Sopra No.2 Overpriced?

I would venture to say that any gear made in china is over-priced. We all know how "cheap" the labor force in that country.

jafant, in my experience most companies strive to make as much profit as the markets will allow.  The advent of the labor unions in the U.S. gave workers more leverage here.  Think of all the IT jobs outsourced to India.  India's compensation for IT professionals, job for job, is way below our standards.   

"I would venture to say that any gear made in china is over-priced. We all know how "cheap" the labor force in that country."

Come on Jafant, I've read enough of your posts to know you're smarter than a generalized, myopic statement like that.  As if the cost of labor were the only input on which the price of an item is based.  Did you accidentally get served a decaf at Starbucks this morning?

So, lots of off topic points I want to contribute to.

The quality of products made in China is directly proportional to the parent company’s willingness to control that quality and partner with the manufacturer. Very high quality and crap comes out of Chinese assembly lines, all of it determined by the buyers.

The productivity of the American worker continues to go up while salaries have remained flat for the past 15 years.

Having said that, my own secret calculations say that the High End prices are around 10x the driver costs. Some are better, like Lawrence Audio, and some are much worse. I would put Focal at a much higher rate, plus they benefit from really cheap cabinets and inexpensive in-house drivers. The Magico S1 Mk II which I am not a fanboy for (nor particularly upset by) is all aluminum, and has 2 very nice Scanspeak drivers with proprietary cones and moderately expensive Mundorf crossovers. Then you have some one like Bose selling a 5.1 system out of 6 plastic boxes and $2 drivers for over $1,500. Amazing. :)

Really interested in purchasing a pair, good bang for the buck or overpriced when compared to speakers at similar price point?

I don't know.  Are the other speakers in their price range they are designed to compete with overpriced too? 

Only the market will make that determination.  If they are perceived to be overpriced, or sound bad, they won't sell,  Focal will then have to make a decision to lower the price to attract more buyers or discontinued the model altogether because they made an Edsel.  Time will tell.

I do know that my dealer has one pair in red, for demos.  He tells me if you want orange, there is a 6 week wait.  If this is true, then that tells me Focal has priced this speaker right and it is being bought by its intended target market.  At least the orange ones anyway.