This funny

It's akin to a commercial lawn mower intended for use 8 hours a day five days a week versus a residential mower designed for 1or 2 hours once a week.

Onhwy61,

Good analogy. "Horses for Courses" - each designed for a different job.

The OP highlights the "problem" with many of the "hi-end" "snake-oil" peddlers in the industry. No doubt many of the products ARE excellent, but certainly they are priced way beyond of what they are actually "worth", even with costs and profits considered.

Most of these $20K+ speakers are manufactured for less than $2K, if not much less. That's a fact. Unless your tweeters are diamond or some other exotic material, which are expensive to produce, most likely they cost the speaker brand less than $100 to make or purchase from manufacturing vendors.

So much of the industry is to pray on "wealthy" (or mostly "wannabe") individuals that seem to still believe expensive=good. Or perhaps they know they are being rooked, but feel the mark-up is worth it to feel good about themselves or impress their friends.

That is the problem with the industry. And when the economy is good, no doubt not many people complain. But in these economic conditions, you'll find a lot of these companies failing or coming back to the customer with tails behind their legs and lowering their products to more "reasonable" costs, and still making substantial profits per speaker pair.

Not giving a free pass to dealers either whom are a huge part of the problem, or the silly consumers with the attitude of "this is my money, I'll waste it as I like" which is true, it is their prerogative. But like the finance industry, this Ponzi scam can only last so long, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see what's in store for the "hi-end" audio industry.

Dylanhenry,
I couldn't have said it better myself. It is after all the "Great Audiophile Swindle!" While there are many components that do merit their high cost because of materials used, processes and technologies invoked, most tweaks and cable claims are just plain marketing hype and a complete sham.

Kind of confirms my choice to get out of the hi end audio game and get beck to the basics:) I don't regret the downsize for one second/

most tweaks and cable claims are just plain marketing hype and a complete sham.

Unfortunately for everyone concerned.

Perhaps, just maybe, collectively audiophiles tend to get what they merit - lets face it, manufacturers are only around if they are sustainably successful! Making & selling beautiful luxurious "eye candy" with run-of-the-mill outsourced mass produced materials/parts is a solid sustainable business model for this industry. The high cost of beautiful cabinet work (exotic veneers) and stunning brushed metal face plates is highly appreciated by everyone, as is the value of precious metals such as Gold & Silver used in cables, as are monsterous technical hyperbole used to create the illusion of exclusive technology from what are largely off-the-shelf parts! High performance and costly but obscure aspects of the design (such as a short voice coil in a long magnetic gap) will only ever be appreciated by a small minority.

That's life! There is nothing shocking about this - it is just the reality of the high end audio market segmentation - no amount of crying or wailing will change this. Hardly anyone wants to plop $20K on a butt-ugly speaker because it happens to sound exceptionally good. It must first and foremost look damned good for that kind of money - sound will be a secondary consideration for most buyers even if they will never admit it (not even too themselves)!