Should manufacturers lease speakers?

High end audio is a purely discretionary, luxury oriented market. If you have to lease or otherwise finance your purchases, then you might want to consider that you cannot actually afford what you lust after. Also, why should the manufacturer gamble on what the depreciated value of their product will be a year or two after purchase?

Sure its called RENT A CENTER hehehehe

Some speaker dealers offer trade-in allowances towards more expensive speakers. The amount of the allowance decays over time (with the re-sale value). If you do the math and there is a liquid market for your model, it should be very worthwhile to deal with the hassle rather then finance through a lease type arrangement. Of course, you could just sell your speaker at the right price and have the purchaser bear the hassle of picking up themselves.

I think this is a grand idea!

Unfortunately, leases are based on the depreciation value VS residual value. That is, a $10,000 pair of speakers leased for say three years will have a residual price (what the lessor can sell it for when you return it) of about $5000. This assumes a stable technology paradigm (i.e., nobody invents something that makes the speakers obsolete).
So you're going to pay $150 - $175 per month for three years (figure shipping, "processing fees", interest, etc.).

Now the builder COULD do it for half of this amount (you do know about the typical 100% markup at retail right?) IF they want to risk alienating their dealers.

Getting messy? Another thing, IF there were money in this, someone would be doing it already, no?

Oh well, still a good idea.
Play with the numbers and let us know when you can make it work!

Sounds good at first blush, but I think here's a good reason they won't do it. What happens when you don't make your lease payment? The manufacturer would have to be able to get their property back and that is going to be a problem when it's locked away in your home. With a car, they just come and repo it during the night, with Rent-a-center places, they are usually local to the leased goods so they will deal with you in local court, but a high end manufacturer simply can't go all over the country trying to get there goods back when you don't pay, it just wouldn't be profitable.

Mike.