Inflated prices in audio

I'm not convinced that the best high-end from now is necessarily better than the stuff back then - different perhaps.

Okay well then you could stand to get out more.

Starting from 1973, all the way on through to today, I've been comparing and buying and upgrading. Your doubt is probably only justified because you haven't heard as much stuff as I have. Its absolutely not true. Some of the best bargains in history are being made right now, today. And yeah they come dear. Nothing new there. Always have.

Now full disclosure, what I am going to say is far from true for every manufacturer. Plenty make overpriced doo-dads. I'm only talking about the best. More to the point I'll talk about the one I have 30 years direct experience with: Synergistic Research.

Two concrete examples. My speaker cables and main interconnect were SR Resolution Reference level from the 90's. They cost roughly let's just call it $1k each since I've long since forgotten. Well, ask yourself, what could you buy back in 1993 for $1k? So not only the components but the money itself has changed. But that's another subject.

Anyway back when they were made I was hooked up real good in the audio biz with access to home audition pretty much everything, and with a dealer trusted enough if he said there is nothing better then guess what, there really is nothing better. Or at least every time I thought he'd be proven wrong he wasn't. So I had a pretty good knowledge of the market, and you totally could not do better than these, certainly not for anywhere near the price.

But the trick is when the next generation comes out and you go to upgrade. Which I have done across two generations: Resolution Reference (non-active) to CTS Active Shielding, and Resolution Reference to today's Atmosphere Level III Euphoria. The RR speaker cables went from about $1k to $7500 for CTS. I got mine used for $1200 and had Michael Spallone mod the MPCs, but even before that they were a huge, and I mean unbelievably huge, step up from RR. Same story with the interconnects, except the latest generation Atmosphere no longer requires active shielding and is another huge leap up in performance.

Actually just got off the phone with Betty at high end-electronics.com who will be sending me some Orange Fuses to upgrade my Blues. Prime example for you, as everyone says the Orange is improved more relative to Blue than Blue was to Black. For like $10 more you get like $150 worth of improvement.

These are by the way for $150 more improvement than most $500 power cords, not to mention something not even available 30 years ago. So you totally get what you pay for. You just have to make sure and find the ones worth it, and not just go blow it on the first thing some web boob blabs on about.

Is there any logical explanation for this? 

Of course there is! Everything costs more today. That's one. So even as as fast as productivity increases money depreciates even faster. (See: fractional reserve, fiat currency.) But then also some of this stuff is just plain harder to do. Ted Denney has to buy a freaking Tesla generator that sounds like a hurricane just to quantum tunnel a fuse. Maybe you have priced Tesla generators, I haven't, but I bet they don't come cheap. Then too you got precision skilled assembly. Most of all over everything you got the cost of building and testing tons of failures and dead-ends. A task that only gets harder as we get into the thin air of perfect.

" 110 years ago it was half that price."
Wow, they have been in business for a long time ... ;-)

1 - Shift from a hobbyists pastime to consumer's pastime.
2 - Lack of cognoscenti3 - Belief that sales price determines quality.

This is why the true audiophile can be happy spending less. He/She is guided by their own ear and pleasure and is not lured by bigger and more expensive gear which may have no merit for them. 

I wish I was unscrupulous enough to start a business selling fuses and power cords! As the old prospectors said: "There's GOLD in dem dar hills!"

Why have prices gone up? Simple, there are fewer middle-class people buying and more ultra-rich. Manufacturers therefore aim at the latter.

It is easier to sell one item for $1M than a million for $1 each!

Inflated prices in audio

Especially in the snake oil products, like >$150 for a 50c fuse would have to be the worst, just gouging the gullible for all they’re worth, with ridiculous profits for the manufacture that has no shame or conscience .

I wish I was unscrupulous enough to start a business selling fuses

You have to have no conscience or shame, and a handful of shillers, so you do get your hand dirty by posting here.

Cheers George

@georgehifi I was just being satirical! I am appalled by the prevalence of voodoo and Flat Earth Science on today's audio scene! Certainly the Internet has given the charlatans, grifters and crazies access to a worldwide audience of the easily fooled and neurotic!

To quote David Coverstar...... " Here I go again!"

Looks like some have found a new thread to rant into their beer.

If you think the prices are inflated don't buy anything stick with your 80s set up.

Can the "fusers" stop stalking members.

Ebm.

I love my 80,s system!

It gets a lot of use still.

The real question is ... Have prices risen, or has the value of money gone down?

See millercarbon's comment:  

• "(See: fractional reserve, fiat currency.)"

Frank

@dill 
LOL - sticky keyboard on my appllllleee maaac - that not only would have been in business a long time - but also they's be a wealthy company had they sold it for about £2500 in large numbers over that time period.

@mike_in_nc and @roberjerman may well have hit the nail on the head. 


I must say that I hate cables with a passion - but that may be just because my own amp - LAvardin IT - tends to like very simple cables like DNM or Nordost Flat (the most basic). I have tried others (ie Nordost Heimdall 2) but keep coming back to the DNM cables. I make that point at the outset to set out my own prejudice as I am sure many will say that exorbitant cable prices are justified (especially in the context of their own systems). My pre-amble is set out because I think cables really have taken a life of their own in the last 20 years. I appreciate some of this reflects research - but the high end electronics in the past did not lack research costs. 

I make a speculation, but could it be that the big companies who do the investment don't tend to concentrate as much an audio and as such the small one man bands try to recuperate everything on a single/few sales?

Cause companies aren't selling as much so making it up with increased prices. 

Theres more great audio gear being manufactured and sold by more companies than at any other time in history. Fact. It just might not be in the form you think should qualify but its a fact.

The whining about monetary policy and inflation always cracks me up. Its usually from those who actually benefitted from the money supply expanding from the date of their birth or from those who yearn for the days of 15% cd’s. I know of some who have been sitting in cash for years, certain that a market crash is just over the horizon. Jeez.

I am developing a special "air" which transmits sound better than the usual air.  I will market it and sell it for a million dollars per cubic foot.  Audiophiles will gladly buy it.

@cakyol....but, does it get you high as well?  Obviously, it Has to be 'rarified' to be worth it....
While you're at it, make sure the mark, I mean, client understands the need for the special 'room sealant' to contain the RareAire...as well as the new windows, doors, air exchange/filters, compressors, vacuums, power system.....all ISO'd, UL'd, and anything else you can come up with...;)

Go gittum, tiger...

I am developing a special "air" which transmits sound better than the usual air.

Too late mate!!! that’s what SR uses inside their $170usd voodoo fuses!!!!

Cause companies aren’t selling as much so making it up with increased prices.

And some are unscrupulous, and selling cheap to produce snake oil that has 1000% markup.

lohanimal"I must say that I hate cables with a passion"

I cannot imagine what cables might have done to you to invoke, provoke, and incite such profound emotional response from you in reaction to a completely inanimate object.

What about inflation in the second hand market? A guy in Rijeka ,Croatia is selling a Shun Mook quartett. He couldn`t sell it for 1500Eur, so he raised the price to 2000 and now above. 

cakyol, if we are to take at face value the announcement, "I am developing..." I wish to inform you that farting will not improve the sound quality of your system. ;) 

The December 2019 edition of Hi-Fi News carries an old review of the SME V by Martin Colloms from June 1986, the price of  the arm was £1188, not exactly inexpenive at the time. Mine cost £2300 in April 2010 albeit for the "VD" model with detachable headshell. High retail prices in audio must reflect the fewer people now interested and buying hi-fi generally. Looking back one forgets what good value some kit was back in the day - my Michell Gyro Dec was priced at a "mere" £659 back in 1992 and it serves me well to this day. The SME VD will be/is my final upgrade though !!!. Steve M

Consumer beware. It is always that way. Human's are extremely dangerous animals. How many friends do you REALLY trust with your wallet, your car, your kids or your wife. 
Having said that many high end manufacturers have very ethical business models. They make their living on their least expensive models
not their signature pieces. They do not sell very many ultra expensive models and have to amortize the cost of development over sometimes as few as two or three units. The benefit of doing this is to use the technology down the line in less expensive units and get a few very rich fan boys to pay for the development. Pass labs is now using XS circuitry even in their least expensive units. 

I THINK the 3009II--might be wrong on that model number as it was 45 years ago--was $135.00--when I sold them.

They were considered "middle of the road" for sound quality back then--1974.  Better arms--not sure of the names these days--were put on the best tables at the time.  Linn Sondek and the new "direct drive" tables from Technics were big back then.  Thornes was considered the "old guy." 

The MOST FUN table, that did not in any way work, was the Michell Transcriptor.  We had one on display with an SME arm, as I remember--could be wrong--but it was a real showpiece.  Didn't actually play any records, but darn nice to watch turn around.  Expensive, too, and pretty hard to assemble as I remember.

Funny to see SME arms at such a high price.  Should have bought another dozen from Shure back then, I guess...

Cheers!

Try to manufacture a quality product for a fair price - what ever that means.  In today's world, how many of them do you think SME sells each year. Cost to manufacturer, dealer mark-up, etc. leaves very little profit margin unless you can get a higher priced product sold. No to mention equipment cost and maintenance, paying people on your staff even when things are not selling that well, competition allover the place, etc.

VPI just came out with their 40th anniversary model at half the price of the one they built a few years back.  Not cheap but that was a big achievement for a manufacturer.

Her is my take .
I was at the biggest and best Audio Show in the world in Munich , Germany with a good friend who was CEO of a small German audio company .
Couple other "big-shots" wandered up and he introduced me in English .They were talking about this market and that in German and kept mentioning the " sucker market" , I assume they thought I didn’t speak German , which I do , and then quite well .
As they left I asked my buddy whats this sucker market ? He smiled and said the USA .

@clearthink I don't like cables because there are just too damn many - I have tried quite a few (as per my post) and having gone in circles come back to my DNM cables which are as cheap as chips but work very well with my amp/system (which actually love DNM cables). 

People go on about the r&d in cables - well how about the R&D into creating the CD player/Blue Ray/ OLED TV's - now that's research. 

Please note my prejudice is system specific and I am sure that some systems do favour certain cables, and the further caveat that from the Vetere cables I have used they are much better than Lavardins' own interconnects. I just get slightly sick of the claims over cables - that's all

Well, if a slice of NY pizza can go from 50 cents in the '80's to $3.00 today, I would say the dollar has taken a hit.
B

In 1930 a twenty-dollar gold piece would by a man a nice suit of clothes, a shirt, tie, belt, socks and a nice pair of shoes. Today, that same twenty-dollar gold piece could still buy that same outfit.

Today, a twenty-dollar Federal Reserve Note would buy you a couple pair of nice socks.

That’s the money story in a nutshell.

Frank

@oregonpapa ,
Unfortunately, we left the Gold Standard years ago.

In fact, a $20 Saint Gaudens gold coin would buy quite a bit more.
Bob

" Well, if a slice of NY pizza can go from 50 cents in the '80's to $3.00 today, I would say the dollar has taken a hit."

Or, the quality of the pizza has ....

From Erik.....

This is so true     
1 - Shift from a hobbyists pastime to consumer's pastime.
2 - Lack of cognoscenti3 - Belief that sales price determines quality.

This is why the true audiophile can be happy spending less. He/She is guided by their own ear and pleasure and is not lured by bigger and more expensive gear which may have no merit for them.