Are exotic speaker cabinet materials overrated?

A Speaker is a Transducer, which is another name for a conversion. 

Electrical Energy is converted to Mechanical Energy and onwards into Kinetic energy being Amitude received as sound. The Cabinet is a design to optimise the mechanical to Kinetic energy conversion. 

The Cabinet is exposed to energies created. 

The Cabinet design is for certain designs, one that is considered to assist with managing created energies and some are solely for the optimisation of the production of sound. 

It is typical for the models that have the most considerations for the design, will be models commanding a premium price. 

Making references to how a material effects sound is a weak assessment, as a Speaker produced from an established producer, is never experienced in a Typical listening environment. Whilst heard when undergoing design, due to the used environment being purpose produced for managing sound in the space, any typical  space used beyond design will not be a mimic. 

By reading the responses a majority of them do believe these materials do in fact impact sound quality. A follow up question should then be: At what point does the cost of these materials start to outweigh the benefits these materials have on performance? The ridiculous prices of these speakers manufacturers that use carbon fiber or other exotic materials to eliminate resonance internally are raising their prices 10-20% annually. 

It has been clearly stated, that one material selected and offering all the desirable properties of what is required as a means to manage damping / dissipation is available as a board material.

As a board material the RIDWB will not add additional cost when compared to the build cost of a Speaker using multi layers of Board Material, similar to designs already referenced in this thread.

In the case of RIDWB material, I fail to see where utilising the material has a cost association that suggests excessive amounts of outlay are required to have a cabinet material that is optimised for managing amplitude being put through it.

Speakers produced are not ridiculous as a price if the user of the Speaker has an input to the build. If a person chooses to buy from the commercial market sector and from Brands that are quite recognisable, there is no capping to the costs of certain models in their different ranges. Why should there be, is Mr X has a disposable income of $1M per year, and they want the Brands best model to listen to another Brands best model and so on, why should Mr X get Brand New for a pittance, he will need to join the wider market this and wait Ten Years for a nice used item sale. 

I know I can have a Speaker produced with a RIDWB Cabinet that will show a £100K + Speaker a clean set of heels in a comparison, using a BOM for such a Speaker of close to £5K. Such a Speaker for £5K will incorporate an improved Xover design (selected components).

If I want such a Speaker to share similar aesthetic appeal to a £100K Speaker, another £500 - £1200 may need to be added to the BOM.  

Nothing ridiculous about the £5K price when one fully realises what is being produced.

How would a Brands £5K Speaker present in a comparison to my £5k BOM Speaker. Well it will present just that like a Brands £5K Speaker, or a Speaker with a BOM of a £500 using methods I am proposing.

Cabinet effecting Sound and having a Sonic Influence is a very subjective assessment, with there never going to be unanimous agreement of a Cabinets impact on the End Sound produced from the Speaker used in just one of multitudes of spaces and designs within that space used for the listening experience.    

OP...  " At what point does the cost of these materials start to outweigh the benefits these materials have on performance?"

I would think that the speaker designers spend large amount of effort evaluating this very question. I am sure that hundreds of hours of comparative tests... both on a single set of speakers and of competitive speakers would be required to answer it. I doubt many customers of speakers would have any idea. We experience the final product which is the result in many design choices. Many are interconnected. Great question for speaker designers. 

gh

the cost is always going to be the initial cost to experiment and the price to produce and the cost of the final product....Theh diabolically the acceptance factor of the public and market factor, how do we market this technology..