An issue of capacity anywhere in the US??? Haha, good one
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I try my best to keep purchases focused on the Buy Local theme, believing keeping my neighbors gainfully employed with meaningful wages is best for our local community. Unfortunately market conditions, the global economy and maintaining a reasonable margin don’t bode well for an economic model I choose to support. Agreed the Chinese can produce a great product, assuming proper oversight by the purchasing entity.
What stick’s in my craw is the overselling of a concept or theme. It’s only hifi equipment not a pacemaker after all. PS Audio had an advantage all things being equal when I can believe they are using local labor, otherwise they are no stand-out, just offering a commodity of a different flavor.
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Pure Audio Project, assembled locally… Literally assembled locally, buy them in the states, local assembly. buy them in Europe local assembly. I’m not referring to their kits either but the Classic series. Having a pair I know first hand.
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Best for Paul to speak to it, and the PSA President, and possibly Scott, than make assumptions. They are more than capable of explaining it.
I’m not so certain Chinese labor comes in at 50% all in of our local labor here, probably less than 50%. Personally I’d pay more and have, for local manufacture especially if I know their labor is fairly compensated and treated respectfully.
There is a lot that goes into proving a product, including but ending with the entrepreneurs. Financial institutions, unions, labor markets, retail merchants, design teams, etc.
American speakers with msrp over $25k and made in China are not a commodity. I can’t think of another, but I can think of dozens made here
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Sonus Faber made their low priced line called “Venere” in China for a few years.
It didn’t go well and they took back production of their lowest line to Italy.
Margin isn’t everything, in the end.
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We can agree to disagree, they have been commoditized.
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That’s a really big part of it. Also, if you walk around our warehouse/production area right now, you’ll be hard pressed to find a square inch not utilized. At this time, we just don’t have the team, space, and time. If PS speakers really take off and the option becomes more viable, I know we would love to have production right here in Boulder.
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Not sure where this is going but there’s a lot of misinformation here. That may be true about Sinus Faber’s low end line but the factory we’re using is one of the highest end factories in the entire world. Bar none. They still make their speakers, they still make really high end cabinets for plenty of other companies and I am not certain I am even supposed to be naming them. If it’s important maybe we can. But let’s not get carried away here.
Trust us. If there was anywhere else in the world with this quality we would be there (except maybe B and W’s main facility but they probably wouldn’t accept us as a customer 
)
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Well, I always find the factory tour of B&W’s diamond series manufacturing impressive. They’ve build up an impressive company over their many years in business but you need their massive scale to support their millions of investment into that tooling and facility.
The manufacturing partner that we’re using has done some products for competitors that are at or above these price points. Probably the most conspicuous is Andrew Jones’ TAD model one, but the monitor audio platinum line (also made there) extends up to the $35k mark. I’m sure that there are others as well (that I’m not aware of).
My expertise and value add is in the design and knowledge work (not cabinet manufacturing or paint process stuff) and so we’re leveraging some of the in-house expertise of a manufacturing partner with about 35 years in the speaker box business to make sure that we can execute this product at the highest level possible.
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Yeah, I wasn’t surprised at all. Makes sense.
For the record, TAD is a Japanese brand and Monitor is British, I believe.
If I were to take a wild guess at another expensive American speaker that could possibly be made in China, hmmm, maybe the top PSB (though I think that still under $20k)??? Would have to investigate and apologies to PSB if that not true.
Edit: My bad - PSB is a Canadian company
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I believe the really high-end Raidho speaker cabinets are made there as well. Chris, you can set me straight if not. I do know they are made at a great plant in China.
Thanks, Rudolph, a very sensible and accurate statement.
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I wonder if still the US politization of the China topic and the whole “America first” is echoing or if the discussion would be the same in case parts would be manufactured elsewhere outside the US. But due to the arguments I think it’s rather the latter than the first. Not sure if this kind of discussion would arise so repeatedly in other nations forums, but part of the matter is certainly present everywhere.
All I said that quality wise Made in China is not necessarily a bad thing.
I got myself EUR 3050 Made in Denmark Buchardt S400 Signature Edition speakers.
I would not pay EUR 40000 for speakers from a US Company that are entirely made in China. Mind you that PS Audio prices in Europe are based on US => EU tariffs and transport on top. So of the EUR 40000 a truck load of money goes into hauling the speakers around the world and paying tariffs to multiple countries it seems.
It just does not make sense shipping such huge speakers from China to Boulder, just to look at the outside of Chinese assembled and sealed speakers, prior to shipping them to me in Europe. For that money such speakers need to be made in the USA.
Indeed PS Audio’s videos about the new PS Audio building did suggest speaker production / assembly in Boulder.
Current market situation or impossibility to manufacture locally can not be the reason at this price point. Especially in Europe. For EUR 40000, Avantgarde Acoustic Uno XD horn speakers + Octave V70 Class A tube amplifier entirely made in Germany are available. Even then, there is plenty of budget available for EU made cables. Sure at that price there are a lot of Canadian, US or European made / manufactured high end alternatives.
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I don’t see “misinformation” here. (We so love that word lately.)
No one is suggesting that your speakers will be anything less than superb quality.
But somebody at PSA must have expected the announcement that the speakers are being made in China to come as a surprise to some at least.
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Your argument, that it is not possible to manufacture outside of China for the sales price of the FR30 is somewhat ignorant if you look at what locally produced high end speakers you can buy for that money. It does certainly not need to be 50% or even 100% more expensive. It’s simply PS Audio’s choice of business model.
Other companies business models make production in the US, Canada and Europe possible at the same or lower sales price point.
None of this however needs to have impact on the quality of the products. For PS Audio speakers more money goes into transport, tariffs, margin to finance local R&D and sales organizations.
Other brands avoid expensive shipment and tariffs of finished goods. Instead, that money goes into salaries and social benefits of local craftsmen.
A healthy mix of of these models ensure a reasonable balance. I am not against world economy, but I am against becoming completely dependent on it.
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Have any forum members preorder the new FR 30 speakers?
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Have you guys considered the fact that setting up a production facility and hiring qualified personnel may take many years and many millions of dollars? If PSA doesn’t have the capacity they can 1) do all of the above and start selling the speakers say 3 years from now at double the cost or 2) do what they’re doing.
Maybe they can’t afford option one and chose option 2.
It’s a fairly simple business decision: we want to make a new product. Do we risk the future of the entire company (zero Americans employed at PSA) or do we go the other route?
I’m not saying that’s in fact the case because obviously I have no clue. But people need to think through possibilities before making statements and judgments.
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Exactly. Magico’s facility looks like a laboratory. That just didn’t appear overnight. Nor did Sonus Faber’s or Focal’s. Just like so many things, the craft needs to be curated…refined over many years.
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