WILL THE NEW 60,000 AVALON ISIS BE THE BEST YET?

i can just picture the face on the dealer if someone returns a pair because they are unhappy....the restocking charge would be 6k.....intervention from real friends is in order......

the industry average in audio for the actual 'cost of goods' is 20% of the whsle cost, which is 40 to 60% of the msl price. in the automobile industry, even in the exotic end of the industry, the margins are much lower. mercedes would have to sell several 60k vehicles to make the same dollar amount as 60k speakers. Given any sinle figured limited production run, an educated guess would be that the actual 'cost of goods' on 60k loudspeakers would be close to 10%. to make more would also dilute the worth of each pair in the eye of the consumer unless selling more were a certainty. limiting the supply of anything to less than the demand is a very affective marketing tool in an already high margin business. if this sounds like the high end liquor,firearms , or even the model train business trade, it's because they are very similar.

My take ... though again I am more of each to his own camp. The Cost of Goods sold plus margin approach is not a good way to go about thinking about this. Its not just a matter putting together metals sheets, wood and some components together after all. What you are ingoring is the cost of intangible goods & property, namely engineering & design.

Another aspect to consider is that high end audio, especially models like such the Isis lack economies of scale production due the addressable market's size in the first place. Autos on the hand do....the equivalent would have to be say collector antique cars or the equivalent where the tailor made, individual labor (as opposed to coming of automated production line) is intensive.

The analogy the luxury goods is a good one. High fashion, jewelry (not just any diamond stud but well cut, designed one) etc etc all have these high mark ups due to a) engineering/design costs and b) lack of economies of scale production.

At the end of the day, the very highest end is just is as other such niche industries are. That should not mean there should not be pricing points that allow the purse challenged enthusiast to have a quality system. And indeed we all know there are wonderful products out there (and many duds too).

So at the end of the day as consumers, I really don;t think there is much point in discussing margins or cost of production....at the end of the day that is not what we are purchasing. We are buying the delivery of sound quality and the latter is subjective. If the Isis does that for you, congrats!

My perspective is one of a hobbyist speaker builder.
Over the last 25 years I have owned and built all sorts of speakers.
Before people spend $60000 on a pair of speakers they do need consider value for money.
All speakers are flawed.Once you reach a certain point they just start sounding different,not necessarily better.They all have their colourations and I am yet to hear one that comes close to the real thing.The Accuton mid/bass drivers as used by Avalon and others are good,but they also have a definite clanging crockery type tonal signature.Personaly I don't like them because they remind me too much of a noisy restaurant.I prefer the tonal signature of light paper cones which to me sounds more organic.
If you like the Accuton sound I'm sure you can put together a very similar sounding speaker using the same drivers,a digital equaliser/crossover like a DBX driverack and have boxs custom made in a finish of your choice.Or you can buy Accuton based kits from the likes of W.A.R..And by doing so you can save a small fortune that would be better spent on something like acoustic room treatments,or even building a dedicated listening room,which in ten years time will be worth a lot more than a pair of Avalon Isis speakers!

Or you can buy Accuton based kits from the likes of W.A.R.

Using a kit would be a pre-requisite first step, for anyone wishing to build an Accuton based speaker (unless one is very experienced. I, for one, am not).
They are very difficult drivers and designing a system from scratch (even with the help of a dsp) would be extremely difficult IMO.
And expensive, too. At the price level of Accuton, one may find happiness with the likes of Supravox, Phy, Lowther, Fostex... (many others)