What makes an expensive speaker expensive


When one plunks down $10,000 $50,000 and more for a speaker you’re paying for awesome sound, perhaps an elegant or outlandish style, some prestige ... but what makes the price what it is?

Are the materials in a $95,000 set of speakers really that expensive? Or are you paying a designer who has determined he can make more by selling a few at a really high price as compared to a lot at a low price?

And at what point do you stop using price as a gauge to the quality? Would you be surprised to see $30,000 speakers "outperform" $150,000 speakers?

Too much time on my hands today I guess.
128x128jimspov
"What makes an expensive speaker expensive..."

=>Expensive parts plus Greed, Ego of the manufacturer (or its followers stoking the fires....), higher marketing costs than others and further excessive mark-up...

(Noone has ever truly accounted for the price of many of these speakers in terms of materials cost, cost of construction, etc... versus their more responsibly priced brethren (I'm talking facts and figures not marketing speak). All that happens is we keep hearing the product name and how that must make it worth it just because it starts with certain letters of the alphabet....not saying these speakers are not worth more but seriously, $100K, $125K and more all the way up to $225K, $250K and above???

"Would you be surprised to see $30,000 speakers "outperform" $150,000 speakers?"

=>No I would not as I've heard it from a few speakers (not just the brand I own) at shows and other listening environments and every day I hit play at home with a $20K speaker with a good system behind it :-)

MartyKL and others state a lot of good economic/market-pricing fact above but if you look at the analogies, the difference between a Lexus and a Toyota (fully configured in both cases) or Acura versus Honda (Accord fully blown out...), Nissan and an Infiniti (or other myriad examples) is "X"% in the single or low double-digits whereas high-end audio and speaker markup in particular is usually in the higher double digits (IMHO don't shoot the messenger) or more! High-end audio manufacturers should follow more traditional and conservative market-pricing models and apply a reasonable markup for premium quality; they might very well sell more :-)

Another point; there are companies such as Legacy who were committed to building a speaker and selling to direct to the consumer at the best possible price. The Focus used to sell for $3500.00 direct. Once the magazine reviewers got ahold of a set and gave them a favorable review, what happened? Prices went up up and up! There was an article in the Readers Digest magazine years ago comparing cable TV rates around the country. Our local service was held up as a model of fair price and service. ONE month went by before our local cable rates went north.

  I doubt if we'll see a post from a manufacturer hear that actually answers the question. Puzzling to me though is the fact that when I go to an audio show, the mega buck speakers never blow me away over my humble 20 year old speakers. (now selling for HUNDREDS of dollars!)

There is a lot that can go into making a good speaker. Both the sound and the aesthetics. Also the reliability. In the end willingness of customers to pay for whatever reason is mostly what determines how expensive a product is, including speakers. Values differ by person so anything is possible. The goal of marketing is to help make people more willing to pay for advertised benefits by appealing to the values of the target market segment. The more one is willing to pay the more profit per unit. Thus high end audio was conceived, a boutique industry where units are fewer and  prices generally higher.


"something tells me a lot of mass market gear and plasma tv’s underwrote some of that"

Maybe the mass market stuff did, but Pioneer stopped making their Kuro plasma TVs in 2009 - they lost money on them despite being the best plasma TV on the market, bar none.

I’m sure there are bad sounding $100,000 speakers but I’d guess that most people spending this kind of money ($500,000 for the whole system) have audio dealers bring the speakers to their home and set them up for audition and an explanation of why they are worth $100,000, so I doubt it’s all a scam.

You realize that probably 99% of the population think that it is crazy to spend $5,000 on a pair of speakers and that anyone who does is a fool being scammed.