Keeping my finger out of the pie... but just as Bose builds a couple cubes for 10 dollars with marketing and sells for 1000.00 retail, Wilson builds 1500.00 speakers and sells for 7000.00 to a dealer + their markup of probably 30%... Now does that mean they are any worse than other high end markup's?
Don't know but I have seen anywhere from 300% to 500% on speakers mostly, electronics don't seem to reach that high normally. Speakers are the most profit in general in high end for the bigger ticket items, yes cables are even worse but are far lower investment in the first place(sometimes unless you buying pythons at thousands a pair).
I have actually bought speakers at about 75.00 over wholesale, the store payed 310.00 for the pair, I paid about 385.00 floor model, and retail was 1100.00! So go figure it cost about 75.00 probably to build them. Wilson uses off the shelf drivers from famed scan speak, focal etc... same with crossover parts, however they might wind their own inductors not sure, and they supposedly do have the drivers modified I am sure in the hundreds for nominal cost from the Danish and french makers..
But even you can buy wholesale stock drivers like these and still pay double what a manufacture probably would on buying hundreds at a time.
From most defense I have seen or heard as to Why wilsons cost 20,000 or whatever a pair and many other overpriced items is due to the R&D, facilities, fancy car paint, and advertising costs, is all that money into the performance dollar for dollar? absolutly not, but this is how it is for this kinda thing.. Only companies that I know of you will find a tilt the other direction is Tyler acoustics, VMPS, MAybe Montana(very similar to wilson, but a little cheaper) Zu Cable, These guys are the types making U.S.A speakers probably taking home about double what they cost to make in the end, with very little advertising, hype, etc... not nearly as strong as wilsons.
I am not wilson bashing, they are a good speaker in the conventional audiophile terms, will a 18,000 pair of wilsons beat out a similar design at 5,000? More than likely in one way or another, better listen and make a choice of the extreme cost difference's yourself.
The question was asked so I gave my take on it, but if you want to correct me and say the finish and R&D costs 9 times the speakers cost fine I will believe you :)
