with help from Connor Willemsen

Sometimes it seems like there’s no limit to the amount of money audiophiles will pay to have the ultimate audio experience. For those of you with bottomless pockets and seasoned ears, here are the most expensive speakers in the world.

7. ADAM Audio’s Olympic Sound System
$325,000

Featuring sixty drives, twelve built-in amps and digital sound processing unit, the OSS is a sonic powerhouse. The 8.5-foot tall speaker system has a frequency response from 18 Hz to 50 KHz.

6. Magico’s Ultimate
$354,000

The Magico Ultimate speaker system is a five-way system housed in 7.5-foot aircraft-grade hard-anodized aluminum enclosures, featuring four pairs of high-grade compression drivers with 8 ohms of impedance and sensitivity greater than 110 dB as well as a pair of subwoofers with 4 ohms of impedance and 88 dB sensitivity. The system has a frequency response from 22 Hz to 30 KHz. It also requires the use of 10 channels of premium amplification, which could easily run you an extra $200,000 but will benefit from the Ultimate’s ultra-efficient design and could produce levels comparable to a hard rock concert.

5. Acapella Audio Arts’ Sphaeron Excalibur
$380,700

Made for rooms that are at least 40m², Sphaeron Excalibur features three-dimensional sound and can handle 1,000 watts for 10 ms with no distortion. Handmade in Germany, these speakers are as pleasing to the eyes as they are to the ears.

5. CAT’s MBX
$500,000

California Audio Technology (CAT) specializes in custom speaker systems that are better than studio quality. These are usually built into their surroundings for maximum subtlety and are programmed with the layout of the room in mind. For those who want to show off their speakers, though, CAT can also make their speakers with their own housing.

4. Moon Audio’s Signature Titan
$500,000

At six feet and nearly 3,000 lbs, these limited edition speakers are no small matter. Their features include built-in auto-room tune correction and frequency response from 15 Hz to 90 KHz. Each of these systems are signed by the designer and only three have been produced.

3. Wisdom Audio’s Infinite Wisdom Grande
$700,000

Meant to be used in the largest of rooms, Infinite Wisdom Grande features twenty-four drivers per pair and an unprecedented number of transducers. They also happen to be over 13 feet tall and weigh almost two tons.

2. Kharma’s Grand Enigma
$1,000,000

Kharma, Dutch makers of top quality audio products, aren’t exactly forthcoming about the Grand Enigma. Reportedly, this expensive speaker system is entirely unique. What we do know is that the system was tested by a team of specialists and installed in a cellar in Belgium. Grand Exquisite, Kharma’s second most expensive speaker system, commands a mere $220,000 price tag.

1. Transmission Audio’s Ultimate
$2,000,000

At $2 million, Transmission Audio’s Ultimate system is truly the pinnacle of bank-breaking speaker systems. I’d wager it sounds pretty good as well.

Ultimate consists of twelve 500W speakers, an Audio Laboratory BP-1 dual-mono power amp and a BC-1 preamp. In addition to the already impressive array of speakers, Ultimate also features forty 15” subwoofers and another twenty-four 8” woofers. On the high-midrange and high frequency levels, ribbon technology is employed for high fidelity and reliability.

While reed instruments had been popular in Asia for centuries, the first harmonica wasn’t produced until 1821. Hohner Musikinstrumente, once the world’s most prominent manufacturer of harmonicas, was founded less than forty years later. In the 1930s, the company awarded Pope Pius XI with the most expensive harmonica in the world.

Pius XI was a scholarly pope who abhorred racism and often spoke out against Communism and Nazism. His greatest achievement, however, was the signing of the Lateral Treaty with Italy in 1929, which established Vatican City as an independent state.

The harmonica given to Pius XI by Hohner had brass reeds and a solid gold casing encrusted with jewels and ivory. The material cost of the harmonica is unknown but, as a papal artifact, one could easily call it “priceless.”

A Hohner harmonica

Luxury resort Atlantis, The Palm was the first resort to open on one of Dubai’s infamous artificial islands, The Palm Jumeirah. Of course, no grand opening would be complete without a party and, since it’s in Dubai, it just had to be the most expensive party in the world.

The luxurious beach party was set to have over 2,000 guests and featured an extravagant $6.58 million fireworks display. The highlight of the evening, though, was the 60 minute performance by Kylie Minogue. For her first ever performance in the Middle East, the pop queen banked over $4 million.

While the 1,539 room hotel opened on September 24th 2008, the world’s most expensive party was scheduled nearly two months later on November 20th. Reportedly, the extravagant beach party cost its hosts over $35 million.

Broadway theatre has its roots in the very end of the 18th century, when New York’s first theatre companies were formed. Nowadays, Broadway audiences can expect to see a mixture of well known television and movie stars and stage actors who only play bit parts outside of theatre. Considering the salaries commanded by film actors, let alone costumes and sets, it’s little wonder that Broadway productions can become quite expensive.

The most expensive Broadway production in history will be “Spider-Man: The Musical,” directed by Julie Taymor. Taymor is no stranger to Broadway, having directed “The Lion King,” based on the Disney film of the same name, in 1997. Feature films under her belt include Shakespearian gore fest Titus (1999) and, most recently, Across the Universe (2007).

Taymor isn’t the only big name attached to this production, though. Scoring the musical will be U2’s Bono and The Edge.

The most expensive Broadway musical in history is expected to cost around $40 million to produce. It’s expected to open next year and, according to the New York Post, will have to run “about 8,000 years” in order to break even.

If you’re looking for a guitar pick, there’s no shortage of different shapes, styles and materials available for you to choose from. Customized picks have been prevalent since the days when Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick would throw hundreds of them out into the audience. In fact, most famous guitarists have their own custom guitar [...]

A financially endowed bass player might look at any one of Jens Ritter’s bass guitars, which start at $6,000, and be content. After all, the German luthier’s expensive basses are made with some of the same techniques used to make Stradivarius violins. One customer, however, wasn’t satisfied with one of Ritter’s “normal” guitars and we’re [...]

(via Luxist)
Universal Music has unveiled the world’s most expensive compact disc at a Japanese department store. The disc, entitled “Woman: Sweet 10 Diamond,” features eighteen songs by female recording artists including Mariah Carey, Rihanna, Mary J. Blige and Nelly Furtado.
The disc’s real draw, though, is its case. Designed in Tokyo by Japanese jeweler Nagahori, the [...]

Looking for a top of the line audio system to put in your spacious new SUV? Why not try the world’s most expensive car audio system? Up and coming luxury audio system creators Rogue Acoustics made a splash when they unveiled their premiere car audio system, the RA:1K.
While the RA:1K is highly customizable, the majority [...]

Hiring a band is a great way to ensure that yours is a memorable party, but only if the band suits the attendees. How, then, do you impress a party that includes the social elite? You could try hiring one of the performers (or groups thereof) who have put on the most expensive private musical [...]

As one of the world’s largest consumer electronics trade shows, the IFA show in Berlin has certainly been host to some startlingly expensive electronic marvels. IFA 2007, which opened its doors on the last day of August, was no disappointment. Among the 1,212 exhibitors present at this year’s show was the aptly-named Audio magazine, there [...]

by Hunter Davis
Becoming popular in the late 1800’s, drum kits were revolutionized by the invention of the bass drum pedal that allowed a drummer to play on several percussion instruments at once like the snare, bass, and cymbals. Drum kits were popularized in the roaring twenties when their deep sounds and bright tones became a [...]

by Hunter Davis
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Have you ever tried to imagine what the world’s most expensive piano might be? Imagine no further. The most expensive piano in the world belonged to the Beatle’s John Lennon and was auctioned off to British pop-singer George Michael in 2000. When the topic of expensive pianos comes to mind you might think somewhere along [...]

The violin is probably the most popular bowed and stringed musical instrument. The instrument comes from Italy during the 16th century and the oldest surviving violin dates to 1564.
One expensive violin, the Lady Tennant Stradivarius, was sold by Christie’s New York in April 2005 for $2.03 million US dollars. There have been private sales of [...]

Portable digital audio players, more commonly referred to as MP3 players, have taken the world by storm since Apple released their original 1.8” 5 GB iPod in 2001. The iPod wasn’t the first MP3 player, though. The first of the modern successors to portable tape and CD players was produced in 1997 by SaeHan Information [...]

by Heather Strobel
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The turntable started out as a device used to play music by rotating a phonograph record on a a circular horizontal platform, but it has evolved into a music instrument itself and some models now are just as much as the costliest instrument. The record player was the most popular device for playing sound from [...]

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5. Puff [...]