I remember a video a year or two ago by Paul McGowan of PS Audio saying his son had SF speakers, but Paul said they were NOT "audiophile" to him, meaning they didn’t provide all the detail he considered important. Nothing against SF. They sure are pretty, and heck, I’d not mind having a pair, but I’ll be happy with something else for less which sounds similar or even better.
Regarding the 20% price increase, well, others do it too. (JBL-L100 MK II, Polk R700, and Wharfedale Super Linton as examples). The idea is to find the price to number of sales ratio that makes you the most profit. For all their failings, Bose knows how to do that and stay in business.
And yes, the overhead costs of R&D, pay raises for employees, sourcing materials, keeping the lights on in expensive Italy, complying with all the government regulations and restrictions, etc. are all added into the cost of every speaker across their range. It has to be that way. Say you spend $2 million developing a new speaker. Well, you can’t put all of that cost on that one speaker line or it’d be too expensive even for most with deep pockets, so you spread it out.
Why the huge increase in the price of Sonus Farber Amanti G5 speakers.
Just the other day, the G5’s were $36k and now they’re $43k! I’m thinking it’s too soon for it to be tariffs. Is Sonus Farber selling so many pairs that they’re just getting greedy? Whatever the reason, an almost 20% price increase can’t be good for business.