The mistake armchair speaker snobs make too often

*L*  Personally @dekay , calling an ottoman a 'pouf' certainly ups the snob appeal...I guess...😏  My cats couldn't tell the diff until they got hit with the spray bottle....

...anyway...as one who takes drivers and mods them into Walsh drivers, one does learn the intricacies of accomplishing that....and trying to ensure that, after the item in hand has been baptised with various names and comments it actually performs as desired.
You do get the appreciation as to why a manufacturer would employ 'out of house' drivers, unless said subject did so, more or less from the beginning... 

Doing a recone with surround R&R isn't all that difficult...

A major revamp? 😑 

I do it because a pair of MBLs' requires a lottery win of some substance....not to
mention the means of driving same..
And it's the sort of challenge that has a 'zen appeal' of sorts... ;)

{ Lengthy Exposition Tyme }

Spouse 'suggested' I go 'do something fun'...*!*  "Why not go to this astronomical event, and watch the Perseid meteor shower where there's no city lights 'n all that...?"

(Looked at the event listing....)  "Because it's aimed at the 5-12s' we build stuff for, and allows the parents to drink beer, smoke 'alternatives', and park the kids elsewhere....But...."

*PG pause*    "....PE is having their DIY speaker comp and 'garage sale', which is more my sort of predilection...and I can see the Perseids by just getting out onto the Parkway...."

Done deal/transmission had just been restored on the Focus/could use 800 mi. of 'break-in'...and I could see what it was all 'bout, Alfie....

Which was $70 on Phoenix plugs for my amp, some grille cloth remnant of a sort I don't have, an Xmas surprise for the spouse ('some assembly required')...

...and 4 - 8" 4 ohm woofers foam surrounded with a 'look-alike' cf cone, and a vented magnet structure nearly the diameter of the basket.

Heavy little SOBs'...just the potential ticket for the distrib bass array I've in mind.

Entrants primarily a whole rash of bookshelf sized pairs, some standouts...

The Unlimiteds better as a whole; some nicely done woodwork to be appreciated.

Overall: 5% best of show, 10% not so much....balance in the middle of the curve between....Imho....such as it is and was...*S*

Basically...I spent the event as a spy of sorts....😏 ...and got an answer to my query:

Can one enter more than one category with the same units?  (There's 4...)

"Yes, as long as the entry fits the description..."

(*G*  A few dipoles; a couple of omnis that didn't impress...)

I can enter the Unlimited series; anything @ any $ amount.

The Under $300, anything spent on drivers by anyone.

Perhaps....The Over $300, similar to the <300 (IF I factor in my labor...*L*)

The 'All Dayton Drivers'.....no.

Got a year to get my act in gear....*S*

 

A speaker maker has to sell a pair of speakers for at least 10x what the drivers cost. I’m sorry but the math of getting a speaker out the door, and getting a retailer to make space for it, plus service overhead, yada yada, means you simply cannot sell a speaker for parts cost.

Not to be argumentative, but probably more like 15x (as you note further down): manufacturers get a discount on the shelf price of drivers, and we have to factor in the cost of other materials, of prototypes, of XO components which when used once are often discarded later, and... in all of this, the designers & the builders have to actually survive until they start receiving money for the speakers they designed!

What I am saying is that all vertically integrated speaker makers enjoy financial benefits over those which are not.

That is a logical inference except for the fact that large manufacturers, like Scan Seas, etc, benefit from economies of scale that smaller comapnies (like ATC) probably do not.
Having said that, ATC recently replaced the tweet it was outsourcing with one of its own manufacture -- so there must be a financial benefit there!

(and I, too, am using ATC as an example; in real terms, I find their speakers are bvery good and reasonably priced for the sound they offer...)

 

@jon_5912 

+1!!  I would add that it seems the higher the volume of a product that gets produced the odds of the product having lower quality increase. 

In regards to ATC, I would argue that the consumer is getting a better deal, because the in-house design offers higher value for the same price. My SCM35’s with a ScanSpeak tweeter always sounded hard on top. My SCM40 II’s ATC-made tweeter is far smoother and more detailed.

 

The over generalization here is a bit over the top!

What a romantic idea imagining a speaker builder starting his day tending to the trees in his forest that will someday be used for his cabinetry and trees that will be ground into pulp to form his speaker cones.  Then he tours his foundry that is smelting his copper and aluminum and checks on his wire drawing machines to insure all is running smoothly and that he will have enough copper wire to form the coils needed for speakers that day.  Next he checks on his capacitor winding machines and the winder making his resistors.  But before he can have his morning coffee he must stop by the chemical department and check on supplies of lacquer and solder being cooked up.

That scenario is not very realistic these days due to specialization and economies of scale.  R&D costs, tooling costs and just getting materials at a competitive price has driven the world down to a handful of manufacturers for just about every commodity out there.  Flat screen panels, for example are made by just one or two manufacturers globally.  Even auto manufacturers these days just assemble cars.  All of the parts, even the software in many cases is outsourced.  Every car shares many common parts from the handful of auto suppliers globally.  Henry Ford designed the River Rouge Plant in Detroit to be fully vertically integrated in the early 20th century.  It even had its own power station.  Those days are long gone.

 I have been in and worked in plants that were vertically integrated to various degrees.  Some were almost sand and gravel coming in one end of the building and finished product out the other end.  It is impressive but typically designed for a single product.  Manufacturers will not vertically integrate manufacturing without good reason.  They are either forced into it because they cannot find someone to make it for them or they have a secret sauce that they do not want to share with their competitors.

Speaker building is art and science.  A speaker is more than the sum of its drivers.  Integrating the drivers into a cabinet and matching up a crossover network requires some solid engineering design work, understanding of music, dedication and patience.  Outsourcing vs making components is ultimately a business decision.  A high end hifi company can't afford to do everything.  An engineer that knows how to  wind capacitors will likely not know much about machining wood or metal.  An electrical engineer designing crossovers is not likely to be a highly skilled cabinet maker.  Every employee adds burden to the cost of making a product which impacts ROI- return on investment.  If an owner can make more money putting his cash in bonds then he will shut down the business.  The market and perception of the product determines the selling price.  The cost to manufacture a product has little influence on the selling price.  We pay $100k for some speakers because we want to.  Ever notice how luxury items have increased in price at or above inflation for decades?  Yet the cost of televisions, refrigerators, all appliances are cheaper than ever.  Ever notice how willing we are to pay $1200 for a telephone?  And Apple has about $56 billion in cash.  Cost isn't driving the price.