Why is the price of new tonearms so high

It is all about marketing. Brand name has value because it is a reputation built over years. But these days, the wall street types push that "value" to the limit. Every generation of brand name product released comes with a 25% increase in price. Manufacturing costs continue to decrease as more products are outsourced to China. So profits have to be at an all time high. Gives new meaning to High End.
I see the resell prices of used products showing the real value of a product. A lot of high end products take substantial equity hits on the used markets.

"I see the resell prices of used products showing the real value of a product. A lot of high end products take substantial equity hits on the used markets"

nO DOUBT.

Has anyone actually heard either of the Continuum arms? Your thoughts would be appreciated.

Dear Daniel,

I believe these are among the few key features of any great pivot tonearm design. All truely great pivot tonearms do have these 4 in common (except the Graham Phantom - which I would include in my list).

The DaVinci does not have azimuth adjustment. Do you not consider this arm "truly great"?

I disagree that the prices of 'new' tonearms is high.
Apart from the incredible investment in research and computer and materials modeling by a company like Continuum for their Cobra and Copperhead arms which sell in very small volumes, I believe it is the cost of new cartridges primarily, and new turntables secondly that inflate the relative pricing of new tonearms?

When it is fairly common for a LOMC cartridge to cost from $4,000-$6,000 and the new 'benchmark' cartridges $10,000-$15,000, how silly would it seem for the tonearm (which I believe to be more critical than the cartridge) to cost a mere $3,000?
When you include the fact that the cartridges will be worthless in 2 years whilst the tonearm will hopefully last 20-30 years, the equation looks fairly ridiculous?
And who in his right mind, would mount a $3,000 tonearm on his $60,000-$160,000 turntable?