Is it possible for a high end manufacturer to overprice their goods?

daveyf OP

@labguy while I think your math is not quite correct for this particular speaker, as it leaves out a number of factors, including the R&D costs, shipping, advertising, dealer mark up etc.

It’s amazing how many people are naive about the costs involved in running a business, let alone designing and building a high quality product. $100K+ speakers aren’t made in a garage over the weekend.

_ _ _ _ _

Here are just a few considerations:

- Manufacturing costs could easily be a minimum of $25K/month - most likely much more for larger operations. This would include: shop space rental, warehouse space rental (for both raw materials & finished products), CNC machine purchase, assorted power tools purchase, specialized handheld tools purchase, specialized electronics equipment, specialized software programs, multiple large work benches, etc.

- Cabinet raw materials

- Driver raw materials (probably modified)

- Wiring and wire harness raw materials

- Exotic paint and/or staining products

- Separate paint shop space rental

- Labor costs for skilled technicians: $50/hour X # of hours, X # of technicians.

- Estimating profit margin needed to keep those skilled technicians on the payroll vs trying to find new qualified workers every few months and training them.

- Monthly utility expenses.

- Liability insurance and Comprehensive insurance.

- R&D costs. How do you value thousands of hours by the lead designer? When creating something new, there is no formula. It hasn’t been made yet.

- Cost of the prototypes. Those that didn’t work out - as well as the ones that came sort of close - but not good enough.

- Attending industry events. Shipping the gear there and back. Hotel rooms, etc.

- Website maintenance

- Inflation: Price of everything going up.

- and many other costs

Not only is it possible, it happens.

@steakster While you are correct in alerting folks to the many costs incurred by manufacturers, i also question where the process is when it comes to a speaker ( maybe any speaker/ high end product at this price point) that comes in at a consumer price that equates to a very impressive new car ( or insert any number of other far more sophisticated and complex products here). While the argument that economies of scale come into place, this argument can surely only go so far?

OTOH, all of this is relative to one’s disposable income, and given that, I do question why this speaker ( or others of its ilk) are priced at just north of $130K...and not multiples of this price? Do these manufacturer’s ( or their dealer network) actually know that this price is in fact attainable--while multiples of this price is not?? If so, how??

@mihorn ,

”
The only Hi-end audio company is the Wavetouch audio. Everything else are Hi-Fi. They all are simply unlistenable to me. I watched few 2023 Axpona videos and my ears are in serious pain. My ears are much better after I listen WTPC video for few minutes. Alex/Wavetouch”

ohh my that made me laugh after a rough night !! 😃😃😃😃😃