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…

128x128daveyf

Who is to judge?

With most products and services, if at least some people don't complain about the price then it is probably not high enough.   If it priced too high, then it won't sell.  The purpose of most businesses it to make money so the good ones price their goods/services based on "what the market will bear" for the value provided.  With a group that will pay $250 for a pink fuse, the sky's the limit!  

Very few goods are priced as 'cost + small margin'. Goods are priced at market - as high as buyer may be willing to spend. So sure. Just look as Porsche tax 

@mikhailark    This brings about my point in the OP.  Looking at my new copy of 'The Absolute Sound', there are many speaker manufacturer's who are now supplying speakers with pricing in the same league ( and many times much more) than a new Porsche!  The number of companies that are offering speakers in the range below even $10K is considerably less than those who are offering speakers for more than this figure, and many times --much more. Looking at the cable offerings, the same can be said about these folks. Some cables in the $70-$100K price points. ( Many mostly silver based, but anyone look at the price of raw silver recently!). IMHO, there are a lot of vendors who seem to believe that the high end is made up of primarily folks who say...'pass the Grey Poupon'.

@daveyf - this is the only way they can survive. Too few customers. Young folks buy $500 active system at Amazon and it sounds pretty good (facing my desktop active speakers with ribbons right now). Also, young generation is much better educated in computers and won’t buy $$$ ’Ethernet filters’.

There are more buyers of Porsche than speakers. So manufacturer calculates how many they can sell, then take expense, divide by production and get the price. Need 2 million a year to run the company, but can only sell 200 speakers? Well, $10K it is then.

My local high end gear shop has small room with "budget" gear (that's $10K+ items) and several rooms with $200K systems. People driving up in McLarens shop there now.

IMO, more interesting is used market. There you can see actual prices people are willing to pay. I am getting $10K MSRP speakers delivered tomorrow. I bought them for $3K basically like new.

And I bet 90% of buyers will put them in their expensive houses with glass floor to ceiling windows and zero acoustic treatment