Thanks Blindjim, yes I agree, there are definitely sub-genres even within the narrow confines of "high-end".
To me, there are some companies that are EXCLUSIVELY "high-end", such as Rockport as you mentioned, and Wilson, Magico and Kharma, for example.
Then there are many other brands that have SOME "high-end" speakers, and some (if not most) that are not.
B&W, Focal and KEF would fit in these categories, amongst many others. No reasonable person would deny that the Focal Grande Utopia EM is not a "high-end" speaker, or the B&W Nautilus. Yet few people make that claim about the Focal Chorus 726V or the B&W CM9, even though they are both very fine speakers, and certainly relative to other lines of their respective brands, very good value.
And of course there are many companies that don't deal with the "high-end" end of things, but are outstanding manufacturers. There are too many to mention, but I know if I had only a fraction of my budget, I would still be very happy with what's available in the under-$5,000 range, or even less.
Some ID speaker brands come to mind and they seem to offer the best "bang for the buck" these days. Speaking of which, I have heard some people praise the Salk Veracity HT3 as being superior to the Wilson Sophia 2, which doesn't surprise me.
And with the Salk Veracity HT3 priced at under ONE-THIRD of the cost of the Sophia 2s, you have to wonder if the Sophia 2s would ever sell if they didn't have the Wilson name. Certainly there are many others that agree with you that the Sophia 2s offer poor cost-to-performance ratio.
Like I said before, Wilson is a great speaker manufacturer. But part of what makes them great is their focus on the "ultra high-end". The speakers they make are certainly "cost-no-object", even for the manufacturer, and for consumers in that section of the market, such high prices aren't as much of an issue as it would be for those buyers looking at speakers at the "high-end entry-level". As a result, the Sophia 2 was designed to meet a restrictive price-point, unlike Wilson's "cost-no-object" speakers.
But what the problem is with a company like Wilson making a speaker like the Sophia 2, which costs about 1/13th of the price of their Alexandria X-2 Series 2, is that Wilson, despite being described as "the most successful high-end speaker manufacturer in the world", simply does not have the economies of scale to produce a value-competitive product at this price range.
While undoubtedly successful in the "high-end" world, no one would ever claim Wilson has the economies of scale to rival those of popular speaker manufacturers such as Paradigm, Energy or Definitive Audio. And if any of these speaker companies were to release the Sophia 2, with their economies of scale, the Sophia 2 would cost closer to $4,000, not $14,000.
