I was recently in the home of an old friend who reps for a few ultra high end audio companies.  The entry level speakers were $30k.  The mids, $90k.  The 700lb top shelf models? $220k.<p>Some things exist purely so they can have their purchase price shared and in the instance of high end audio, I can only imagine the margins involved.<p>If this guy made the waves the article implies then someone in the industry tracked him down and incentivized him to go away.