WILSON AUDIO/ cost vs. value

come on! You believe David Wilson's rap. His whole ad campaign has him sitting on the king's throne tuning his crossovers. I must say they have a very effective adverstising strategy, but it don't fly with me. Also, I don't paticulary like the Wilson sound. I don't take any ad that seriously except on its' creative/artistic merits. Wilson ads are ho hum at best, but I'm sure they appeal to oodles. They must. They are keeping Sterophile afloat and he ain't hurting for business....

Keeping my finger out of the pie... but just as Bose builds a couple cubes for 10 dollars with marketing and sells for 1000.00 retail, Wilson builds 1500.00 speakers and sells for 7000.00 to a dealer + their markup of probably 30%... Now does that mean they are any worse than other high end markup's?

Don't know but I have seen anywhere from 300% to 500% on speakers mostly, electronics don't seem to reach that high normally. Speakers are the most profit in general in high end for the bigger ticket items, yes cables are even worse but are far lower investment in the first place(sometimes unless you buying pythons at thousands a pair).

I have actually bought speakers at about 75.00 over wholesale, the store payed 310.00 for the pair, I paid about 385.00 floor model, and retail was 1100.00! So go figure it cost about 75.00 probably to build them. Wilson uses off the shelf drivers from famed scan speak, focal etc... same with crossover parts, however they might wind their own inductors not sure, and they supposedly do have the drivers modified I am sure in the hundreds for nominal cost from the Danish and french makers..

But even you can buy wholesale stock drivers like these and still pay double what a manufacture probably would on buying hundreds at a time.

From most defense I have seen or heard as to Why wilsons cost 20,000 or whatever a pair and many other overpriced items is due to the R&D, facilities, fancy car paint, and advertising costs, is all that money into the performance dollar for dollar? absolutly not, but this is how it is for this kinda thing.. Only companies that I know of you will find a tilt the other direction is Tyler acoustics, VMPS, MAybe Montana(very similar to wilson, but a little cheaper) Zu Cable, These guys are the types making U.S.A speakers probably taking home about double what they cost to make in the end, with very little advertising, hype, etc... not nearly as strong as wilsons.

I am not wilson bashing, they are a good speaker in the conventional audiophile terms, will a 18,000 pair of wilsons beat out a similar design at 5,000? More than likely in one way or another, better listen and make a choice of the extreme cost difference's yourself.

The question was asked so I gave my take on it, but if you want to correct me and say the finish and R&D costs 9 times the speakers cost fine I will believe you :)

Profit margin for who. Him, his company, his secretary, the ad company ?

Wilson speakers have explosive dynamics and its easy to see their appeal.

"... all the Wilson bashing threads I've been seeing just strike me as sour grapes."

I am fortunate enough at present to be able to afford Wilson speakers if I chose to, as are a great many other people who also don't like them. I am sure there are reasonable people who like Wilson speakers, but I confess I tend to assume a large portion of Wilson owners have purchased them on reputation and not through serious competative auditions. This is, I’m sure, grossly unfair to some who have carefully made their choice, but I will say that the local Wilson dealer raves about them in his store and then goes home to listen to his active ATC SCM-50’s. And who can blame him?

I guess some of the naysayers think the profit should be less;then Wilson could go under--like some other speaker makers?? I figure it's better to be bashed on a regular basis than to not be spoken of,at all??