Since the focus of this thread seems to be the retail price of the new Linn plinth, I thought it might be worthwhile to post this extract from Pro-Ject's literature on their most expensive Signature turntable, which has a retail price of 12,000 Euros (my emphasis)
We‘re thrilled to offer these turntables at an extremely attractive price, as the development cost is not counted, as we anyway had to do the research to move forward with Pro-Ject technology in general
Obviously, all the development costs have been amortized in the revenue stream from their mass market products!
Every manufacturer has to cover their costs and make some profit, or they will go out of business. Most manufacturers have high set up costs which have to be funded before the first unit makes its way to market. After that, there are the direct costs associated with each extra unit produced. So in setting a retail price, the manufacturer has to guess how many units they will sell so that the line becomes profitable once it reaches the breakeven number sold. If the price is too high, the number sold may not even reach breakeven.
If the manufacturer only produces high-end expensive gear, they may need very deep pockets. Wilson Benesch have been very adept at getting university collaboration and research grants to offset some development cost, at the time-cost of dealing with government!
Extreme examples of very high set up costs and low production costs include books, semi-conductor chips and polycarbonate disks which all have a unit direct production cost of around a dollar or less.
The above assumes that pricing is set on a rational value-for-money basis, but those rules don't apply to luxury goods where the consumer seemingly forgets about value-for-money and chases status and ego-boosting items. I don't think the Bedrok is flashy enough to fall into the luxury category!
