Why the huge increase in the price of Sonus Farber Amanti G5 speakers.

@audio-b-dog 

I don’t think everything that SF makes and sends to the US is already sold as my Amati G5’s were at my store in less than two weeks and delivered shortly thereafter. However, I doubt that they have more than a few pairs of their more expensive models warehoused here. Also the price and the dealer markup is dictated by the manufacturer.  The G5’s now sell for $43K everywhere in the US, so yeah the dealer probably makes more unless the manufacturer has changed the percentages.

I used to manage retail stores, lumber and hardware. I set prices mostly on the basis that 40 cents out of a dollar would be profit. If the wholesale price went up for any reason, I would still make 40 cents out of a dollar. Target, I think, considered showing the tariff and adding it on to the retail price, but the Whitehouse put a lot of pressure on them not to do that. I don't know how every store is managing the tariffs, but I have to think that a lot of them are looking at the wholesale price and adding on their normal markup. So, in that case, the tariff would be doubled or nearly doubled. 

I asked the dealer who sold me my Sonus Faber Olympica 5 speakers why they had jumped from 18,000 to 22,000 and he said it was because of the tariffs. Although, when I was reading reviews of my SF Olympica Novas, they were priced at 15,000, so there had already been a recent jump that wasn't because of tariffs. So, who knows? Obviously, though, Sonus Faber believes they can sell speakers at this elevated price, and they're probably right. If I were shopping for Sonus Faber speakers today, I'd probably buy the Olympica Nova 3 with one less woofer than the 5. $22,000 would be too high a price for me. When I bought the 5's I was looking in the $15,000 range. I think this will affect what people purchase.

Why the bickering over snorus farberge??? 

I want to rant over the price on magico speakers,  they got about 30% price raised in the last 3 years in Europe.  

To start a post with " why more expensive " is absolutely political and on another note Europe is at this moment at war with Russia ( have been for 3 years soon ) and it's expensive ( what do you think happen price on energy, food ,raw materials among other.. 

As a manufacturer you have the right to price your product whatever you want the rest is up to the customer... 

If you don't like the price ( you need to pay more than you think it's worth) bye something else. 

I would like more discussions about gear no regards of price, like I bought the shunyata omega usb today and it is awesome ( because I did ) and the questions goes " what is better then your previous cable " without the " cable don't make a difference " a$$ hats camping out. 

So the rant is over but I still believe nobody should pay more than they think it's worth and if you spend more than you can afford, seek help 🙂

I too am glad I bought my Olympica Nova 5s before this last hike. I did overspend my budget of $15,000. The dealer demoed the Nova 3 because he had no Nova 5s on the floor. He could tell I like bass by the kinds of music I listen to, so he talked me into the 3k for the extra one. They were so short of the 5s that I had to wait 5 weeks for mine to be shipped. I was splurging because of an inheritance and I am not sorry I paid the extra 3K. As I said before, $22K would have put me into the 3s for 18K.

There are a number of times I have spent over my budget and have not been sorry. When I bought my house in L.A. I went 10 per cent over. I have never regretted it especially with the increase in the housing market. Everybody has to make their own choices. My speakers befroe these were Golden Ear 2+. Less than a quarter of the price of the SF. That was my budget then--no inheritance--and my budget went up. We each have to make our own decisions.

As an ex-retailer, greed seems like a loaded word. When I was in the hardware/lumber business I almost gave away drywall. But i took a 50% plus margin on the drywall paste and other accessories in order to make a profit. Retail is not an easy busienss. I was reading about the costs a high-end audio dealer has to pay in order to sell high-end stuff. Rent on the building and experienced staff. Investment in floor models. Insurance. And so many other things that comes out of the markup.

One little nick-pick, margin is different than markup. If a retailer pays $1 for something and marks it up 40%, then the margin is the gross profit on the retail price of $1.40. The margin is a bit more complicated to calculate. If you work on a 25% margingthan your profit is 25% of a $1.40, or  35 cents. My advice. Grocery stores and Costco work on very low margins but they sell a lot of stuff with high turnover. Boutique stores need to be close to a 50% margin to make a decent profit. In ladies ware they call it keystone. But in ladie's ware they're going to be marking a lot of clothing down to cost or below at the end of the season.

Maybe that explains why I don't think of retail as "greed." I've become a free marketer in my old age