High End Speaker Prices


I thought the community might find this article on the BBC website interesting.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150813-in-search-of-the-perfect-sound
rshad0000
09-17-15: Mapman
Quality comes at a price.

...and value is determined by price/per/quality ratio.
The smallest ratio usually best.
Better sound is in the ear of the beholder. Generally the cost of goods for any high end speaker is about 15% of its MSRP. After that, costs can go anywhere. Some high end speakers are embedded with about 40% of marketing and distribution costs. Certainly low volume, like anything else, will lead to higher markups. Hearing is believing.
Adding to this... I work for a very high end luxury wine producer we have a wine that sells for $425 per single bottle, and we're launching a new one in 2017 that will retail for $600-800 per bottle.

It's a different market and mentality, and different metrics need be applied. Something a this level is ultimately worth what someone is willing to pay for it, and the best wines are from a small plot of land that can't be reproduced anywhere else.

FWIW - our cost of goods is btw 21-23% of retail.
I've always felt that extreme high end speakers should always sound great since the designers aren't restricted by cost…the genius is in lower cost stuff where designers have to really think about what's important and come up with something sounding great anyway (and they do, thank you Alan Yun). Great wine makers do this also, if sometimes inadvertently. Note that that small plot of land for the exclusive wine could also produce wine that sucks in a bad year, so it's not necessarily always a plot specific pricing scenario, unless it is. Or isn't. Or something.