These JL threads crack me up. Hating on a company because they are a commercial success. Don't see the hate on Focal, DLS, Rainbow, Brax Helix, RE, or any of the other companies that use legal pricing protection to help out their B&M dealers. Last I checked, all the above companies were priced far and away above the "overpriced" JL equipment.
I've still yet to see JL throw a "me, too" product on the market either. Every new product that has come from them, that I can remeber, has had several of their patents to go along with it.
Regardless of how overpriced you all seem to think that it is, the W7 is still used as the reference by which all other subs get judged. This is 4 years after it appeared on the market. Could it be that it might actually be a good product? JL didn't get in a position where they could charge a premium price for their product by luck. They got there by consistently developing new technology and bringing a superior product to market.
There aren't a lot of you on here that remember life before JL. Some of you weren't even alive then. Most of you don't have any concept of what it took to get the word out about a product without the benefit of the internet to spread the word for you. JL made their name in that context. They did it by designing and building a great product and then throwing it right on the biggest stage out there at the time, the IASCA circuit, and winning. Not just a time or two either, but consistently. Now that the only type of competition that most anyone knows about concerns who's the loudest, JL is bad-mouthed because they don't cater to that crowd. In the mean time the majority of the market is looking for a quality sound with music, not obnoxiously loud bass and JL is still doing their thing.
I'll say it for what seems like the 10,000th time. If you want loud, look somewhere else than JL. If you want accurate, JL is going to be a good place to start and maybe finish your search. When you put JL against its real peers, their prices aren't really that bad. Compare their prices to equipment from 10 yrs ago and figure in inflation. The amps especially are a bargain.
I'll thank the OP for this thread. I missed the introduction of the new products from pretty much everyone. I have been a little busy keeping track of things other than car audio products. I'm sure I'm not the only one.