Curious what people think is the best "value" high end speaker (~5K to 15K)

@markalarsen 

You're very right. People don't think much about the thousands of man-hours that go into developing a product. That not cheap. It's more than just creating the product design. It's designing and producing the tooling and jigs and quality systems. When it's done right you can produce an excellent product at low unit cost, recoup the development cost, and make a tidy profit to develop new products and grow the company. 

Westbam73,

What exactly about a speaker requires such finite considerations concerning the room? I suppose if you have some really unusual space you'd need to go to those lengths, but listening rooms really only fall into 3 or so categories; small, average, and large. Almost all ceilings are 8 or 9 feet. Almost all walls are sheet rock on white pine studs. 

I can promise you the drivers and crossovers Focal and B&W are using are far better tailored to their implementation than anything a DIY'er is building from Part Express or Madisound. Does the mid-range driver in a Focal Kanta No.3 cost that much more to build than the one in my 936? Probably a couple bucks more, at most. It probably didn't even cost as much to develop since the bulk of the tooling and technology was already created for the 900 series. 

I'm not stupid. I can build a good amp and sort it out with fairly basic equipment. I can't build a speaker and prove it does what I intend it to like a small army of engineers can. Maybe if I could buy a workshop full of woodworking tools, an AP and calibrated mics, find a huge quiet field, and really hone my woodworking skills I could build something that gets close to my Focal 936's, but it would take years and a lot more money than those speakers cost. 

Definitely (insert speaker you currently own) the Sopra 2’s.

I heard the Kanta 3 at a local dealers and very nearly bought it myself I was so impressed with its musicality and clarity, that even handled my 70's rock! That's a first for any focal speaker before it in its price. 

I still like my Magnepan 20.7 ($13,850)