My primary concern in purchasing high end equipment/speakers is that the company goes out of business and no repairs can be made. Especially with expensive equipment.
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…
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Not so surprisingly a lot of businesses fail because they didn't do basic homework on the cost of doing business like say opening a restaurant and not figuring out things like how much money I have to make just to cover all the costs at the end of the month. You would be surprised at how many simply don't do the math so when designing products with a limited economic audience, hopefully, you do some statistical analysis, and get a realistic idea of how many people are out there who can afford it but would purchase it. Though, When Dave Wilson started his speaker company with the Watt, he thought he would sell a few, 20- 30(I have the review somewhere). His business was recordings, records, but he ended up with 250 orders the first year and that was a very expensive item for what it did at the time. |
I only make 1 model bookshelf speaker ($9k/pair) now. Is it overpriced? Please remember my WT speakers are purist/cleanest sounding, closest to the original music, and the only no veil natural sound speaker in the world and 150 years of audio history. Alex/Wavetouch audio |
Very few of these extremely priced pieces of equipment are sold relative to the rest. Egos Drive most of these sales. Sitting in a room with extremely high priced equipment is hard to resist for those who have the funds, and many people do have the funds for these expenditures. Many of them are very gullible souls. The more seasoned and experienced listeners who really know what they’re doing can get the same Quality, and most often better, for considerably less. YouTube channels are culprits in promoting this exceptionally high priced gear, which serves to only stretch prices in a manufacturers lower end models. Even the Rich need to hold someone’s hand and there’s plenty of outreached hands. |
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