Yes, your instincts are correct that building and finishing a cabinet is the time consuming and potentially expensive part. Despite that, these kits are a pretty good deal. They also are very good sounding speakers. Commercially available equivalents might cost about $1000 to $1500 retail per pair.
Hi, thanks for the response. My problem is the pricing structure shows that by far the best deal is the fully finished cabinet with minimal assembly required, which is what set off my instictive B.S. alarms. Comparatively, there's very little discount in buying just the components alone, which doesn't seem right.
Then there's the economy of scale: Big speaker manufacturers can pump out volumes of product at lowered expense to themselves, passing on some of that savings. In the past, there have always been a few good performers even in the brands sold at mainstream stores.
I have my reservations about value of this particular kit, imo GR kits could really compete with $1000-1500 speaker.
I'd rather have CMT-340 SE Mini-Tower Loudspeaker
Thanks for the link. Perhaps this is one of the low priced performers out there, but without hearing it, it's hard to make the leap. I'm certainly not drawn in by looks alone! LOL
Needless to say I was so pleased w/ the Tritrix that I dove in head first and didn't look back. The real question is really based on you. What's your time worth and do you enjoy building cabinets? If not I'd say go to the store and buy some speakers cuz I haven't finished the exterior of the Tritrix yet, but after I do I don't think it would be cost effective to sell a pair for less than $1000 just because of the amount of finish time I'll have into them (depending on the finish I decide on). I love building cabinets and finishing hardwood so for me its a hobby, not a living.
For me, the end product is my hobby (the sound), and looking into the kit route is simply a means to an end to get there as inexpensively as possible.
In subwoofers, it's always been a no-brainer to build my own. Mainstream companies can't afford to allow low frequency extension and tight dampening to compromise mid-bass efficiency when selling to the masses; only the marked up high end subs are worth a hoot. And thanks to the car audio industry, drivers are plentiful and relatively cheap.
But I don't think any of these factors are there for a speaker kit. Not many companies sell drivers (outside car audio), most speakers don't need to have LF response, and people don't get fooled with a loud one-note boom when looking for actual speakers.