WILSON AUDIO/ cost vs. value


wilson ad; absolute sound;issue 162. page 12.... dave wilson states in his ad that wilson loudspeakers have one of the [ lowest ] profit margins in the industry. My question is should wilson make public their profit margin percentage's to back up their claims or is this more hyperbole from a high-end audio manufacturer...
aolmrd1241

Showing 5 responses by 883dave

There seems to be a lot of contention about Wilson products, price, size, weight, sound, color...everyone seems to have an opinion.

In my life I have found Cost vs. Value is generally in the depth of my wallet.

A couple of examples...

I use to think that Mobile Fidelity recordings were way too much money and not a good financial value, until years later when my income level increased to the point of having disposable cash, now I am sorry I did not purchase the complete catalog as they were released. If I had of they would now be Value vs. Cost (what an investment that would have been)

Or...in my younger years Steak and Lobster was way over rated and quite frankly not worth the expense, hamburgers and fries were the way to go.
Steak and Hamburger come from the same source, so why such a discrepancy, or disparity in price, as they are both beef. It takes more work and time to produce hamburger than steak so why is steak more expensive? I now think steak is expensive but not over rated as I can now afford it on a regular basis.

Is it right to assume Cost vs. Value is a derivative of income, and does it sway or have a bearing on a persons opinions toward a product?

How many of the posters on this thread actually own, or have owned, WIlson products?

Out of the people who have, what do you feel about the cost vs value issue now, are you comfortable with what you paid, or do you now feel the price was inflated, and you did not get good value?
Warren...
It has been said that people generally stop spending money in their early fifties, so maybe we all revert back to being frugal like the young only now with a different reason.

If you are not wild about the sound, which is not your cup of java, why have you not sold the puppy's yet?

As for picking on Dave Wilson, I believe that once you get sucessful, or high profile in the media eye, the masses start to notice and take sides, we all need hero's to embellish, and villian's to debase.

PS...nice looking system, bet there is a lot of time in front of it.
It would have been nice for the Wilson owners on this thread to voice their opinion on the subject of cost vs value, as they are the people who rightly deciede this issue, as they keep Dave Wilson and his team in business.

There has been a lot of derogatory comments on this thread by people who do not, have not and will not own Wilson products.

I can only assume the Wilson owners are blissfully unaware of this thread as they sit in front of their "WILSON" speakers enjoying what they were meant to do. I find it amazing that there is not more Wilson trumpting here, it indicates to me that Wilson owners do not have to prove to the world or the audio community that there product is good, better or best.

Henryhk...thanks for the comment, it really sums it well.

Be true to your ears and enjoy the music
Macrojack...

Thank you for the economics lesson again.

The original question was

"My question is should wilson make public their profit margin percentage's to back up their claims or is this more hyperbole from a high-end audio manufacturer..."

My answers are No they should not make public their profit margin percentage's...and yes it is just more hyperbole....it seems to be the way of advertising today...make any claims you want with out any back up

Mr Wilson has been critized for trying to lead us to believe, without supplying enough information, why do you feel your Typical model applies here without knowing anything about how his company is structured?

Here is an example of excess Cost vs. Value that supports your profit model

Radio Shack speaker wire has been rated as a best buy at 19.99 per 100' roll or $0.1999 per foot.
Zu Cable (I use this because of the previous refferences on this thread, and also because they include price on their website) sells speaker cable at 23.93 (their cheapest) per foot. That is a difference of $23.73 per foot "WOW"
I know that this is wrong, I do not have enough information so it is just supposition. Which is what the context of this post was about.
Allanbhaganinfo...very well said

Enough of this conjecture...lets listen to music