Why are Harbeth speakers expensive while its drivers are not.

Thanks ekikt. That's an excellent breakdown. We tend to forget all that is involved.

Thank you everyone for your info. I learned a lot today. I have a small pair of Harbeth, I love its sound - the BBC sound, but somehow feel that it is too expensive for its performance.  

In the future, possibly, I will buy drivers, especially, full range ones to build 'my speakers' . I guess fullrange is the easiest because you dont have to build the crossover. 

The simple answer is if they sold it at a lower (or higher) price, the decrease in revenue would not make it economically feasible to produce the speaker.

Selling at a lower price decreases revenue and creates a higher demand. Selling at a higher price decreases demand and can result in lower sales, especially if there are competing products at that price point. As an example, if you sell 100 widgets for a dollar, the revenue stream is $100.00 which covers labor, overhead and profit. If you decide to increase profit by raising the price 10 cents, that may result in selling, say, 90 widgets and the total revenue is $99 which means a loss of a dollar. Or your sales can collapse completely if there are multiple widget competitors who kept their price lower.

Setting the price to cover expenses and make it worthwhile to produce a product is tricky, especially when there is fierce competition for the consumer's dollar. 

I'm a Harbeth lemming.  They just sound right to me.

It's a business.  They sound great. They have overhead taxes etc. When you develop something you should charge for it!