Is a $5 million speaker worth it?
Subscribe to Ask Paul Ask a QuestionIf we thought the Wilson speakers at $650K was over the top, how about a 6" cube of solid gold for $5 million bucks? Worth the money? Can a speaker this expensive ever justify its cost or is it just frivolous WTF?
It is pretty, and as an ego booster it’s worth a “see how rich I am to spend $5M on a frivolous thing”. It’s for the 1% of the 1%’ers out there. I bet they sell two or three of them.
BTW
Cand you spen some time talking about the camera, please
Oh yes you answered well enough and now I’m convinced: I will not sell my house, wife and dog and buy it LOL :-)
Thanks for your commmon sense, Paul!
You gotta love it.
In 1979 I went shopping for my first “real” stereo. I became aware that there was a stereo world of expense to which I was not privileged although some salesman gave me a glimpse into for about 10 minutes with a Maggie/Tympani setup (which became my defining “sound I wished I could have”.
At that same listening of that “priced way out of my league” experience I was told the price of the Levinson stack system that I pointed at and asked about and the price was to the moon.
Later on down the road I was listening to my living room stereo and it occurred to me that I had achieved that Maggie/Tympani sound that I had loved so much and then I realized that I had done it for a fraction of the cost by essentially buying Hartley Quads and Deccas as in the Levinson stacks and by doing it piece by piece and used and home built.
My point is that like most people I started off thinking great sound tracked linear with dollars spent to thinking that great sound sometimes has nothing to do with cost.
BTW. I am well aware of the law of diminishing return and I preach you have to sometimes learn to be happy with what you have because there is always something “better” on the horizon. I was not blessed with great sound because I was smart or knew what I was doing but because the Universe laid out the events to unfold so that it worked out that way.
i am sure the donald would want one. he could put it in his gold plated bathroom
nice shirt Paul
Hi Paul- I also do photography, and also own a Sinar 4×5 camera that I haven’t shot in years. This came about because I (at that time mid eighties) I could not get reliable processing and printing for my shots. So – – – , where did you get the 4×5 adapter for your Cannon digital camera? I own Nikon cameras, with the D850 being the newest one. In my 4×5 kit I have a 90mm and a 210 Sinar lenses. I would love to be able to use my digital camera with my 4×5 camera! Let me know so I can look into buying the parts!
Thanks!
Wow! Thanks Paul , you saved me just as I was reaching for my check book .
Hello Paul,
In my opinion it’s very hard to justify/rationalize the price of an audio component specially in the Hifi segment. We don’t have to go to this extreme like a speaker costing $5M to understand this. How about speakers costing $500K+ or a set of mono block amplifiers costing $200K+ or a 2M Power cable costing $20K or a pair of 2M Speaker cables costing $35K. There are plenty examples of such components currently available in the market and none of these manufacturers really spend anytime explaining the cost structure. I am not sure whether you would reply but I really wanted to hear your perspective when you look at these super expensive items?
Thanks.