A Little Hypocrisy?

Well...

Actually manufacturing a CD costs pennies. Lets say 20 cents for arguments sake. If you buy the CD for $20.00 that is 100 times the price of what the disk actually costs to make. A good rule of thumb in high end audio is that the 'ACTUAL cost of the parts to make a component is around 10% of the retail price'. Maybe a little less or more depending on manufacturer. This does NOT INCLUDE the labor that goes into making the product.

Basically audio products are marked up 10 times parts costs
CDs are marked up 100 times parts costs

Now there are also OTHER costs involved in making a CD, you have to pay the artist their cut (which is less than $1 per CD sold under most contracts, for a singer to get more than $1 they have to be REALLY big, like say Madonna or U2, many artists get around 30 to 50 CENTS a CD sold.) You have to pay Sony/Phillips a cut ($1 or so) because they have the patent on the CD. And finally the record company has to pay the production and promotion/distribution costs involved in the production of a CD. I do not know what this figure is, but it sure as heck CANNOT be $17 per CD. I could believe $5 or maybe $10, but $17 sounds like price gougeing.

Audio manufacturers have Labor and R&D/production overhead they have to factor into the selling of any product. These percentages vary from company to company.

HOWEVER, when you break it all down, a record production company is marking CDs up way higher than Audio manufacturers are. The sad thing is that CD prices have risen through the years. When CDs first came on the scene they were $15 or so per disc. Now most are at least $15 if not $20. Through the past 20 years it has become ALOT cheaper to make CDs. Heck many people can now make their own CDs at home with their coomputers.

Annyway, I must get back to work.

KF

Ok, I will admit that audio cables may be more marked up (or on par with CDs) than CDs.

I was mainly referring to electronical components. The stuff the post is initially referring to: $5k CDP, $10k amp.

Cables themselves do cost very very little to produce in many instances. However, many cable companies swear that their high end cables cost lots of R&D to produce.

My 2C

KF

Guys, Postage is now 37 cents a stamp.
Frankly I think postage is a rip off due to the fact we have email now. Most stuff can be done electronically. And this is why the post office is raising rates. More and more people are using email.

Always remember that Baseball players were almost effectively slaves to the owners up until about 30 or so years ago when they were granted 'Collectively Bargaining'. Little by little the Owners have tried to whittle away at their collectively bargaining agreement. Anyway, one must always remember... If the players do not make the money, the OWNERS will. Do you think an Owner deserves to make hundreds of millions a year or many players make millions a year? It is easy to say ticket prices shall be cut and sallaries decreased/rolled back... BUT this is not how our 'Free Market' economy works. Short of the fans stop going to see the baseball games, ticket prices will not drop and neither will players salaries. So we can blame us fans for inflated players salaries.

Now about CDs... In some instances, the CDs could be compared to the baseball players and we are the fans. Until we quit buying them and record companies start loosing money hand over fist, record companies are probably not going to reform the way they market/distribute/sell CDs. Personally, I would like everyone to boycott the digital medium altogether. But that is a nieve wish.

I tend to buy CD's from Boarders Books because I know the low profit margins that are in new book dealing. New book stores tend to loose money every month except for November and december.

This and 37 cents will get you a 1st class stamp.

KF