CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

Moose · Joined: 09 Mar 2006 Posts: 788 Location: Minnesota

From the Stereophile site : http://www.stereophile.com/news/102907siltech/. Whoopee! Another cost-no-object statement of the speaker art, the Siltech Pantheon Loudspeaker. Big, f...ing deal. $120,000 for something that should cost no more than $10,000, maybe $15,000 at the very outside. Look at the photos and the exploded view. I don't see anything in the drivers, design, materials, construction or finish that could account for such a hefty price. I feel the same way about Wilson and others of that ilk. They may perform very well, they may even be at or near the top, but their prices have no relation whatsoever to their manufacturing cost, overhead and decent profits all around. But I guess these exercises are not directed towards you and me, just people with money to burn and no ability to judge value.

NateTTU · Joined: 14 Feb 2007 Posts: 297

This kinda points to the reason why I have decided to create diy speakers. They really aren't difficult and the price to performance ratio is outstanding since the audio world's prices are so inflated. The designs I'm considering "supposedly" rival speakers in the 10-15k range and cost me less than $800 a pair. Everything is subjective of course but considering the guys who actually create diy speakers are hired by large audio companies to create multi-thousand dollar speakers speaks volumes in my opinion. (no pun intended) They also have the amazing ability to test out these 10-15k speakers in their own home and compare their designs with the commercial designs and find out theirs is better. If you can do a little wood work and some soldering then you should be just fine to make your own.

ecrabb · Posted: Mon Oct 29, 2007 11:43 pm Post subject:

When it comes to stuff in the stratospheric price range you mentioned, it seems to me the retail prices are more likely correlated to A) what the market will bare, and B) sales numbers to generate the revenue necessary to support the lifestyles (mortgage, Porsche, airplane payments, etc.) of the owner(s). The actual cost of design, materials, and construction of the products themselves would be almost irrelevant. I'm exaggerating... a little.

One exception would be the finishing. I wouldn't be surprised if Wilson spends something north of $10k (probably as much or more than the drivers and crossovers and assembled cabinets) just to finish a set of gloss Grand Slams. I mean, that would take a LOT of work to finish those things that beautifully.

SC

**kal**

emdawgz1 · Joined: 14 Mar 2006 Posts: 7949

NateTTU · Joined: 14 Feb 2007 Posts: 297

I agree with most of what you said Kal, but I think its really about the bottom line. But when I find a way to get the performance of a 15k piece of equipment for a very small fraction of the price I'm going to jump on that and run and never look back.

emdawgz,
I'm going to be using a design called "the statements" and it was created by a guy named Jim Holtz. I will be using also his center channel and mini statements for surrounds. total for all five should run about $1600 in parts plus the time and effort required for me to build. however the performance of the statements alone could fetch upwards of 10k in a boutique store, according to things I have read. Until I build and find out I won't really understand what the craze is over the diy audio community but I do look forward to building these in the upcoming months. I have read many reports of people who would buy names that I know, such as klipsch, axiom, svs etc. building some of the very basic and cheapest diy builds and are very suprised at their results. (meaning their cheap speakers they just made beat the crap out of their sometimes very expensive commercial speakers)

i would like one day to invite some people over to check out my system once it is up and running and letting others decide for themselves wether the diy route was worth it or not.

oliverg · Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2007 7:08 am Post subject:

I have a friend that made his own electrostatic speakers for $500 and they sounded VERY good. I was really impressed, since he literally threw them together over 2 months. The finish was excellent. They were very efficient. The sound was comparable to my Martin Logans.

He could have made 10 and sold them for 10k each and whoever bought them would have been happy with them!

Valve amplifiers are one area where circuits have been around for decades but someone will throw a label on an amp based on an old circuit and sell it for 50k. If (as Kal says) a company puts in a large investment, they deserve to get it back - but in some cases this isn't happening. Its just marketing. At 100k, you only have to sell one or two a year if your overheads and research has been minimal to earn yourself a decent living.

I remember on eBay one guy sold a pair of old loudspeakers from the 1930s (cones) and made out that they were "ultra high fidelity) and "single driver - no crossovers!". They went for 15k odd US!

I think the idea of building your own and seeing what others (and you) think is a really commendable idea. I bet they sound just honkin!!

Kind regards

garyfritz · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 12088 Location: Fort Collins, CO

cmjohnson · Joined: 03 Apr 2006 Posts: 5180 Location: Buried under G90s

Keep in mind that SOME speakers do indeed have a lot of money in just materials costs. Wilson's X and W laminate materials, for
example, ARE entirely custom-made products and are likely hideously expensive per square foot. And remember, you always
have to recoup your engineering costs from your finished product. If it cost a million dollars in engineer's wages, prototype tooling
and parts costs, and other expenses relating to the project, you have to be abe to recoup your million dollars out of the profits
from the sale of individual speakers. It MIGHT cost you just 2000 dollars to make a 25,000 dollar speaker, at raw manufacturing
cost when in full-scale production, but part of that profit HAS to go to covering the engineering and development costs that went into
its creation.

If high end audio companies are making such outrageous profits, why is it that they're such small companies and are known to go
bankrupt from time to time?

CJ

emdawgz1 · Joined: 14 Mar 2006 Posts: 7949

WTS · Joined: 08 Mar 2006 Posts: 1276 Location: Calgary

HI,

Trust me, what Kal says is so true. A old long time friend of mine had his own speaker company in which he designed the drivers/crossovers/boxes himself. He spend years( and lots of money) designing and redesigning drivers/crossovers/boxes to get them to the point were he was satisfied and even then he didn't think they were quite there yet. And that was even after he had won awards for the design/sound quality of his speakers.

Yes you can build speakers with off the shelf drivers and have them sound just as good or better than store bought boxes. My present speakers I bought off the shelf drivers by the name of DynAudio, which are no longer available to the public because they decided to build their own boxes to house their drivers. The same drivers in my boxes are now used in their top of the line boxes which I beleive are somewhere in the nieghbourhood of 20k+ a pair. THere are still a number of top notch drivers available for the DIY builder, SEAs make excellent drivers. Do a search for Linkwitz(he's the original designer of the Linkwitz crossover which is found in practically 90% of all speakers on the market today), his website use to have a list of drivers which he has tested and found to be the best for any type of system you'd want to build. He also has complete plans for the DIY.

Moose · Joined: 09 Mar 2006 Posts: 788 Location: Minnesota

I'll grant that it can take some time, considerable work and some money developing these high-buck products. But not millions in any of these cases. There is nothing original in this speaker. It's just a conventional design with the addition of some electrostatic elements on the top. No new technology is apparent anywhere. There are now several programs available at low cost that are of great assistance in speaker design. You and I can afford them. Heck, one I'm considering costs $250 and is as sophisticated as anyone needs. No more long, tedious, trial and error process taking years required anymore. If you can't do it, hire someone! Just look at this thing. It's a woofer, midrange and electrostatic tweeter in an overdone, gaudy box. For the money I want it tri-amped. Get a nice Ashly, Rane or whatever active crossover, some amps, spend a little time adjusting and testing things, and you're there. And waaaaaay under $120,000.

I'll tell you again, there is nothing about this speaker that justifies its price.

JustGreg · Joined: 07 Mar 2006 Posts: 3098 Location: Kenosha, WI