high end speakers are overpriced

Tell us about the ones you made Kenjit! 

what do you want to know? 

Is it Ground Hog Day again?

How did I know who the op was, lol. Of course any product that’s not mass market is going to seem overpriced to diyers. They’re copying someone else’s design and research, and in most cases the quality of the finish is not on par with that of a manufacturer. But that’s why there are sites that cater to the diy crowd. If you want an ok speaker on the cheap, have the and energy, it can be a good way to go. Have at it.

It’s overpriced if it doesn’t sell;
It’s underpriced if supply can’t keep up with demand;
It’s correctly priced if there are just enough buyers for what can be supplied.

KennyG is writing from the perspective of zero business acumen or experience beyond wearing a name tag at his workplace. 

@Kenjit 8:53pm"what do you want to know?"

Anything about the speakers you've never built, that's what. 

The profit you make from a product has to be fair. If you make substantially more profit than that, it is called overcharging. 

For example, imagine you have a blown tire and the mechanic asks for one billion dollars to replace it. This is what you call overcharging. 

Just because some audiophiles like you dont understand that its wrong to overcharge doesnt it make it right. 

Anything about the speakers you've never built, that's what.

They are custom tuned hand tuned and tweaked by ear. Proprietary technology. They are tuned to sound correct. Most speakers out there are not. That makes them very unique. 

So stick with junk which i am sure you own .I am sure Eric speakers are mediocre as well.So you can pretend what you have sounds good and goes well with your mediocre electronics. 

Wrong analogy. It is against the law for people to be taken advantage of in situations where their well being is held hostage. However, that mechanic can charge a billion dollars for a tire change as long as he posts it to the public at all times. Then obviously he will go hungry as no one would do business with him.

Speakers are not like electricity, medical care or other monopolies. They offer a product at an asking price. If you want the speakers more than the money in your checking account, then there is a sale. If you want the money more, then you move on.

Enough! Ship your best speakers here kenjit. Keith and Deborah can drive down and hear them. Mike and the half a dozen from Portland can come up and have a listen. Heck even Mike Lavigne can join us. Why not, you've been dissing everything under the sun, we're all eager as can be to finally hear what its all about. I'll write the whole thing up. And just so we both have some skin in the game, if even ONE of them prefers your speakers to mine or Mike's then I will pay shipping costs both ways.  

Put up or shut up, as the saying goes. 

I get somewhat opinionated on this topic. In particular let’s talk the high end boys with little to zero support or nothing but attitude when you have issues. Top on my list of “take this speaker and shove it” has got to be B&W. Had a driver casualty, very sad moment. Called to see about finding some help. Nothing but excuses. Ended up buying a driver blind from their website. I guess they had it though, so good for you, have a cookie. 
Similar to that is Linn.  Love the sound but forget support. You need to go with network buddies to hook you up. 
I hate listing this one but Meridian.  I understand they now have an outfit in Atlanta to support their stuff. Fortunately, all owned is sounding nice. 
I believe I listed on another chat but have been very happy with Caintuck open baffle hooked to SET. They start at $549 and you don’t need to spend stupid dollars for no support.  Build quality is tank like and easily serviced. 
Another I picked up was Blumenstein, great sound and at the time great prices. The build quality in the cabinets is phenomenal. He’s since raised his prices. 
Go old.  The build quality for the cabinet is real wood.  Got some ugly thick plywood altec a7’s that have incredible build quality and sound great. I love their look, very retro machine or something. Then also got that the kind of “mid-century” modern look from some old JBL’s. 

@millercarbon 

I am not claiming that my speakers are superior to yours. If you want custom tuned speakers normally that requires payment upfront. I dont have any speakers to ship to you. 

All I am saying is that we are being taken for a ride. We are both victims so you should be directing your anger at the speaker companies not me. 

Here you go, kenjit OP

Hillbilly Surround System! FUGLY as heck, and probably sounds like crap, but he durn well made hisown self.

After a pint of corn likker (white lightnin') these will sound like Magicos or Rockports, right?

https://youtu.be/bli6Tk5CAJc

High end speakers are priced far higher than they cost to make. This is greediness. Many audiophiles are being told lies about how much skill and effort goes into making a high end speaker as a false excuse to justify their unreasonable prices. Many speaker companies use so called custom drivers which are just off shelf drivers with minor tweaks to cause confusion about the true cost of the drivers. Many companies dont mention anything about their cabinets to hide the fact that its just plain old mdf. Companies will also apply high gloss finish to the cabinets to make them look far more expensive than they are. Most people dont know how cheap mdf is. All of these are underhand methods to justify their crime.

" They are custom tuned hand tuned and tweaked by ear. Proprietary technology. They are tuned to sound correct. Most speakers out there are not. That makes them very unique."

They are also imaginary and nobody cares, you know that, you are just here to annoy.

BTW MC he is located in the UK, so shipping won't happen, however he could post photos, however he would have to really have them first.

Kenjit, what can a builder use to determine what "Fair" is? Can he pay his employees an above minimum wage, provide some medical insurance, and maybe a small retirement fund?

Nothing anywhere states that life is or has to be fair. The sooner people embrace that, the sooner they'll stop blaming everyone for their perceived injustices dealt to them in life.

kenjit,
There is no "crime" involved if it is a transaction between consenting parties. 

Kenjit, what can a builder use to determine what "Fair" is? Can he pay his employees an above minimum wage, provide some medical insurance, and maybe a small retirement fund?

There are plenty of manufacturers that pay their employees, pay rent, bills, etc and still make speakers that cost a few hundred dollars. Ive just given you several examples. If you used higher quality parts the price would go up but not by the amount being charged by most of these high end companies. Stop denying their greediness.

There is no "crime" involved if it is a transaction between consenting parties.

yes but why consent to being swindled? you are complicit if you turn a blind eye and encourage this activity. It will not stop unless we all boycott them

I though only Old Faithful just spewed crap out of the ground in Yellowstone on a regular basis.
Oh well.

kenjit they are being boycott (NO ED). That being, an army of ONE what do you need? March on good man, march on. Get a GOOD T shirt, signs will get heavy... :-)

Regards

Umm, Merry Christmas Kenjit!

👍@oldhvymec 

Kenjit sounds like that Grinch guy to me. Boo!!!

yes but why consent to being swindled? you are complicit if you turn a blind eye and encourage this activity. It will not stop unless we all boycott them

Just who exactly is being swindled? And who exactly must we all boycott? Exactly, as Walter White used to say. Tell me, exactly, who?  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIhmRf3tA78  Figure it out. Let me know.

@kenjit

re High end speakers are priced far higher than they cost to make. This is greediness.

You seem to think that profit is a dirty word. There is often a large amount of work, R&D, startup costs and risk to bring a product to market. The reward is profit if it succeeds. The risk is financial loss or even catastrophe.

No one is forcing you or anyone to buy speakers if they think they are overpriced. And of course, there is arguably overpriced gear out there, and buying used often yields bargains as monied buyers scratch their itches often and sell like-new gear at a deep discount.

Some hi-fi makers are "overnight" successes after 10, 20 years of hard work for low wages. Some are better marketers (the hype) than manufacturers, but that bubble often bursts.

A good case study is Richard Vandersteen. He did design a bit better mousetrap with the 2CE (though not the first to do phase alignment, iirc) and has sold over 100k of the Model 2’s because they sound great and are a very good value. The profits--with the economy of scale building many of them--from the Model 2 have been plowed into his constantly evolving lineup, and now his Model 7 is considered one of the great very high end speakers. He hasn’t rested on his laurels, and in the meantime he’s employed many people and made dealers money. He has a speaker for almost every budget. I had my last pair of Model 2’s for 20 years, so they cost me $85 per year for pure pleasure. If you bought a pair of Quatro CTs today and kept them for 20 years they would cost you about $850 a year and still be worth a few grand. If your bought a $40k car and kept it for 20 years, it would cost you $2000 a year (before gas, insurance and maintenance, so really $4-5000 per year or more) and be worth almost nothing in many cases. If you ride the bus, "you" maybe could afford Vandersteen 7’s. ONE example.

Is there overpriced hi-fi gear? A very respected designer I know personally makes a world-class preamp that he couldn’t sell directly for $8000, and at that price, relative to the quality and the competition and the level of system it rates, it is not overpriced. He got a distributor who DOUBLED the price to $16,000 and now he can’t build them fast enough at twice the price. Rich people are strange. They want bragging rights so some equipment doesn’t appeal because it’s not expensive enough (which makes them ripe for fleecing)! Bling sells in the Asia market, and sonics may take a backseat to that.

We all get to make our own choices how to allocate discretionary income. I see guys with fishing boats that are $75-100k, who get to use them maybe 30 days a year and *maybe* catch some salmon or halibut, and I can go to Costco and buy it for <$20 a pound. My modest $10,000 audio system (an amount that friends, who think their Bluetooth speaker is fine, think is insane) is a bargain in comparison. Theirs sounds like crap and my good sounding system gives me 100X the pleasure, for me. It’s a bargain, and a much more reasonable indulgence than cars, horses, gambling, multiple wives, or any number of other vices!

This post makes NO intelligent point and is a total waste of time responding to.
I want my 2 minutes back

@fuzztone

I’ll call you and raise you! 10 minutes.
Me to myself: If you see a Kenjit post ... run away.

I see this post follows a pattern. When the same topic is brought up over and over, is that just a "one-note samba" or is it "trolling"?

Some recent topics from OP. If you go look at them, the details don't vary much.

• high end speakers are overpriced  
• Why are speakers rarely satisfactory?  
• How do you prove that one speaker is better than another?  
• How do you test the quality of a speaker?  
• Why are there no hand tuned speakers on the market?  
• Why are audiophile high end speakers expensive?  
• Do speakers need to be custom tuned to your ears?  

You seem to think that profit is a dirty word. There is often a large amount of work, R&D, startup costs and risk to bring a product to market. The reward is profit if it succeeds. The risk is financial loss or even catastrophe.

That is true of the cheap speakers I listed at the start of this thread. There is R&D and a large amount of work to bring those to the market. Now take those same products and instead of using drivers that cost $30 you use scanspeaks costing $500. So the price now goes up by $470. However the manufacturers will now charge you an extra few thousand more. This is not justified. It is greed. All the costs you mention had already been accounted for.

No one is forcing you or anyone to buy speakers if they think they are overpriced. And of course, there is arguably overpriced gear out there, and buying used often yields bargains as monied buyers scratch their itches often and sell like-new gear at a deep discount.

The used market is another reason speakers are overpriced. The manufacturers know that the prices will go down on the used market hence they need to start the prices very high to not diminish the perceived value of the goods. Nobody is forcing you to buy overpriced speakers however if you continue to buy overpriced speakers, that will affect the rest of us who want high quality speakers at reasonable prices. The manufacturers will only continue charging us exorbitant prices if people like you consent to it. That is why prices have gone higher and higher over the decades. You are complicit in this.

A good case study is Richard Vandersteen

Thats an example of a speaker that costs a lot of effort to make but you can get superior results for less money using conventional crossovers. Time coherent speakers have never become popular because they dont work. Its a myth. Most speakers arent time coherent and most audiophiles are perfectly happy with that.

Rich people are strange. They want bragging rights so some equipment doesn’t appeal because it’s not expensive enough (which makes them ripe for fleecing)!

And as I have stated they are making prices go higher and higher which makes it harder for ordinary audiophiles to enjoy beautiful sound quality. These ultra high end speakers could be affordable for most audiophiles if they were reasonably priced. Making high quality sound more and more inaccessible to the rest of the public is criminal.

My modest $10,000 audio system (an amount that friends, who think their Bluetooth speaker is fine, think is insane) is a bargain in comparison.

I hope its not an mdf box with drivers in ’em! if so you have been fleeced. Do not be so naive and get yourself a custom tuned system. Your system is mass produced am I right?

Some recent topics from OP. If you go look at them, the details don't vary much.

@hilde45 

What you need to understand is that if you look at the entire speaker industry and the topics you get on this forum, there is no variation there either!

Its the same old wooden boxes with two or three drivers screwed into the box and a small circuit called a crossover inside it. You get folks day in day out asking should i buy a B&w or a dynaudio? its the same old nonsense every day Hilde45. So dont you dare accuse me of being repetitive. I have already elevated myself to the next level of the game which is CUSTOM TUNING. The rest of you are still stuck at the level of buying products that are not custom tuned hence its a compromise.

Speakers are hard to get home for audition. One of the few I was able to get in there was some very highly regarded Vandersteens. Which is redundant, since it seems pretty much all of them are highly regarded. Which certainly was not my experience. The one pair I had cost more than what I had, looked worse than what I had, was built once you looked under the grill rather tacky all of which would be fine if they sounded better, which they did not. My best most reliable audio bud of the time agreed. Detail, dynamics, tone, imaging, you name it, just not there. 

So mark the calendar kenjit, on Vandersteen at least we agree.

Yes they are! But still you have the free will to buy elsewhere. Feeding or not the marketing is up to you. By the way @gs5556 has a point. An other thing -what is fair profit and how do you define it or even ask for it.
G

But still you have the free will to buy elsewhere

no you dont. You could buy a cheaper product but not the same or equivalent speaker for a lower cost. 

Feeding or not the market is up to you.

and if you feed the market you are complicit in the wrongdoing. Boycott the manufacturers and they will have no choice but to lower their prices or go bankrupt. Once the prices become lower, EVERYBODY will be able to enjoy high end speakers not just the elite. Stop arguing and start boycotting. 

Hey kenjit, here's an idea: Use all of the rage and passion you're directing toward speaker manufacturers on  a worthy cause that benefits your fellow humans. It would make you feel better too. It's not healthy to be angry all of the time.