What makes an expensive speaker expensive

Hi audioman2015, yep, recently recapped some old Kef's for a buddy,  same scenario,  he fell over.
Tim

More times yhen not the cabinet can cost more then the drivers
And Xover which it should not. Companies like Harbeths 
Not much to the cabinet, or that expensive of drivers.they have a excellent patented midrange material  ,that being said the xover vs 
The big names that use premium parts like Mundorf silver gold oil 
And top resiryors,inductors top quality wiring  harbeths uses nothing even close but charges a high premium vs actual build cost like a garage build,with quality veneer. Open baffles if using Top drivers ard a Superb bsrgsin, as is new Martin logan,Maggi
Even Electric with engineer Jones forgot first name builds great
Speaker for thd money .most big $$ speakers are a hyped up scam
I have worked with loudspeaker design and cost they add all $$ Per hour in what they want maybe $200 a hour in R &D time plus 5x in cost for material s thrn overhead. There is the price  
Look at Magico, Wilson Radho, YG Acoustics. Sure they sound excellent  $100 -to $200 k for s pair of speakers give me a break .
Evrn 50k. $20'k should bd absolute max plus 20% off.
TheRe are a lot of quality speakers even under $3 listen first z,!😆

Replacing x/o parts for higher quality ones is a high-return-for-money-spent tactic. But there’s a further step that can be taken: Danny Richie of GR Research, well known for his x/o designs, not only makes cross-overs with improved parts, but offers x/o corrections for basically well designed but budget-compromised speakers such as the new line from Elac, to improve frequency and waterfall plot (time domain)performance. The simple addition of one part corrects the falling high frequency output of the Elac tweeter, and another simple change to the x/o frequency improves the speaker’s midrange. A little bit of money yields large improvements!

Audioman. I agree with much of what you have posted. I have even posted earlier that the Wilson drivers and crossovers are very inexpensive in the scheme of things. They dress is up and spend money on paint and cabinets but so do others like VANDERSTEEN and some others. I was sold on the Vandys a few years ago for the sound but didn't understand why the Treos cost 8k or so. Then I found out what the cost of the drivers was as well as the double cabinets and the crossover parts and all of a sudden when you add r&d, too veneer and overhead plus some profit and I got it. That's why his 1,2&3 are still such great values. The cabinets do add thousands when done properly. Not all manufacturers are marking things up Judy because they can. Richard was working on the 9's as there is a demand for 125k speakers that have large cabinets but he couldn't get the bass to integrate properly and rather than take it to market he dropped the idea at least until better components come out that would make it work the way he wanted them to. I wish others followed suit. For those who have heard some companies 100k plus offerings, you often like the same company's 60k offering much better as there is often better coherency and integration. My buddy just got a lower prices pair of Dynaudios as he didn't even like their 100k pair.   We had a long conversation about this very topic. This has become a fun thread. Thanks for letting me play. 

Above all,
keeping production out of china!