This can be more unpredictable than you would think -
I find there is less differentiation between foreign and domestic products in terms of price and quality and more between large and small companies selling at retail.
Part of it is that most of the large speaker companies who do a lot of volume are foreign or produce their products overseas and the result is that even if you are a US based company, you are still dealing with the same tariffs and freight issues as foreign companies. Secondarily, some of the larger companies own their own US distribution companies and it is just US overheads. So thinking that Focal is a bad deal vs. say Polk because of country where the company is headquartered is not necessarily the case.
Where you are most likely to overpay is small company vs. big company and a foreign small company will be the worst. However, this only holds if you are buying at retail. I can produce a speaker that is fairly price in terms of price/value vs. my competition if I sell consumer direct as long as I am talking about products that are in the $1500 to $2000+ for stand-mount, $3500 to $4000+ for floor-standing price points. Even compared to big companies like Harman & Focal. Under that I can only compete if I was to buy speakers by the container from the far east and deliver parity quality. At higher prices small companies can represent a value if they don't jack their margins AND you are buying consumer direct.
Where you get really screwed is if you buy from a small company at retail. I can think of one company where I can build a speaker using their exact drivers in an identical cabinet and sell it for a little more than half their price consumer direct. At retail, I would likely be a parity and IMO, offer a poor value. With small foreign companies this gets magnified.
