Why do subwoofers cost so much?

[P4killer_]

Lmao. Again you're right. Politics honestly I know nothing about. But undoubtedly are full of worse scenarios.

We all have a choice as to what to buy. But what happened to fair? Why do they think its ok to charge so much? I dont have to pay 400 for a 60 woofer, but how could you morally even ask me to pay that much in the first place.

Im just arguing because im bored or ignorant ehhh both likely. But we all are ignorant to some degree.

The govt... jesus dont open that can of worms. I often think itd be better like back in hunter gathering/ medevil times. You use what you need trade what you dont. Honesty and honor were a valued trait..blah blah.

But honestly HONESTLY, what are you me anyone else gonna do alone about the government? Nada. Even with a crowd, nada. With a nation, nada. Its too late and the world isnt ready for the bloodshed necessary to change it. The time to fix the govt has come and passed. This is no longer rome, where a city or nation might fall. Its to the point where world enders fit in a shoe and are invisable and no one will ever know. Everyone knows its there but then again they dont. Why worry yourself with the unimaginable truth that you wouldnt believe if they spelled it out for you.

Not even worth getting into.

[jmanjr82]

Its all about what you are and are not willing to spend money on. If you take that 99$ sub and put it up against that 170$ sub I would venture to say a better quality coil, surround, and spider pack is used. You have to understand that there is money spent in development as well such as custom tooling, slight changes from prototypes v1-v whatever it takes to get the final product. So sure the final copy might cost $120 to make, but what did it cost to get to that point? It sure as hell wasn't free! There are so many factors your failing to understand which is fine, but realize they have to make a profit to continue to bring out new products and stay competitive in the market as well. International shipping, packing, then shipping to the customer are all factored in as well. Basically to sum it all up that mark up price is to cover what it cost to get the final woofer built then the cost to however many are ordered in parts, then the cost of shipping them to the warehouse, then the cost of packing and shipping are just the basics. I guess the best bet would be having someone like jacob, kevin, or rusty come better explain what all cost go into subwoofer production from stage 1 to final.

[bbeljefe]

First of all I agree, we are indeed all ignorant of something. Nothing wrong with that at all.

As for the rest, I think your idea of fair and mine are not the same. Likewise with morality. Morality and fairness are directly related to choice with respect to the moral actor and, the effects of those choices are key. For instance, a manufacturer can choose to ask 900% markup for his product or he can choose to ask 90% markup. Neither of his choices will cause undue harm to you because you have the choice of whether or not to buy from him. On the contrary, if he were able to force you to buy his product and he also chose to charge such a high markup that it caused you not to be able to pay your light bill or buy baby formula... that would be unfair & immoral behavior. But, if you decide of your own volition to buy even the 90% profit item at the expense of your baby's food or electricity to keep him warm.... it is you who have been immoral and unfair to your child, not the manufacturer to you. Because after all, the child has no choice, but you & the manufacturer do.

In the end, if it's voluntary it is amoral, which means it is neither moral nor immoral. Fair or unfair.

With respect to hunter gatherers and other historical societies, the notion that they were anything but brutal is the stuff of fairy tales. In reality, the further back in history you look the more violent and irrational (animal like, if you will) human societies were. You don't even have to look past the 20th century or venture outside the USA to see the evidence.

I do agree that the state cannot be fixed though. Of course it can't.... government was never meant to be fixed, it was meant to be imposed upon people. After all, if it were such a good idea to give a small group of individuals the right and duty to impose their will on others, it wouldn't have to be forced on people because they'd be flocking to it. Which kinda brings us full circle with the argument about overpriced goods. How many people did Steve Jobs force to buy the iPhone?

In the end, we are only about one generation away from eradicating the state and when it does happen, there won't be any bloodshed. At least none by those who wish to see it gone. I don't look for that generation to be born while I'm still alive but that doesn't mean there is nothing I can do to help see that that generation is born. ;-)

[Dwn4BassAlan]

all of this could have been answered with 1 word.

Because; capitalism.

[kirill007]

You seem to be underestimating the R&D that goes into designing a good woofer, it's not just throwing parts together like some cheap companies.

You need different software to model everything which is very expensive. After designing it, you have to contact a company to create a one-off subwoofer for you to test out.

Then you put in the necessary hours testing the sub in a lot of different boxes to see how it works and if it is to your liking, also you'll have it send for Klippel testing which costs the necessary thousand(s) of dollars.

Obviously the first sub you designed will not 100% meet the goals you had in mind, so back to the drawing board and change a few things and send the design back to the company that will make another one-off woofer for you. Again you test it out in different configurations and send it out for Klippel testing. If you are lucky to have reached your goal (which might not happen after 3-5 woofers, so you'll have to tool your own stuff which adds a lot more costs), you can finally order a small batch of the subwoofers and make sure the company who's making the subwoofer is giving you what you expected from them (everything well made, no ugly gaps, good gluejobs,...).

After receiving that small batch you give away/sell for a extremely low price for people to test out the subwoofers and hear their reactions. Only then you can order 200-500+ subwoofers to start selling them, offcourse after making sure have recones available and buy a few hundred of those.

All of this designing has to be done twice since you aren't going to offer only one voicecoil congifuration. (offcourse you are also developing for a price point so staying around that makes it even harder.)

These days you also have to make the subwoofer itself look good or it won't sell well.

And if you can't designs subwoofers yourself you have to pay a engineer to do so.

Designing a good woofer can take up to two,three years. Offcourse a good woofers can be made in a year or even 6 month if you can machine the parts yourself and wind your own coils and have already a few dozen spiders, surrounds, cones in stock.

Machining is pretty expensive in case you didn't know (over 150dollar per hour.)

I just only talked about the designing part, obviously you still have a relatively small cost for marketing since we have the internet now.

There is also the normal business costs, renting a warehouse to stock everything, pay employees,...

400dollar for a good woofer isn't expensive at all.

I don't think there is a lot of money to be made in owning a subwoofer business, considering the amount of work you have to put in.

[Mtnbikecrazy55]

As was said, there's a lot of expense to consider before one ever even begins to price and source materials. First, a company has to be formed. And along with the costs of forming a company, there are ongoing costs to maintain that company, which are incurred whether or not you ever even make the first sub. Let alone sell it to someone. There's also marketing, because how else will someone half way across the world know you plan to have subs for sell if you don't tell them?

After you've ordered your subs and you're waiting for them to arrive, you have to already have a place to store them and ship them from, which costs money whether or not you ever sell the first sub. And then, once you've sold them, you have to warranty them and like it or don't, as a manufacturer you will end up eating a good bit of product that was damaged due to no fault of yours or your build house.

And what about the guy who refuses to be happy with any solution you offer him? Who pays when he takes you to court on a frivolous lawsuit? Who pays when company X sues you (again frivolously) for copying their surrounds or dust caps?

Manufacturers deal with all that and a few thousand other things I didn't mention every single day and all of those things cause them to incur some sort of cost, the totality of which must be paid for out of the gross profits they make on subs, amps, speaker terminals or whatever it is that they sell.

So in the end,, you might look at the hard costs of building a sub and then think there's a ton of profit to be had but, what you're counting is gross profit on the cost of materials and what the manufacturer actually gets to pocket is net profit after ALL expenses. That usually ends up being around 2-5% and the only way manufacturing on a large scale can be truly profitable is through volume.

Although I agree with what was said here, but one thing though uis they're making more than 2-5% easy. At least 11. 15. 30 on some stuff

[BigGains]

all of this could have been answered with 1 word.

Because; capitalism.

2 words :-)

[P4killer_]

Too much capitalism. And yea if company x really designs their own stuff. Alot of what was said is true. Sundowns new frames for example. If im not mistaken, thier working or already have a patent in those.

Kudos to them for actually working to set their own standard. But lets face it. Most companies dont. So in terms of r and d. There is none. Of course theres samples and protos etc. But thats about it. You go to China or wherever idk and say I want a woofer just like them.

It may be some brand over in europe that no ome "knows" about but it still copying.

And I guess i dont care really. But r and d for Most not all companies is minimal

Shoulda left it at too much capitalism. .

[bbeljefe]

As was said, there's a lot of expense to consider before one ever even begins to price and source materials. First, a company has to be formed. And along with the costs of forming a company, there are ongoing costs to maintain that company, which are incurred whether or not you ever even make the first sub. Let alone sell it to someone. There's also marketing, because how else will someone half way across the world know you plan to have subs for sell if you don't tell them?

After you've ordered your subs and you're waiting for them to arrive, you have to already have a place to store them and ship them from, which costs money whether or not you ever sell the first sub. And then, once you've sold them, you have to warranty them and like it or don't, as a manufacturer you will end up eating a good bit of product that was damaged due to no fault of yours or your build house.

And what about the guy who refuses to be happy with any solution you offer him? Who pays when he takes you to court on a frivolous lawsuit? Who pays when company X sues you (again frivolously) for copying their surrounds or dust caps?

Manufacturers deal with all that and a few thousand other things I didn't mention every single day and all of those things cause them to incur some sort of cost, the totality of which must be paid for out of the gross profits they make on subs, amps, speaker terminals or whatever it is that they sell.

So in the end,, you might look at the hard costs of building a sub and then think there's a ton of profit to be had but, what you're counting is gross profit on the cost of materials and what the manufacturer actually gets to pocket is net profit after ALL expenses. That usually ends up being around 2-5% and the only way manufacturing on a large scale can be truly profitable is through volume.

Although I agree with what was said here, but one thing though uis they're making more than 2-5% easy. At least 11. 15. 30 on some stuff

I hope you're correct. :-)

[bbeljefe]

Too much capitalism. And yea if company x really designs their own stuff. Alot of what was said is true. Sundowns new frames for example. If im not mistaken, thier working or already have a patent in those.

Kudos to them for actually working to set their own standard. But lets face it. Most companies dont. So in terms of r and d. There is none. Of course theres samples and protos etc. But thats about it. You go to China or wherever idk and say I want a woofer just like them.

It may be some brand over in europe that no ome "knows" about but it still copying.

And I guess i dont care really. But r and d for Most not all companies is minimal

Shoulda left it at too much capitalism. .

What difference does it make whether a company sells a completely original product or not? Let's say companies A & B both sell an identical product but A decides to offer a 2 year no fault warranty and B has a 1 year, limited warranty. In all likelihood, buyers will buy more from A, causing B to either lower his cost, extend his warranty or maybe even go out of business simply through the act of buying more of the same product from A. Or maybe B will sell his product at 25% less than A... then, those who place a higher value on warranty can choose to buy from A and those who place a higher value on price can buy from B. In the end, having more choice is good for the consumer, not bad.

And let's say some guy in your town decides to open a subwoofer company and to start with he just buys what the build houses have to offer. And then later, you wind up needing a job and he hires you. And then you wind up making some suggestion about a new way to build a subwoofer. What if that suggestion winds up revolutionizing the industry and making both of you filthy rich? It may sound far fetched but that scenario has played out in a number of industries throughout the years and it's very likely that if "too much capitalism" (whatever that means) had actually been kept in check, many of those innovations wouldn't have been made.

In the end, capitalism is a very simple thing. You offer a pencil for 5 dollars because you're able to make lots of pencils for less than five dollars. If I have 5 dollars but I value your pencil more than I value my five dollars, I'll trade your pencil for my five dollars and both of us will walk away better off from the transaction. That's all capitalism is... nothing more and nothing less.

Now if I hand you five fake dollars that's fraud, not capitalism. Likewise if you hand me a pencil with a wooden eraser. Moreover, if you lobby the state to pass a law forcing others to buy your pencils by way of making it illegal to buy Chinese or even Canadian pencils, that's mercantilism, not capitalism. If the state owns the pencil factory & tells you that you must make and sell pencils for X amount, that's communism, not capitalism. And if the state allows you to choose whether to make pencils for a living or make subwoofers for a living but, it regulates the price you sell them for and the materials you make them from, that's socialism, not capitalism. When corporations cooperate with the state to raise the barriers of entry to industries through licensure, regulations etc, that's corporatism and sometimes even fascism but to be sure, it's not capitalism.

I could go on for few dozen more examples but I'll spare you the boredom. However, I would ask you to think of the examples above and how each and every one of them applies to one or more industries in the modern world, especially in the US which is so often referred to as a capitalist nation.

It can cost a few million dollars in regulatory compliance costs before one company can sell latex gloves in the US medical industry.

It can cost a few hundred thousand dollars in regulatory compliance to take a fire alarm strobe device to the marketplace in the US fire alarm industry. That's basically a flashing light bulb in a white or red plastic housing.

It can cost a few thousand dollars per year for a person to legally advertise themselves as an interior decorator in some areas of the US. Or to call themselves barber or hair dresser.

I don't know what you see there but what I see is anything but two individuals voluntarily trading with one another for mutual benefit. There might be some vestige of that left at the end but the force and coercion one must endure on the road to that voluntary transaction all but completely negates the capitalistic nature.

In the end, I see far too much of something but it's anything but too much capitalism. ;-)