Design a $60,000 Speaker - Start here


Hi Everyone,

Just thought for interest I'd talk about one of the most expensive woofers in the 10-12" varieties, the Accuton AS250-88-552 CELL, actually an 11" aluminum honeycomb sandwich construction. Retail price at hobbyist volumes: $1,400, each.

In addition to the exotic material, the suspension and motor assembly are also worthy of note, as they leave a very large amount of unobstructed space directly behind the dome, allowing it to behave most ideally like a piston.

So putting this together into say a modest 3 way with all drivers from the same company and of the same level, I estimate around $6k / pair of speakers for the drivers alone. Add the normal markups, and this is a $60k speaker.

Will it sound any good? I have no idea. I just wanted to share with you all where some of these speakers that cost as much as a luxury sedan get their prices from.  Obviously, my estimates are rough, and go up and down. The point of this is just a general expose.

Best,


E

erik_squires
I have been modifying speaker's for 25 year's,  my next step will be building my own speaker's,  I  do appreciate this thread,  however,  I have been saying for year's that speaker's are the most over priced component in every given system,  next, certainly would be cable's,  How many time's have we all listened to substantially cheaper speaker's outperform costlier speaker's?, This is the reason I never judge anyone's system until I listen to the system,  Believe me,  I have had my fair share of being  laughed at by audiophile's that are ignorant for believing that costlier speaker's are automatically better!, so,  you can understand why I appreciate this thread🥃🍷🍸🍹,, cheers. 
I will be going to my garage to build speakers in a few minutes they will be better than anything presently available.(ho ho)
Well, it's a different thing to talk about how you get speakers into stratospheric price points than saying everyone can build a world-class speaker.

However, it helps to have an ear that is independent of Stereophile reviews, and price tags. Then you can pick out real gems for cheap.

My philosophy: I don't want to drink a good $300 bottle of wine. I want to drink a $20 bottle of wine that tastes just as good.
I wouldn't necessarily start with the drivers. First I would get rid of the MDF. 
Ralph
I think the implications of an aerodynamically designed speaker is foreign to most. A major goal of a good driver must be to deal with the back waves of sound. Having them bounce off the basket and back through the paper thin cone is just not acceptable. The designer should make every effort to allow those waves to easily pass all the driver components to reach the dampening material of the cabinet or the cabinet walls. 
I know of two companies that do this. Vivid Speakers and Wilson Benesch. Wilson Benesch Uses a wind tunnel test on their drivers and computer models to make sure they maximize the flow of air. I think this is real advancement in speaker design. 

Jim