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


Having just read the interesting and hyperbole laden review by RH of the new Rockport Orion speakers in the latest issue of The Absolute Sound, one thing struck me..

is it possible in the high end for a manufacturer to overprice their product ( doesn’t have to be a speaker, but this example comes to mind)? I ask this, as the Orion is priced at $133k! Yes,a price that would probably make 99% of hobbyists squirm. Yet, the speaker now joins a number of competitors that are in the $100k realm. 
To that, this particular speaker stands just 50.3” tall and is just 14.3” wide…with one 13” woofer, one 7” midrange and a 1.25” beryllium dome ( which these days is nothing special at all…and could potentially lead to the nasties of beryllium bite).

The question is…given this speakers design and parts, which may or may not be SOTA, is it possible that this is just another overpriced product that will not sell, or is it like others, correctly priced for its target market? Thoughts…

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Possibly the super priced speakers you refer to are all totally "custom" and not in a retail catalog...and clearly many $100,000+ speakers sell well and others do not...seems to have worked quite well for Rockport and Wilson over decades of sales...not so good for some others

fun fact: the most expensive speakers are made in a region, a fairly straight line from Switzerland to the Netherlands.

I imagine some audio manufacturers having an internal discussion--

"We can make it for $200, sell it for $500 and sell lots." 

"But, if we sell it for $500, no one will take it seriously as truly ’high end.’  Let’s price it at $5000 and call it our Statement product. Then we’ll sell even more."  

@hoodjem I was about to say something similar. Let's face it, the absolute high end doesn't sell many products. Expect a handful of sales every year. 

I truly believe that buyers are clueless and rely on emotion and gut feeling when buying expensive audio equipment. Let me put it this way: in a room full of $100k speakers, the $50k speaker will seem inferior based on price and expected value alone (even if it performs better). 

So manufacturers may by nudging buyers into spending more money that way. Just create a very extensive, overly complicated line of speakers. Make the prices exponential. This is really a car salesman tactic. You expect to spend $20k on a car, you walk out of the dealer with a $35k vehicle because it was on sale and because most other cars in the showroom were around $50k. Your brain accepts higher prices because you perceive higher prices at the dealership. This applies to eveything: furniture, mattresses, kitchens, bikes etc...

It's not unreasonable to assume that flagship products drive up the prices for lower-tiered products by association. In other words, drive up the averages. 

 

@kokakolia I have been looking at prices for 3 weeks now, 100s of speakers (243 and counting), and I don’t see it. Sure there are outliers but for the most part, these companies’ managers aren’t driving Teslas. There is great value at 3K and even better value at 10 and there may be of course, a bigger markup over 20K but way fewer buyers too. The competition is immense that keeps prices in check.