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Is it possible for a high end manufacturer to overprice their goods?

Having just read the interesting and hyperbole laden review by RH of the new Rockport Orion speakers in the latest issue of The Absolute Sound, one thing struck me..

is it possible in the high end for a manufacturer to overprice their product ( doesn’t have to be a speaker, but this example comes to mind)? I ask this, as the Orion is priced at $133k! Yes,a price that would probably make 99% of hobbyists squirm. Yet, the speaker now joins a number of competitors that are in the $100k realm. 
To that, this particular speaker stands just 50.3” tall and is just 14.3” wide…with one 13” woofer, one 7” midrange and a 1.25” beryllium dome ( which these days is nothing special at all…and could potentially lead to the nasties of beryllium bite).

The question is…given this speakers design and parts, which may or may not be SOTA, is it possible that this is just another overpriced product that will not sell, or is it like others, correctly priced for its target market? Thoughts…

128x128daveyf
grislybutter
2,994 posts
 

I would comment but it would get removed - as before

making fun of the wealthy and their justification of why they *need* and *deserve* to buy x and y.

 

Reading this forum is an amazing social experiment about how delusional rich people are.

 

 

grislybutter
2,994 posts
 

and btw I wonder if the Lamborghini comparison is appropriate for most audio products. Lamborghini - whoever owns it - does not claim that their car is x times better than other cars. It's VW plastic in large part. But you can drive it to the mall to impress people, which is where the price is justified. Audio does not have that feature. 

prndlus
55 posts
 

I’ve read of two examples from completely separate sources that were so similar they must be indicative.

A speaker manufacturer and an amplifier manufacturer both told virtually an identical story:

‘The ‘bean counters’ looked over the business and said, ‘You’re selling this for $3000.00 dollars? Price it at 10 (thousand dollars.)’

And then there was a story I read from a salesman about customers who are their own worst enemy, who think high price means best quality:

‘People would ask, ‘What’s the best pair of speakers you have? And I’d show them the $3000 pair, the best I had. Then, they’d see the $8000 pair and lose interest in the ones I was showing them. What are these?, they’d ask; tell me about these (the $8K pair.)

 

clearthinker's avatar
clearthinker
1,582 posts
 

No.  It's completely impossible.  Never happens.

overthemoon
417 posts
 

Overpricing can occurs at every price point.

There are multiple ways to price products and when pricing 'premium' products in a portfolio with a "good/better/best" stratification some manufacturers look to recoup R&D costs as soon as possible.

The true value of something is better measured by actual sales.  Products where there's no sales indicate the market doesn't believe its worth it. I also believe most of the folks in this forum have limited discretionary income and some folks concentrate that on 1 or 2 hobbies and others may have spread the funds over more activites. 

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