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General audio topics that don't fit into specific categories.

Sure it does

Small production runs, old school distribution systems with one or more middlemen, and hot-rodding/refining mature tech. None are good news for making things cheap to a customer.

Agree that sometimes the sonic good aren't delivered. But sometimes they are. I feel dCS can justify their high prices, for instance. I think Bricasti can as well. Sony's AR speakers - you bet - and in fact for $20-30k speakers they offer a relative value. Pioneer has a great lineup - the TAD stuff for ne plus ultra. Expensive as stink, but they deliver. The "trickle down" in the Pioneer labels go from $10k to $129/pr. All of them solid value for money, though it can be big money.

I think part of the issue is simple - you do start hitting the laws of diminishing returns pretty hard, where for every increment of improvement, the costs can rise exponentially. And you add it into an audience who really don't care about the costs - they want the sound - and the prices will rise even more. And the companies will pursue hot rodding as improvements

I think each design has a technology and cost level that is their comfort zone, and that's what they tend to do best. Most aren't too deep in people to spread it out much.

Some of the perception of "it used to be cheaper" - is in some cases, it didn't sound as good. And in some cases where it did (such as tube gear and turntables/tonearms) - the economies of scale aren't there anymore, and the assembly methods tend to be labor intensive - which will drive costs.

And I do not dispute that some simply charge more. But realize the altitude gives people more room to hot-rod for incremental improvements at greatly increased costs.
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"You are precisely as big as what you love and precisely as small as what you allow to annoy you." ~ R A Wilson


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