Why so expensive??

We have an amp that costs $92,000... it takes 2 of our guys about 3 months of solid work to build it. Its on 4 chassis and makes a lot of power: 500 watts into 4 ohms and it has built in tube testing and power line regulation. At least when done you can *see* where the money went. OTOH I agree with the initial comments but there was some thread drift so I jumped in....

Why is oil near $100 a barrel? Pumping it out of the ground costs no more today than when it was $19 a barrel.

Answer is that there are people who will pay that price. To the extent that high end audio is an ego trip, a high price is a plus.

Sometimes it is better to look at other factors besides just the actual price. For example, I am in the lawn maintainence business (fancy way of saying I cut grass). My lawn mowers cost $10,000; $8500; and $3500. Some may baulk at that much for a lawn mower, but they are all Commercial equipment made to cut grass sometimes as much as 50 hours or more a week, do it quickly and with a quality cut without tearing up (usually). Compare this to the homeowners' model riding mowers that have Built-in obsolescense (designed not to last too long, so you will maybe buy a new model in 2-3 seasons instead of fixing the old one.)

So high-end audio is like commercial lawn mowers, you get what you pay for.(although I still wonder about six-figure speakers;)

Why is oil near $100 a barrel?

This is why.

Now back to regular programming......

Joeylawn36111, there lies the rub, do you get what you pay for? In many cases absolutely not and this hobby lends itself to many instances of that. Then there is some equipment that is expensive, is well built, good parts, sounds good, and is worth every penny to those that can afford it. On the other hand I think there is equipment out there where the price is inflated on any of those grounds.