago School used. Even Karl Marx in his interesting if not classic essay "Alienated Labor" used a type of romanticized utilitarian theory to argue for the "value" a workman gives (and imbues) to the product he assembles by his labor and craftmanship

Sorry, I read these guy and more when studying for my Ph.d exams in History. Lastly, we are not considering the relative cost of combs, light bulbs, pliers or widgets, but electronically sophisticated products.

No one in his right mind wants to pay retail for audio products, because if that was generally true, many of us would not daily monitor the lists of used products on Audiogon. Cheers.