How much should you pay for a speaker cabinet?

I remember paying between £300 and £400 for a Marshall 1960AV 4x12 cabinet about 10 years ago. The price has increased, as I'd expect prices to inflate over time. A quick search and I can see it on sale for £489. I could probably spend longer looking and find it cheaper.

And then I look at Engl. The equivalent Engl cabinet is the Engl Pro Cabinet E412. In the UK, it's £899! They make superb products and I like the cabinets a lot, but not enough to pay almost twice as much.

Think about this, they both contain the same drivers; Celestion Vintage 30s. The current retail price for 4 of these is £278. Remember that's the retail cost, not the wholesale cost and only for four, so no volume discount for 1000 speakers.

That leaves over £600 for Engl to build a speaker cab and baffle out of wood, place some covers on the corners, put a metal grille and their own logo for advertising on the front, some casters on the bottom and wire up the drivers to a mono/stereo socket on the back. That's a nice £600. Even if you take design expertise and time, the cost of logistics, it still ends up with a lot of profit somewhere in the chain.

Don't get me wrong, the Engl E412 is an awesome cab. I prefer it to the Marshall 1960AV, but the Marshall is cheaper and lighter. With the current price difference, I'd find it awkward to recommend the Engl E412. I still believe that the Marshall 4x12 cab is the benchmark to work with and Engl is not performing well against that benchmark when price is a factor.

Fortunately the prices seem better if you live in other countries - so much for the benefits of a free market in the EU then. Take the US for instance, Musician's friend have the following prices for the Marshall and Engl with only $300 between the two products! Makes more sense to buy the Engl cab to go with your new Engl Powerball or other Engl amp

Marshall 1960AV

Engl Pro 412