Cheap Chinese cabinets. As for overpricing, since there are a lot of people who don’t earn but make a lot of money, why not try and cash in, Danes and others think ? They play ’the stupid and ignorant’ card, and often it works. Besides, Europeans generally despise Americans and get pleasure out of that too.
inna --
You seem to do well yourself in regards to what you assume Europeans to similarly throw at you. Perhaps you’ll come in handy helping Mr. Trump to build them walls.
However, I’ll agree with you on this: some of the Danish brands of speakers are indeed overpriced, most notably perhaps Raidho and Peak Consult. Mr. Kristensen of Raidho has openly declared the cabinets of their speakers are made in China, a fact he feels no qualms about revealing. Raidho cabinets are typically "livelier" than other brands of similar-ish aspirations, but for a reason, and this translates to their views on room acoustics as well where they favor a predominance of diffusion rather than absorption in an effort to preserve the energy and "life" of music. In regards to their finish, well, I’ve never had an issue with it as such, but others seemingly disagree. I digress..
The finish and overall construction quality of Peak Consult speakers is, to my mind, absolutely gorgeous, and they’re hand-built to tank-like sturdiness at the facility in Denmark - to whom this may concern. I find Mr. Kristoffersen voices the different speaker models to maintain a certain house sound, and yet each of them has a unique trait or "personality" in a sense. Here it’s more about absorption and absolute weight of material, which lends to it its own traits and challenges. While both brands are sonically rather fascinating in their own right, I neither would nor could afford any of their larger floor standing models.
[...] Overall, Danes don’t know how to make speakers, they know how to make electronics, though. Gryphon is a notable exception.
I don’t agree with the former, overpriced Raidho and Peak C. may be, but it’s not like I have a particular inkling towards them either. Dali speakers never really appealed to me (too well-behaved, even boring), and with the exception of the older Contour 3.0 and 3.3 models Dynaudio’s sound in general always struck me as rather bland, and oddly uninvolving. System Audio speakers are simply too small, though Blue Trumpet speakers (new brand) are interesting, and very fairly priced. The natural imprinting and spatial abilities of Peak Consult’s speakers is a something to behold, I find, and they are rather dynamic - but, again, expensive.
The US is a much bigger country and market, and naturally you’d expect a diversity here more pronounced than a smaller country like Denmark (by factor 50), but that doesn’t make the latter incapable per se of making good speakers. The evidence at hand to my mind certainly doesn’t warrant such a conclusion. My sensibilities are more towards horn speakers, and would highlight Wheel-Fi, OMA and Simon Mears Audio as particularly interesting items, along with the more regular or mixed brew of (active) ATC, the former S.P. Tech. and some of the bigger models from JBL.