How many truly high-end speakers sold yearly?

Now that its mentioned I know a high end amp manufacturer that sells his amps from $12,000-50,000 and when he made the new 12k stereo amp, he had 100 chassis made(which we found a minor flaw in, but with 100 chassis on hands the flaw went into production) and he didn't seem to think it was going to take long to blow through the first 100 before he could improve upon the design. Not sure if that helps any but another interesting fact I have learned over the years.

It seems that I read when the Dynaudio Evidence's came out that Dynaudio "considered them to be a production product" (I guess some manufacturers don't?) and were projecting sales of a couple (few) dozen pairs a year. I don't remember the model numbers exactly, but I remember reading a review of the Levinson monoblocks (33H?) that retail for around $18K that they were developed in response to the "overwhelming" demand for for their flagship monoblocks (33?) that went for over $30K, but they were limited to being able to produce only about 6 pair per month, whereas the newer (cheaper) model they'd be able to produce more of.

Taking into consideration the vagueness of these memories, my guess is that "successful" state-of-the-art products sell between 20 and 100 "units" per year. -Kirk

Your question is quite limited in scope. You specifically state "truly high end speakers" but then put price limitations on it. Even though they qualify, i don't think that Bose makes any models that expensive : ) Sean
>

Great question! I sort of wondered about that myself on numerous occasions. Exactly where are the demographics to support the market and/or profitability which justifys the manufacture of $97,000 Kharma speakers and speakers in similar price ranges (especially when the Kharmas are better!).

I think checking serial numbers on this stuff is quite illuminating. I used to have Krell Audio Standard-2 power amps which, as I recall, were manufactured in September 1995. At that time, as I recall, the Audio Standard model had been in production by Krell for about 3 years or so. The serial numbers on my power amps were 358 and 359. That suggests to me that Krell probably sold around 50 pair of Audio Standrad-2's per year worldwide.

I bought BAT VK-60's in October 1999. At that time the BATs had been out about 4 years. The serial numbers were in the 760's. About 200 pair a year for $10,000 tube amps world wide sounds about right to me.

I saw some brand new Dunlavy SC-VI's at a dealer last July. The Dunlavy SC-SC-VI speaker has been in production about 8-9 years. Serial numbers of the new speakers in July, 01 were less than 200 and coded A and B. So about 25 pair of Dunlavy SC-VI's per year world wide would be my guess.

One last comment - I suspect that the overwhelming majority of this stuff is sold by the manufacturers to dealers at the manufacture's wholesale price. Frequently the manufacture forces (or as we say in the "business" ("contractually obligates") the dealer purchase the piece of high end equipment as a requirement for being an authorized dealer. Thus the maufcturer may require the dealer to purchase one new high end speaker per year and maintain that unit as store demo. So its the dealer who is actually buys the new product. He then the unit in his showroom as a demo and then offers to sell it at a discount as a dealer demo with full manufacturers warranty. How large a discount you get dep[enmds on how closew the delaer is to being forced to purchase anouther unit from the manufacturer. Then the dealer replaces the unit with another obligatory manufacturer purchase continuing to satisfy his authorized dealer contractual obligations.

I think a real interesing side question to your post is "How many of these units are actually sold brand new to the final user/consumer at full retail?"

With respect to your $7.5 million example, keep in moind thst the manufactures is probably only getting about half of the suggested retail price in his sale to the dealer. Further, the manufacturer might expect to be producing this model speaker for 4-5 years. Selling 20-25 pair of these speaker per year over 4-5 years (most of which may be forced on dealers as the price of the authorized dealership) and, voila' you now have a market and some profitability for your product.

Paradigm is expanding hugely, too. Anyone heard any scuttlebutt re: (1) Their corporate plans for Sonic Frontiers and (2) rumors that they will shortly introduce a new "big gun" speaker?

A recent Stereophile or TAS (can't remember which)stated that Klipsh was expanding with 200 new employees (many engineers)and within the article it was stated that the speaker market (in total) is $700mm.

Well first of all let me say I don't know much. But I do know that folks who blow 70k on a pair of speakers usually aren't your run of the mill audiophile, they have a good relationship with a dealer/friend. I wouldn't give 70k to anybody I didn't know/trust well, which also means most people who buy this caliber of gear(I'm not too far off, in a few years) don't pay close to retail. I recently priced a speaker(which I will keep to myself) msrp was 40k+ I was quoted 27k and we could talk about it a little more in person. I also know that Wilson's big speaker(I don't even know its name) is around 89k and they make 6 pairs a year, it is back ordered a few years in advance to prospective buyers.

I have been in this audio game for a good many years now and know a lot of members here and else where and I can count the number of people I know who have truly "megabuck" gear on one hand. Megabuck gear to me is 50k+ on speakers, 30k+ on amp(s), 20k on a digital front end, and 50k on an analog front end(based on the attitude towards cable lately I would rather not talk about them:)I am sure you can call Avalon and ask them how many Sentinals they have sold, and Call Kharma and ask how many Exquistes they have sold and so on, I think you'd be surprised how few it is.

But as I said at the begining of this post I don't know much.

~Tim

Is there a possibility to acquire a mortgage for the "true high-end speaker"?
I'm curious but not serious:)

When you're buying a junk house and rebuilding it yourself you can realy take an advantage in this case building a listening room. All it has to take is a successfull uppraisal of house and costs to re-build.

Take the desired mortgage, save on some building expences right... left... badaboom and YES there you have a Pipedreams or some 50K speaker system in your listening room (without an actual knowledge of your wife maybe) but then you've gotta get some rig too... :^)

P.S. I realy don't know how many "true high-end" speakers sold every year, but I will try to answer this question after I visit the show in NY.