Why are Harbeth speakers expensive while its drivers are not.

Roxy54, perhaps you are thinking of Doug Schneider of Soundstage.com. I am Doug Schroeder of Dagogo.com. He did the review of the Harbeth 30. I have done no Harbeth reviews.  Our identities are confused by others fairly often. 

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.

   

US price

40.2 - $14695
30.1 - $5495
Super HL5 Plus - $6395

UK price (in US dollars using google)

40.2 - $13229
30.1 - $3307
Super HL5 plus - $4094

I guess fullrange is the easiest because you dont have to build the crossover.

Look at Voxativ, especially in the context of this thread.

I just wish Harbeth would open a plant in China…they could put a 40.2 in every home in the world! *sigh*….

I own a pair of Harbeth Super HL5's that I bought about ten years ago. I have always enjoyed them. So, maybe seven or eight years after I got my SHL 5's, Harbeth introduced the SHL 5 plus. I am not sure how many years Alan Shaw dedicated to refining the SHL 5 plus to make it better than the SHL 5. It was years, though, and he is a professional. He has all of the necessary resources and a particular aesthetic. He built upon a traditional speaker that dates back to the Spendor BC-1 and/or its BBC equivalent, the LS3/6. Suffice it to say, it's difficult, expensive and time-consuming to make a speaker like this better than its predecessors. If we want someone to do this, we need to pay for it and the cost of the SHL 5 plus reflects that work. It seems expensive to me, too, as do the other speakers produced by Harbeth including the 40.2, 30.1 and HLP3 ESR.

Harbeth is a successful company and is selling a very well-reviewed product in the SHL 5 plus. I don't know how many SHL 5's or SHL 5 plus speakers Harbeth has sold or will sell but I bet that it is not that many when one considers all of the work just to develop and refine the speaker. Maybe if SHL 5 plus speakers sold in quantities rivaling iPhones or big screen TV's, SHL 5 plus speakers would cost a whole lot less.

Like it or not, we participate in a hobby with not so many other people. It does not cost less to refine a product that sells relatively few sets than to refine a product that sells in greater quantities. And the fact that the SHL 5 plus costs $6,395 in the US means that not so many people can afford them. The U.S. Census Bureau reported in September 2014 that U.S. median household income was $51,939. It has almost certainly risen some since then but not enough to put a pair of SHL 5 plus speakers in every household. 

Were it as simple as building a pair of two cubic foot boxes, putting some stock drivers into them and soldering together a simple crossover to get a pair of speakers that better the Harbeths, wouldn't a lot of people just do that? In my mind, Harbeth owners hire Alan Shaw to work years and years to refine something that suits our taste and meets some reasonable technical standards. The cost of the materials is certainly relevant but, in my mind, does not represent the primary source of value.