Economics of small speaker manufacturers

You sound as if you had already made up your mind that smaller makers have lower overheard and therefore lower prices. There is absolutely no reason to see this as a necessary relationship. The price of one capacitor, for example, may be
$10 but the unit price for 10,000 may be 30 cents each. An expert cabinet maker may get $50 to route a cabinet, where a computer operated machine may be able to do thousands at $1 per. Price is more affected by what the traffic will bear than by the cost of manufacture. It is not unknown that when the price of an item is raised, the sales increase.
cheers,

Great topic and while I don't have answers, only more questions, I do look forward to reading what the better informed A'goners have to say.

Smaller "boutique" manufacturers emphasize the savings affected by eliminating layers of marketing and distribution. So, is Tyler's Woodmere II or Linbrook II actually better than comparably priced models from Spendor, Proac, B&W, etc?

OTOH, the other camp would point to "economy of scale" and perhaps cheaper production costs overseas. So, is Quad 22L, or LSA and DCM models, actually equal to more expensive boutique products from Tyler, Salk, GMA?

So, we have two competing effects, both real, and I don't knpw how they balance out.

One thing is sure: By going to a boutique, you can get personal attention and customization. People have been able to talk Tyler or Salk into modifying just about anything to accommodate their needs. However, I don't know how price/quality equations compare. Looking forward to the discussion. :)

Manufacters sell to distributors. The distributor marks up over 30%-100% Again dealer marks up 30-40%. So most factory direct loudspeakers would cost at least 3xs as much if purchased from a brick and mortor shop. Many manufacters produce items in large scale,mostly over seas this reduces costs per unit. A small factory direct manufacter has higher manufactering costs per unit than the big guys. The small manufacters do seem to offer more performance per $$ spent. Small manufacters can respond to market changes better than large, small also can provide designs that no large manufacter would dare touch due to hi-costs and limited markets.