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Why hasn’t B&W ever entered the ultra hi-end for speakers?

Being one of the biggest speaker manufacturers in the world and arguably some of best sounding, they have never gone past their 800 series and produced anything beyond that point. Don’t get me wrong, $30k ( 800 D3 ) is expensive and most people wouldn’t be able to afford to pay that much for a pr of speakers even if they wanted to, but in today’s market that really isn’t considered ultra hi-end considering some speakers now days cost close to a million and many in the $50-200k range. You would think with the knowledge they have and for the years they have been around they would go the distance and build 
beyond the 800 series? 
hiendmmoe
chorus
976 posts
 
It is a statement on diminishing returns.
auxinput
2,920 posts
 
It's most likely a business reason.  B&W has a set price area for their product.  They also have a large amount of capitol in custom manufacturing equipment.  Couple that with an already set distribution network.  As long as they can keep producing and selling, there's no real reason to jump into the "insanely expensive" category.  And yes, point of diminishing returns is definitely a factor.  If they marketed a new speaker at the $80k-150k level, the amount of sales would be significantly less.

I actually think they do amazing things with their current speaker design at the price point (diamond tweeter, curved back custom manufactured speaker cabinet from multi-layers of thin wood, etc.).
helomech
1,665 posts
 
They already put what is arguably the world's best tweeter in their 800 series. Their top-level midrange drivers are hard to beat as well. 
cakyol's avatar
cakyol
940 posts
 
They had.  Nautilus was the best speaker ever made.
tomic601's avatar
tomic601
12,895 posts
 
The powered version of the 50 is even reasonably time and phase correct..... looks like some of the Junior Engineers have been listening..... there is hope
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