Simple full range designs with high price tags

[Poultrygeist]

These speakers use affordable Mark Audio full range drivers which offer excellent sound. With no crossovers I suppose the cost is in the cabinet but there is no magic there.

There are so many outstanding "free" full range speaker plans on the net even those with no DIY skills can have a cabinet maker build a pair and save thousands.



http://www.carolinaaudio.com/KOTA/Page_5.html

[Feanor]

These speakers use affordable Mark Audio full range drivers which offer excellent sound. With no crossovers I suppose the cost is in the cabinet but there is no magic there.

There are so many outstanding "free" full range speaker plans on the net even those with no DIY skills can have a cabinet maker build a pair and save thousands.

http://www.carolinaaudio.com/KOTA/Page_5.html
Like so many "luxury" goods, hi-fi equipment can be sold for whatever people will pay. Fine appearance (and reasonable sound) help a lot of course, but there is a loose connection between the cost of production and the asking price.

Transmission lines take some expertise to design, but are not necessarily hard to construct, so like you say ...

[RGA]

These speakers use affordable Mark Audio full range drivers which offer excellent sound. With no crossovers I suppose the cost is in the cabinet but there is no magic there.

There are so many outstanding "free" full range speaker plans on the net even those with no DIY skills can have a cabinet maker build a pair and save thousands.



http://www.carolinaaudio.com/KOTA/Page_5.html

Parts Express was at CES 2010 and noted that they have kits for $300 that people spend $3000 for from companies that make the same thing but put their logo on it. Looking carefully you may figure it out.

What bothers me is the marketing babble that there is something special abut certain technologies over others when they each have pitfalls. Or many companies that don't tell the consumer what it is they're really getting or why one model costs more than the next. But even companies who do the right thing and tell you exactly what you get get blasted. Take the bigger brother of my speakers. The company will give you the plans for free - they have it posted on the net - so anyone can build them themselves. Then they offer you a kit price for a very affordable amount of cash - but even if you find that too much you still have the plans and can buy off the shelf parts yourself. But they get blasted because they make a super charged ultra expensive version with exotic in house made parts. It's as if people feel they're getting a gun held to their head. Some parts are very costly to make which drives the prices up. You may feel the parts are not worth spending the money on but they do in fact cost manufacturers a lot in some cases (though not in your example).

There are simply not enough people with any accounting backgrounds on forums. They simply look at the cost of drivers and the retail price and make zero provisions for the company owner making a living, overhead, expenses, advertising, pensions, heat, electricity, the actual tools to make the stuff, shipping, boxes, rent for a space to set up shop (land). Nope the manufacturer is expected to sell everything at his cost.

Most people can build a house - you can buy some books or get them at the library. My room mate does roofing as a side gig. He charged a guy down the road $11,000 for a difficult steep roof - others were quoting $40,000. My room mate does a first rate job - no guns (which suck - if they're using nail guns and charging a lot you're getting screwed). So it's a better job for 1/3 the price. The issue is labor is a massive factor. If you are willing to do the work yourself (because your labor is free) then you will save a huge amount of cash.

This is why A Kit One amp has a lot of people leaving their top Conrad Johnson and Cary amps for something they can build themselves - cuts out the labor and can get you much higher grade trannies, caps, resisters, wiring. And like the speakers Parts Express noted can possibly reduce your cost to 10% of what you might have paid buying retail. But you have to be willing to work. This doesn't apply all the time of course but it does interest me - the kits and some of the "good" Chinese makers because some of it really destroys established brands. The Grant Fidelity Rita tube amp is an example of a big power tube amp that can hold up against far more expensive units of it's type - I'd take it over any McIntosh for example on sound and it's as good or better on build too. But at $3k now it's hard for some to take it seriously enough because it's not expensive enough.

I think we're all a little guilty of associating price with quality to some degree or other. High End and High Price may have some correlation some of the time but the key word there is "some".