For a $4K speaker, materials would cost $800. The cabinet would be $550 of that and $250 would be for drivers, wire, cross-over, etc.
Can you build me cabinets for $550? I would appreciate that very much.
If Harbeth used custom drivers for each of their speaker line the cost would be $$$$$. You would have to order a minimum of probably 100 drivers for each speaker line before you would even get a price break and maybe even more. I don't get why this question is even asked here and on other threads. The cost to build a component is expensive. The design and manufacturing of a chassis is very costly, almost as much as the parts. Copper is not cheap, to have a piece of aluminum cut out is costly, and there are minimum requirements. I purchased a few chassis on eBay to get my projects started years ago and two chassis from eBay cost me over $300 from China. Using custom drivers may help the sound but then again if they change the line and do not use the same customer drivers then the consumer is screwed. They would not stock drivers that they would not use anymore.
Also when you design a component, there are so many variables in resistors, wire, caps, wood, metal, connectors, that you cannot possibly try every one. You may try a few based on what you know or recommendations of others, but you cannot try every combination. Once you are in production, minimum quantities can help drive down the material costs. How many designs of a particular speaker line did they try before it sounded right to them. Prototype after prototype to get the sound correct and then the actual manufacturing of the final speaker cabinet. Then there is shipping boxes and foam (figure over $100 per box for a 30lbs component. Then take 30% for corporate taxes, payroll tax, SS tax, unemployment tax, etc. Dealers want 30-50% off retail to sell you components, so you are left with a small margin over your total costs.
As I have mentioned in my posts recently, I build DACs, Preamps, Phono stages and amps. I have over $40K in initial parts expenses just to build and test the prototypes. And I would imagine that my expenses are relatively low compared to Krell! Look at the new chassis Dan builds now. Got to be $5K per chassis.
Happy Listening.
