As much I despise the current pricing "schemes" in High End Audio, one must understand the nature of producing any goods. One (there are many
) of the elephants in the room is cost, another
is competition. Marketing is a necessary evil and it adds to cost. Add to that R&D and stakes, and learning and acts of god and the global market and the internet ... These are not as you put it "
completely irrelevant to speaker performance" ... They are indeed much relevant ... in DIY one doesn't tally or calculate the costs, if anything the acquisition costs are those most visible and often from the DIYselfer perspective the most important ... Time to build, Time to learn, electricity, logistics, DIYselfer own time/cost, her or his own R&D are not accounted for, never accounted for ... The end result can well be glorious. it often has unrealized or ignored costs that may rival in some instances that of equivalent full baked products.