Speakers that are a great value!


I’ve been researching off the shelf speaker drivers quit a bit lately and smaller speaker companies as well.  I’ve been finding that companies like Fritz, Salk and Tekton offer incredibly well priced products.  I’m finding that with certain models, there really only appears to be small profit margin.  I understand that when you buy large quantities of drivers, you can get a small discount but still.

For instance, I’m seeing speakers that sell for $2000 might have $700 worth of drivers in them.  When you add in $100-$200 worth of crossovers, $100-$200 in cabinets, $50 for miscellaneous components like binding posts, damping material, wiring, solder or connectors you come up to around $1200 worth of raw components. Now add in labor to construct the boxes, possibly put veneer on them, solder and put together crossovers, install drivers and then ship the speakers, the value is really quite good.  I haven’t even talked about obtaining the woodworking tools to do such a product, rent on a building, utilities on that building and the labor costs if you have any employees. 

My point to all this is to open a discussion and to help people understand that there may only be a $400 profit margin on a $2000 pair of speakers.  I think that these are an exceptional value at full asking price and that should be taken into consideration when thinking about buying speakers from these manufacturers.  
I sometimes hear that these speakers are overpriced and that the value is not good and I would tend to strongly disagree!  
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They make speakers to sell . As at least 80% of those who buy them listen primarily to rock . Many speakers are voiced to rock'' cuse thats the market .I' ve  owned 2 Dynaudio speakers , they sound great but in about 2 hours
listening fatigue sets in listening to Classical music .
They know what they are doing .
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could you please provide us just one link Kenjit, a single as in 1 link, to a single speaker that you have designed, tuned and built?
The short answer is no. Much of my experience comes from retuning existing designs that i already own. Its also a work in progress. I do this for my own benefit. Only I decide how much of what I do is shown to the public. You are not qualified to validate what ive done since the kinds of speakers that you find acceptable do not meet my high standards and its unlikely your ears are good enough to hear anything better than what youve already heard. You cant evaluate a speaker from pictures anyway.

Forgive me if I am confused Kenjit. What good is that research Facility and massive measurement lab if their speakers are not tuned correctly?
That is a good question which you would need to ask Dynaudio. Dont hold your breath.

And perhaps you could clarify the fact that you have stated numerous times that it’s best to properly tune a speaker by hand and ear but now you say that approach is wrong. Im confused...
You can believe what you like. Its not as if there is only one way of doing things. Every designer thinks they know best. I personally believe in custom tunIng BY HAND AND EAR. Other speaker companies dont know what the heck they’re doing so they use both measurements and then tune by ear.

My opinion is that focusing on the costs of components for a speaker is not really useful. I’m a trained cook. Give me good ingredients and see what I come up with. Give the same ingredients to a good home cook and it will be night and day. So, experience, measurement, and a certain genius can produce a great speaker or something just okay. I own Vandersteen Treo CTs and respect the engineering, voicing and philosophy that went into its creation. Good value? I think so, cheap, no.