Why the huge increase in the price of Sonus Farber Amanti G5 speakers.

@1971gto455ho 

You sure are cynical. 

While there are a few companies that attempt and get away with charging "excessive" prices for their products, they are far between. Certainly not in tiny markets in highly discretionary markets. If folks don’t think the speakers are worth it, then they don’t buy them. Also, folks buying speakers in the $30K - $100k range are smarter than the average population, not dumber. 

I would think it more likely that a marketing person(s) from Sonus Faber / Bose did a complete analysis of the SF product lines and of the competitions. Considered the sonic characteristics, craftsmanship, global demographics, production costs and forecasted costs, and probably the Bose guidelines for profitability. They would have got together the COO, CFO, VP of Sales... probably the entire executive staff. The marketing team would have spent several hours explaining their findings and recommendations. The VP of Sales would complain endlessly about how they would not longer be able to sell the volumes they had committed to in the annual plan with these price increases. Everyone would look to purchasing to get long term contracts on raw materials to stabilize the material input costs. Anyway, I can go on and on. This is how it works. A huge amount of research and heated discussion by very savvy people trying to make sure they stay in business and make some money. 

Price gouging only works with commodities that are mandatory. Health care, food, water, power. 

I spoke with a friend of mine who is in the industry and he said it is crazy with some companies announcing price increases, some just doing it without warning, some slowing shipments. This is not a highly profitable / low asset business.  High end audio manufactures often design and manufacture their own products and hence have  large overhead and fixed costs. Getting caught on the wrong side of 20% price increase can destroy the company. For those owned by larger companies, they may require certain profit margins and are less concerned with the volume or long - term viability. 

@deep_333 

The ARC story is about the specifics in one case of development in the high end audio arena. I did not know any specific  numbers of hours on anything from Sonus Faber speaker development. But I am sure it is similar, it demonstrates the huge investment that goes into high end audio equipment. 
 

The amount of effort… since very large number of change and listen cycles are involved with engineers with very specific skills… like they can hear nuanced voicing and have the musical experience to understand the objective. 

Research and development. 

I was reading about the design of the Audio Research Reference 330m. The announcements was released about two years ago. When the new owner heard it, he said stop. He hired a team of seven engineers and they spent two years redesigning it and released it recently. Seven engineers for two years... retooling and all that goes with producing a new piece of electronics. Designing the workflow, test points, test routines, manufacturing process. 

The speakers in most of the Sonus Faber Amati are custom made and each speaker design achieves better sonics through research and development. 

I own Amati Traditional and seen Lilium and other Sonus Faber,  they are also the most beautiful made speakers I have ever seen. It takes some craftsmanship to create something this extraordinary.

Why a 20% increase in the price of the Amati. I know nothing for certain but... well, inflation has been going on since the pandemic, throw on tariffs and global uncertainty. I am not surprised.