Are Bowers and Wilkins speakers overpriced?

I was a long time B&W fan however the new Diamond starting with the D2 are too much in your face and I could never make the speakers disappear as I can with the D1's. Also I would not recommend the purchase of any B&W speaker at this time. I have had a Diamond D1 tweeter on parts order for over a year now. They sent me one a month ago that had a 6 month old date on it and the rubber surround was not attached to the dome all the way. Very poor quality. I sent it back as I refuse to pay almost $1000 for a tweeter that was manufactured like a 2 year old made it.

I suspect part of the reason why B&W’s seem expensive is because of their British manufacture. Labor costs are not as cheap as in other lands. And then there’s the extra cost of transatlantic shipping, and the additional cost of middle men to distribute and maintain warranties.

@unsound
labor costs in the UK are actually cheap. Especially for skilled labor that speakers require, they are way below US costs.

I do feel B&W speakers are expensive. There are several reasons, and I emphasize "feel"

Their model line up and pricing strategy is very confusing. A lot of similar sized, *very* similar looking models for widely different prices. The average user will end up with the perception that the cheaper models will not be the best of the class quality (and not that cheap) and the best of the class is prohibitively expensive. It’s the dealers who have to figure out how they present the B&W line up to not make it confusing.
And then, any time I heard them, I was mildly impressed

But overall, I must eat my words, they sell more speakers than probably all other brand discussed on these pages, combined

@grislybutter, I wasn’t thinking about comparisons to US labor costs, but rather those countries that are specifically sought out for cheap labor costs and perhaps sometimes even considered slave labor.
 The wide variety offered might be due to a strategy that might some times require dealers to carry large segments of lines that prohibit cherry picking desired models. This strategy also takes “shelf” space from competitors.