Enclosure cost vs driver cost [Archive] - Audio & Video Forums

PDA

View Full Version : Enclosure cost vs driver cost



Poultrygeist
07-29-2012, 06:06 AM
The excellent Mark Audio CHR-70 drivers in these transmission line speakers retail for $28 each. Yet the easy to build enclosures with the same driver retails for $2000. There are no crossovers as these are single driver speakers.

The Mark Audio Alpar 10 as used in the $4500 SMA4 single driver transmission lines cost a little more at $110 each.

Page 5 (http://www.carolinaaudio.com/KOTA/Page_5.html)

Now if you consider that in quantity these drivers could probably be had for 50% retail you can easily see that one would be paying thousands for a simple cabinet. There are no R&D costs as these plans are available to anyone and free of charge.

Do you see why folks are attracted to DIY? Even if you're not these enclosures could be built for a couple of hundred at any local cabinet shop.

Feanor
07-29-2012, 08:59 AM
The excellent Mark Audio CHR-70 drivers in these transmission line speakers retail for $28 each. Yet the easy to build enclosures with the same driver retails for $2000. There are no crossovers as these are single driver speakers.

The Mark Audio Alpar 10 as used in the $4500 SMA4 single driver transmission lines cost a little more at $110 each.

Page 5 (http://www.carolinaaudio.com/KOTA/Page_5.html)

Now if you consider that in quantity these drivers could probably be had for 50% retail you can easily see that one would be paying thousands for a simple cabinet. There are no R&D costs as these plans are available to anyone and free of charge.

Do you see why folks are attracted to DIY? Even if you're not these enclosures could be built for a couple of hundred at any local cabinet shop.
In the first place, from a commercial builder's point of view, the cabinets are likely to be more expensive to build than the cost of the driver(s). Secondly, there is the inevitable business overheads that have to be covered that are in addition to the inherent cost of the cabinets. Thirdly you can expect to pay a premium for the mystique of the brand. This varies with the brand of course -- the connection to manufacture's cost and MSRP is extremely loose.

But if you are willing to put in some "sweat equity" there are various options that can reduce you speakers' cost to 1/3 or so of a finished commercial product. Bear in mined that your sweat equity is likely to be worth zero if you want to sell your speakers.

Basic speaker design is no longer a "black art"; it is very much science, and there are easy-to-use DIY tools available, especially for simple vented or seal box designs. Or there are many good & tried designs available that a DIY only needs to copy. There are also various good completes available. E.g. from Parts Express such as THIS (http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=302-951) Usher driver based kit that will probably come very close to matching commercial Usher speakers at $2500/pair.

http://www.parts-express.com/images/item_large/302-951_l.jpg

RGA
07-29-2012, 09:54 AM
Production speakers are marked up by 10times for almost every production speaker maker (or amp or cd player) in the audio industry. Indeed, one film noted that Alpine car decks cost $1 to make and sell for $300

The $2k speakers retail are $200 in parts - general rule of thumb. Higher priced speakers have a higher spread as well.

What would be nice is if speaker and amp makers provided their plans so you could listen to a speaker that you like and then buy all the parts and build it yourself. You could build B&W N801s for a few hundred bucks instead of paying $15,000.

Some makers provide their plans - you can get the AN E and Ongaku plans and build it yourself with off the shelf parts that meet spec for a fraction of the price. I'd like to see every major company come out with kits. AN speakers of course are highly tuned cabinets and require a major matching process for each speaker which takes time - but the average speaker has no such process so it would be nice to have the kit option for 1/5 to 1/10 the price.