What makes an expensive speaker expensive


When one plunks down $10,000 $50,000 and more for a speaker you’re paying for awesome sound, perhaps an elegant or outlandish style, some prestige ... but what makes the price what it is?

Are the materials in a $95,000 set of speakers really that expensive? Or are you paying a designer who has determined he can make more by selling a few at a really high price as compared to a lot at a low price?

And at what point do you stop using price as a gauge to the quality? Would you be surprised to see $30,000 speakers "outperform" $150,000 speakers?

Too much time on my hands today I guess.
128x128jimspov
Darn, I'm sorry, but it won't let me edit a post that's over 30 minutes old. I forgot to answer you on the drivers.  Their drivers come from ScanSpeak, but they don't have part numbers as they are not standard models. All of them are custom or use custom components made by Vandersteen like baskets and cones.
Ctsooner you can have great impact with a SET depending on which one you are listening to. Also as long as the speakers are a proper load. I use 845 with paper driver tannoys and the impact will blow your hair back. And I find the bass to be much more natural sounding than SS bass. It sounds right to me, not like over damped Ss bass.. Especially when you are listening to a standup bass. The harmonic overtones you get from a SET can't be equaled. YMMV. We get into trouble with generalizations like SET doesn't have impact or do bass, or paper drivers do this, or whatever.....
Well, if we are now talking about what makes an upgrade expensive, I read online, but never verified myself, that B&W has a couple of very closely related lines.  The higher end line is identical except for a Mundorf MKP replacing the default polyester tweeter cap. About an $7 upgrade (retail) for a couple of hundred bucks in MSRP for the speaker. 

Best,

Erik