The mistake armchair speaker snobs make too often

@erik_squires .

The single most expensive part of speaker manufacture is the laber by a huge margin. As an example my subwoofers use about $1000 worth of parts, drivers, and materials. One subwoofer enclosure has 168 hours of labor start to finish. Shop time is now $200/hour. This comes to $33,600! Retail is around 3 X parts and labor = $103,800 for one passive subwoofer! With modern tech in a shop set up specifically to make these subs will find efficiencies that could cut these figures in half. The best you could do would be $50,000 MSRP. This is why with rare exceptions you can not find a well built subwoofer in the commercial market. The entire construction process will be cataloged on Imgur when I am finished. 

As for regular loudspeakers, the secret of fantastic audiophile speakers is not in the drivers. They are a dime a dozen. The secret is in the enclosure and crossover design. The DIYer has limited access to the kinds of test equipment needed to design SOTA loudspeakers but even now, advancements in computer and digital technology are making the speaker designer obsolete. You can have a preamplifier with a full 4 way digital crossover, room control and EQ. All the computer has to do is measure the system via a microphone and in 10 seconds you can have a perfectly designed loudspeaker for your room. You still have to build an enclosure that is functional  and hopefully attractive, so there is work for the DIYer to do and be proud of. 

JBL made a bunch of clinkers, they all did including Klipsch. Paul Klipsch came up with the center channel because his K horns had to go in corners which in many rooms were to far apart creating the famous "Hole in the Middle" WIth a center channel you could close the hole and make even more money. The center channel then spread to systems that did not need it just to make more money. A properly set up system does not need a center channel, even for movies. 

Todays loudspeakers are way superior to any of the older units due to modern enclosure design concepts and test equipment. 

@mijostyn Wrote:

 A properly set up system does not need a center channel, even for movies. 

I agree! 😎

Mike

The single most expensive part of speaker manufacture is the laber by a huge margin.

Which makes my point, that the driver cost is a tiny part of the value in a commercial speaker, and that cottage makers can put a lot more driver value into a speaker by virtue of being small operators with tiny labor costs.

As an example my subwoofers use about $1000 worth of parts, drivers, and materials. One subwoofer enclosure has 168 hours of labor start to finish. Shop time is now $200/hour.

Let me stop you right there, while I'm not saying labor isn't a big factor, that $200/hour only applies if you don't own the shop.  That's equivalent of a $400,000  / year salary and I don't know a single cabinet maker who makes anywhere near that much.

@erik_squires I still don't get it why would it be cheaper to make your own drivers vs buying them? And if it's so much cheaper why don't more speaker makers do it? I think its likely more expensive at least until you've amortized your startup costs.