These seem a bit pricey $$$

The price they charge is determined by a lot of factors. There is the R&D- both equipment and time spent. A good speaker designer doesn’t get good overnight. When you pay for the design you’re paying for the decades of experience that comes with it.

The cabinet shape, materials, and finishes can add a lot to the cost of a speaker. Though the raw materials are often the least expensive component the tooling required to make them can be expensive and time spent assembling them can be exorbitant.

The drivers may be nothing out of the ordinary, but even to have a company like ScanSpeak tweak an existing design to meet a manufacturer’s precise spec can’t be cheap.

The advertising and hype (which often is a primary driver of sales) isn’t cheap. Building many pairs to ship off to dealers means manufacturers need to make little to no money on their first run. They need to get them in to the hands of reviewers who can make or break sales. One bad review by a trusted source can kill the whole design, even if the reviewer merely had a bad day or didn’t spend enough time or has an ax to grind.

Buyers like expensive equipment.  An underpriced pair of speakers may well outperform a more expensive pair and suffer for it in the marketplace.  There is no shortage of audiophile gear that has sold successfully primarily because it let the owner tell his friends how much it cost.

Bringing a premium product to market requires taking all of that (and much more) in to consideration. The price reflects the true cost in all aspects- materials, design, manufacturing, advertising, and distribution- as well as market expectation- in order to make a profit. Sometimes they get it right, sometimes they don’t. If they’re off significantly on any one of their estimations they often lose. The upside is that a minor tweak and a different marketing strategy can let them start all over again with a very similar product. Once they figure out the formula they can try to replicate it. If they don’t figure it out, they die. There are more than a few one hit wonders in the audiophile world.

People spend hundreds of dollars on a bottle of wine. Not me, but some do. Up to them.

I watched the video and was also shocked at the price tag for them. Based on his breakdown of their sound, I’ll stick with my Cornwall IV’s , or my Goldenear Triton 5’s. Steve is one of my favorite reviewers out there. I rarely miss one of his vids. 

Things are worth what a person is willing to pay for them. Is HiFi gear overpriced. Yes, wouldn't argue that. But the difference in time, research and development and material of let's say a $500 compared to $5k speaker is noticeable. Now these high end $20k speakers and up I'll bitch and complain because I can't afford it but if you got the money and can afford it then go for it. In the end find something you like at the price you like and be happy. Don't worry about what others and willing to spend.

I’m reluctant to disparage these speakers without listening first, and, as a retired cabinet and furniture maker, I absolutely loved the enclosure, particularly the crosscut top veneers. Beautiful!! But I am with bigkidz: criticism of the pricing of these speakers is really rich from a website where people routinely praise multi thousand dollar cords and wires when all of our electronics employ sophisticated power supplies to clean up the power from the wall. Getting dirty power into the box through $10,000 power cords is nuts. Same with speaker wires. Interconnects are a different story because good shielding is vital, but that can be done for sums that are paltry compared to some of the prices we see on esoteric brands.