We had a chance to hear the Uni-Fi UB5 at length at AXPONA and it shot way above its price in performance, especially the amount of bass that came from such a relatively small cabinet and woofer. It is nice to have a good-sounding speaker I can recommend to someone that won't break the budget. I'll be interested to see what he comes up with in future ELAC products.
Andrew Jones Shows Off New "Flagship" ELAC Speaker He Did Not Design
In this video shot at Munich High End 2016 Jones shows off ELAC's new "flagship" speaker that will cost around 60,000 Euro.
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"unreasonably" low-priced ", not sure I'd call $67k low priced.
He was making reference to previous designs.
He's referring to the budget speaker line that sound incredibly good for dirt cheap cash.. Their bookshelf speakers are only $270 a pair or something like that but sound way more expensive..
I always wonder who buys speakers, amps, turntables for $50K and up? After all it is all made out of wood, paper, plastic and metal. Furthermore just like Ferraris where door handles fall off far more frequently than the average Toyota (because the manufacturer has not had the feedback and ire of a million buyers demanding a better product), they may not be the best made either.
I suspect amongst us there are some -- perhaps many -- who can afford a $1mm+ stereo without breaking a sweat. But would I ever? If I did, would I not look ridiculous like the Middle Eastern princelings racing their Aston-Martins and Lamborghinis in Knightsbridge? (You can check up on this phenomenon on YouTube. See what you think).
If so, are these super pricy components just for Russian and Chinese oligarchs, the oil-rich, to decorate their $40mm+ condos on the Billionnaire's Row in NYC, Belgravia or Dubai? I suspect that is so. After all they cannot take it with them!
If others can afford such products and choose to buy them, who cares? Are those who buy 5M houses ridiculous? $100K cars? $5K watches? $1K jeans? Who cares? To each their own. For them spending $50K on a table is much less a sweat than for most of us spending $5K on same. Who is ridiculous then? The one who spends out of their surplus? Or the one who stretches their budget?
To say that a $50K turntable is the same as a $5K one is a bit of an exaggeration. Diminishing law of returns dictates that marginal gains increase cost exponentially. When a manufacturer chooses to push the boundaries of physics by using exotic materials or unprecedented precision their costs increase dramatically. Worse off, because they can only project to sell a small number of those products, they can't get the benefits of scale, like ordering large amounts of parts for dirt a piece, so they have to assign prices that return their investment proportionally in a reasonable amount of time. Ferrari is as much in business as Toyota, they just create different products for different markets. If you are a car lover, you may decide is it fine for you to buy a Ferrari and that may or may not have anything to do with your idea of how others will perceive you.
If you have never ridden in a Ferrari or listened to a upper echelon turntable, you don't know if it's a superior product or not.
Personally I have friends who have hundreds of thousands of $ invested in stereo components. They enjoy music reproduction tremendously. They have impressive music collections, and they are gracious in sharing their time and facilities with others and I do not perceive any snootiness at all.
I think they are lucky. Why would I think they are ridiculous? Who am I to judge? And if I did, why should anybody care?
Everything you say makes sense, of course, and may even be true in the absolute.
That does not change the purpose of my original question though: Who are the majority of people who buy these $50K+ components? I am sure there are perfectly well meaning, deep pocketed true audiophiles who hear or think they hear these expensive components sounding better. Or they like their looks, despite the boy-racer / Star Trek esthetique of most of them. Or appreciate exotic woods.
But that is all anecdotal. With Ferraris and Lamborghinis I can at least have a decent idea of who the owners are: you see them in the driver's seat and since they only produce a few thousand a year, my sample is probably representative. With audio, I do not have a clue!
Now, why does this matter, beyond just mere curiosity? Probably nothing. Well if 90% gets ordered by some AV designer whose billionnaire customer says, "Install something showy, I want to listen to the Russian candidate at this year's Eurovision contest." -- it just may not be my cup of tea. But mostly I am just curious.