I have read the above posts concerning pricing with great interest. As most of you know, we have always priced our speakers as low as possible. (My accountant tells me we are giving them away, but what does he know.) This project is no different. But at this point, I need to ignore those posts as there would be a tendency to pare back the design in order to meet a specific price target.
We have never designed a speaker to a price point before and I really don't want to start doing it now. This was a "no holds barred" project from the start and it doesn't seem to make sense to compromise it at this late date in order to hit an arbitrary target price.
From the very first discussions two years ago, our goal was to develop a statement product that would perform at the level of a $30 - $40,000 speaker. The drivers we selected (after purchasing and testing many) are VERY expensive and the cabinets will be the most complicated we have ever built.
Once we finish it, we will simply figure out what it costs to produce and determine what the selling price needs to be. We will then let the market decide if they want it.
When we first developed our Veracity HT3 model, we received quite a bit of advice about holding the price to $xxxx. But at that point, my goal was to develop the speaker I wanted personally. I knew it would cost more, but didn't care. I simply wanted the speaker I wanted. Based on this advice, I didn't figure we'd sell all that many HT3's. But once we introduced it, apparently others wanted the same speaker as it quickly became our biggest seller.
This potential speaker design will represent a new milestone in performance for us. If we sell one pair or many pairs, is not really something I am going to worry about. I will have the speaker I want. If others want it, fine. If not, that is fine too. If the design meets our expectations, we will be very proud of our accomplishments regardless of how many we eventually sell.
Hopefully we can keep the price under $10,000. But if we can't, we can't. It's that simple. If someone can't justify the resulting cost, we will still be producing the HT3's, a very fine design in its own right. This new model will not be for everyone. But one thing is certain...whatever it costs, it will be a bargain.
- Jim
