WILSON AUDIO/ cost vs. value

Thanks Holenneck for sharing that link to the Wilson business program. I filtered out all the business crap and just listened to what Wilson had to say. He said some very interesting things. He pays full benefits to his employees. He doesn't like the vocabulary of "growing a business." (Thank god that someone is standing up against such perversions of the language). And he's not that concerned with having a greater profit margin, even though he probably does well financially. I respect his speaker line. They're not to my taste but I'm pretty sure they're priced fairly for what goes into them, including his labor costs and overhead. I'm not opposed to having equipment built in China and Bangladesh, assuming the workers are treated well and they aren't underpaid too badly, but I like the fact that Wilson wants to do it all in-house and according to the costs that are specific to the US.

Anyway, thanks Holenneck for passing along that link. Seeing it leads me to respect Wilson for not making profit his primary concern as opposed to his love for audio. I get a sense that he's genuine about that. I'm sure he makes a good living. and I think his speakers are well-made and appropriate for a certain audience that has the ears for them. I think its important to remember in all of these discussions that we all have different ears and preferences. Some people are going to really like Wilson products and others not so. I think that Wilson has done a service to a certain corner of the high end audio audience. I respect that, even if I'm not part of it and don't want to be.

I beg to differ. Dave by his owm admission declared his company profit driven. Declaring he cared little for audiophiles and only cared about those who had $10k to purchase the Watt/Puppys. That was what they were selling for at that time. Now that all the Saudi shieks have made their purchase, he now wnts to return to his base.
I for one am always happy when the prodigal son returns home. But let 's not re-write history. Now that he is home we do not owe him any special treatment. He has to compete with his siblings for the attention and love of his parents like everyone else. After all he left on his own. We did not drive him out.
You should buy the Wilson's because you like them and not to help Dave out.

It would have been nice for the Wilson owners on this thread to voice their opinion on the subject of cost vs value, as they are the people who rightly deciede this issue, as they keep Dave Wilson and his team in business.

There has been a lot of derogatory comments on this thread by people who do not, have not and will not own Wilson products.

I can only assume the Wilson owners are blissfully unaware of this thread as they sit in front of their "WILSON" speakers enjoying what they were meant to do. I find it amazing that there is not more Wilson trumpting here, it indicates to me that Wilson owners do not have to prove to the world or the audio community that there product is good, better or best.

Henryhk...thanks for the comment, it really sums it well.

Be true to your ears and enjoy the music

Whether or not someone or many people like their speakers does not address the topic of this thread. I'm glad that they are happy and enjoy pride of ownership. That's nice. Nice.
The matter up for discussion has to do with Mr Wilson's public claim that his company operates with a smaller profit margin than most other manufacturers. Because I have some experience on the inside of this game, I see a likelihood that his claim is bogus.
Typically speaker manufacturers who sell through a dealer network price the finished product at about 5 times the actual cost to manufacture and package the goods for delivery. Back office expenses are not included in the base figure for this calculation and neither is advertising or insurance.
Knowing this we will take the model for our conversation to be the $30,000 pair of speakers. If his markup is normal, then he would have $6000 involved in the parts and labor for one, uno (1) pair of speakers. Is this even imaginable? Now consider the model around a $125,000 pair and picture $25,000 in parts and labor for a single pair of speakers. Did you know that you can have someone build you an oversized two car garage with automatic door opener and insulation and sheetrock on a concrete pad for about that much money? I wonder if that could be as labor intensive as a pair of speakers.
I'm not jealous, I'm incredulous. I don't care if we're talking about Wilson or Goldmund or Sigmund or Freud. Dave Wilson is the one who opened this can of worms and aolmrd 1241 asked the question. I think his query is reasonable and I'm amazed that so many of you behave as if you are being personally attacked.
And remember that the numbers I used are for industry standard pricing. If Dave is to be believed, his costs are even higher than those I posited.
If you take the $30,000 model and parse the take, your dealer gets 40 points or $12,000 for selling the speakers at reatail. He may (probably will) discount them but that comes out of his share. Wilson is unaffected. Ole Dave gets the remaining $18,000 from which we deduct the original $6000 cost of production. That leaves $12,000 to pay the front office and the rest of the enumerated costs. Suppose he sells 20 pairs of this model ( probably a very conservative estimate) per month. WOW. That's $240,000. WOW.
What about the $125,000 speaker pair? Well, as the model stands, that speaker generates $50,000 in profit for the dealer and for Wilson. That's per pair. We have to guess that there are few pairs of these sold and that one a month would be an exaggeration. So anyway I believe that Wilson is showing a gross profit on the order of a half a million per month. Good for him. That's the old American success story in a nutshell. He's been at this for nearly 30 years and he's pulled it off as well as Polk or Bose or Infinity. Maybe better.
The only problem arises when he comes to us and asks us to believe he's taking a beating. It just isn't believable.

hello- macrojack; I see you understand the heart of the question as opposed to name brand loyality, thanks for the reasonable imput concerning cost vs. value as was the intention of the thread...