There are two ways of looking at this yes, we have seen certain products that were artificially over priced to generate interest the original Kharma loudspeakers were priced at $10k retail and the importer jumped the price to $20k a pair to make them seem special and outlandish, and there are other products which are generally expensive to make with custom parts in limited quantities.
We used to sell a loudspeaker from a company called Polymer Audio Research this company's loudspeakers sold for $68k, when you looked at the parts quality and cost these speakers were under priced:
2 Accuton Diamond tweeters which are $3k each *2 $ 6k
2 Accuton Diamond midrange drivers which are $10k each * 2 =$20k
2 Custom Midbass drivers estimated cost $500 each *2 = $ 1k
4 Custom Woofers estimated cost $500 each*4= $ 2k
So just in parts not including all metal composite baffle
all metal cabinets, all silver wire, custom inductors $29k
if you take those parts at 50% off for wholesale you still have $14.5
add in all of the metal cabinets, wiring, caps ect $10K
so all in you have a projected cost of manufacture of $25k at least
add in margin for the company which was ridiculously low at $10-15k
you had a purchase price of $35-40k to the dealer with a sales price of $68k you had a tiny margin compared to the price of the loudspeaker.
There are other products that are priced very fairly considering the cost to build. So not every expensive audio product is overly inflated.
What people here fail to realize is that there are $30k Hermes bags, which are really nice leather bags, how difficult is it to produce a leather bag?
Compare that with the huge costs to build a custom set of loudspeakers or amplifiers that do not use off the shelf amplifier modules in a prettier case.
Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ
We used to sell a loudspeaker from a company called Polymer Audio Research this company's loudspeakers sold for $68k, when you looked at the parts quality and cost these speakers were under priced:
2 Accuton Diamond tweeters which are $3k each *2 $ 6k
2 Accuton Diamond midrange drivers which are $10k each * 2 =$20k
2 Custom Midbass drivers estimated cost $500 each *2 = $ 1k
4 Custom Woofers estimated cost $500 each*4= $ 2k
So just in parts not including all metal composite baffle
all metal cabinets, all silver wire, custom inductors $29k
if you take those parts at 50% off for wholesale you still have $14.5
add in all of the metal cabinets, wiring, caps ect $10K
so all in you have a projected cost of manufacture of $25k at least
add in margin for the company which was ridiculously low at $10-15k
you had a purchase price of $35-40k to the dealer with a sales price of $68k you had a tiny margin compared to the price of the loudspeaker.
There are other products that are priced very fairly considering the cost to build. So not every expensive audio product is overly inflated.
What people here fail to realize is that there are $30k Hermes bags, which are really nice leather bags, how difficult is it to produce a leather bag?
Compare that with the huge costs to build a custom set of loudspeakers or amplifiers that do not use off the shelf amplifier modules in a prettier case.
Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ