Inflated prices in audio

Not being funny but I put a post into the thread about SME no longer selling tone-arms on their own saying they are not silly priced - I then had to row it back a bit when I saw that the SME V retails at £5500. 110 years ago it was half that price. My salary ain't doubled.

Likewise there are some real silly price audio equipment. If you index link top end audio from the 80's they would still come out significantly cheaper than now.

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

Is there any logical explanation for this? I think magazines like hi-fi world and what hifi are fairly responsible and do review a lot of real world products, but other publications are fixated with the utterly un-affordable.

What do you 'goners think?