Do audiophiles creat the high prices we complain about.
I do think we do it to ourselves by greatly considering pricing when we buy. A manufacturer has to have certain price points or their gear wouldn’t be considered worthy. I have had audiophiles tell me they want 10-25k speakers, not good ones the price comes 1st for many. Anything under those prices isn’t good enough in their minds.
Interesting and relevant question, always is. What can be merely observed is how price is oftentimes sought slavishly linked to sound quality, and it certainly ties neatly into a business model and how people generally identify themselves from a monetary standpoint; wealthy people buy expensive stuff, some simply because they can (uncritically) and others because it offers them a less restricted playground price-wise to explore their hobbies and interests.
Even in the latter case though, IMHO, price and what is normatively accepted has a tendency to become too rigid and dictating a marker, whereby the incentive to truly explore sound reproduction - irrespective of high AND low price, status, looks, segment, size and design principles - is sidestepped by market draw and the overall domination and appeal of the hi-fi industry as is.
Indeed: why buy something cheap when you can have and afford other stuff more expensive - why even bother? I don’t mean to imply I necessarily adhere to or endorse this kind of thinking and putting-into-action, but it goes to show there are mechanisms at work that effectively bypass an approach to sound reproduction that isn’t influenced by the allure and draw of what high prices (by virtue not least of being high) can offer.