?! Is the Pope catholic? Most current hi fi equipment is overpriced!
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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@cd318 ...*S* I can agree with that sentiment; any and all salespersons should have a breath of experience with some 'classics' as well as the new & any offerings at hand....but that's a tall order, since (I'd suspect) most that can fill that muse are pending on my age and/or have gone onto the Great Auditoriums In The Sky... ;) I liked the L1hun....out of my $zone at the time, and the grille would be a tease even my cat, well behaved as Grace was, would have sorely been tempted by... As to what I had at the time? I suspect my 901s', in a small studio apartment that I opted to show restraint with regards to my neighbors...and the aged window panes...*g* |
I would agree that rock does seem to hold a certain challenge to many high end speakers, regardless of the price. Most of the time, I don’t hear it played back well on speakers that are great for jazz or classical. Question becomes as to whether there is truly a certain type of speaker that does all things best…including music like RAP? |
Can speakers that are great at dynamics and drive also excel at detail and nuance?
I've certainly heard some very expensive speakers (£50k+) that definitely couldn't do both. They tended to be exotic designs where the designer wanted them to do certain things as best as they could even if it meant doing others far less well. So, for some like-minded people they still might be reasonable value for money but for others they would be stupidly overpriced. Ridiculously so. |
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