Not too surprising, I suppose. When a high end independent company gets bought out by a big conglomerate/investment firm, the bottom line becomes the only consideration. First, prices rise well beyond what the product is worth, leveraging the brand name. Then, when sales/profits fall, the brand name is leveraged to sell the low end gear with the high end falling away / becoming an afterthought. This seems to be the trajectory we have witnessed with ML since they got bought out. Wouldn’t surprise me at all at this point if they discontinued the electrostatic lines.
I bought my Summits in 2006. Top of the line. They were $10,000 for the pair retail. Now, the equivalent speaker is the Expression 15A. Which retails for $29,000 a pair! According to the BLS CPI inflation calculator, $10,000 in 2006 dollars should be about $15,000 in today’s dollars. So they’ve literally doubled their price on the top of the line (ignoring Neolith) electrostatic speaker, while adding very little additional performance. Speaking of the Neolith, it started at $89,000 a few years ago, if I remember correctly. It now lists at $120,000! Up by a third.
I honestly think they’ve priced themselves out of the market. ML is no longer high end, in my opinion. They are all about marketing, over-charging, mass production, and leveraging a once-iconic brand name to sell lower quality mass-produced products. Not that they don’t still make some quality electrostatic speakers. But they charge way more than they’re worth and that segment is probably becoming a smaller and smaller portion of their overall sales. It will surely disappear in a few years.
