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Take Magico. Their production is highly specialized, involving in-house CNC machining of aluminum enclosures, which limits output to a relatively small number of units, focusing on precision over high-volume manufacturing. The company is located in California. Like all speaker companies they have a robust advertising budget. Transportation of product is expensive. And so on, with the usual list. Now take Klipsch. Klipsch sells from low to upper medium priced speakers and they sell tons more than Magico.
High-end speakers typically carry a retail gross profit margin of 40-50%, which is significantly higher than the 1%–2% net margin seen in the car industry. While the manufacturer might only spend 10% to 15% of the final retail price on physical components like drivers and cabinets, high margins are necessary to sustain a low-volume business with extreme research and development (R&D) and overhead "
Speaker building is Childs play compare to the building of a car motor. There are more parts in the building of a dash than in a speaker. Watch 1 of the YT videos on how a Porsche or Lamborghini are built. You can automate CNC machines now, carbon fiber cabinets, ho hum.
The high end audio industry made their bed for trying to be exclusive meaning expensive and it won't work in the long run. Why did MBL just get bought out? A lot of the audio manufacturers don't make any real money from the high end, there just isn't enough demand.
But what gets me in this high end market, who is dumb enough to buy new when you know tomorrow your gear will be depreciated by 50% and with very few people wanting to buy it. I see speakers that are less than a year old asking 50%-60% off retail price on the 2nd hand websites. When you can invest that money and see 600% returns this past year, while 1 of my stocks has gone up 4000% this past year. That's the smart thing to do, invest into something that will appreciate (stocks) instead of audio gear that depreciates the next day.