Why is the price of new tonearms so high

Hi Pär, Raul's will be a market product.
Mine will only be available for a few selected audiophiles - but I will nevertheless publish the tonearm.
As I said - kind of the long requested "acid test" (... and I will proof, that it will withstand even aqua regia ).
The big problem is - this is one thing I guess Raul and I agree upon - that you can't put an "all-assault"-top flight component to the market today with a price tag lower than the competition.
If a new Top-high-end tonearm is introduced and his price tag is half of the big Continuum, new DaVinci, Air Tangent (still around ?) etc. - no one will take it seriously.
In other words: you introduce the "best universal tonearm" ( NOT my words...) to the market and put a retail price tag on it of US$3890,-.
There are hundreds of potential buyers on this planet who won't take it seriously and will not even consider buying it to test.
No matter how fancy the cosmetics - no matter if its coming in a cherished antique finish wooden presentation box with gold plated dressings.
You put a price tag of US$20 000,- on the very same tonearm and you will sell 3 dozens to the far east market (and to Russia...) in the first 3 weeks.
Why ?
Because with this price tag the tonearm does transport a huge image, status and "face" to its buyer.

Strange new (not really...) world....

Cheers,
D.

P.S.: don't blame me now if R's tonearm comes with a very serious price tag...... its the market and the human nature who are to blame.

Hi All,
does the world need yet another tonearm, I ask?
Me, - I'm not so sure actually.

But here a few point I took note of:

We were getting our knickers in a twist over dynamic vs. static arm balance (all know by now what this is, yes?).

Along comes the innocent-man talking about a uni-pivot arm. Most of all, that ALL the best arms are uni-pivots - ha, hallo!
And nobody even raised a flag?!
Since we all have listened by now to the apparent 'must have' of dynamic balance ---- show me a uni-pivot with dynamic VTF!
THAT, is a contradiction in terms, and so the best arms (uni-pivot) are now fine sans dynamic balancing??

In fact, even a knife-bearing = pivoted (but not gimbled, like a compass) can NOT use dynamic balancing. The spring action will want to lift the arm off the bearing(s), and make it rattle.

As to the most talked about and therefore = best arms by deduction = uni-pivot --- Anti Skate is almost as problematic too.
The Skating force is not equal from begining to the end of a record, so any Anti-Skate is yet again a sort of compromise. With a uni-pivot it has the tendency to tilt the arm i.e. affect best chosen azimuth.

So then we can carry on by adding magnet stabilizers like AudioCraft and Graham, or add more pivot points like a 4Point Kuzma, but dynamic balancing --- no go!

So are we saying these arms "the most talked about" are also sub-optimal?
I really don't know, but it would suggest some designers are truly busy wasting their time with faulty design principals.

To be complete, all those 'string suspended' arms would of course also fall into the 'sub-optimal', as NO dynamic balance can/aught to be applied there also.

Funny thing is, those arms were all tested and found to sound really very good --- now what?

Axel

Yes thats the big problem, its always the tradeof between making money and having "street cred"/philantrophy. Anything that is slightly better than the previous best can always command a higher price but its also a cheap advertising trick raising your price up to the top and signaling Im the alpha male and thereby getting a head start. Its a lot more fun charging a lower price and still getting the respect you deserve for having the best(if a best can be established) product.

So as I said be real interesting to see where you two put your prices.

Hi Axel, we certainly do not need another tonearm.
Same with amplifiers, TTs, cartridges, Flat screen TVs, cars, airplanes, ships etc.
Its a matter of passion and to see if the current frontiers are the last.
Its about the entire search for (sonic...) beauty in mankind's world.

As for the different toenarm bearing-concepts and different concepts regarding balance.
Yes, - many ways may lead to Rome - but there is only one Via Appia and only one straight road leading direct to the Forum Romanum.......

The other roads lead to the center of Rome too - but the city-center is/was pretty large...... I want to go straight up to the first step of the capitol stairs and park my 4-horse-chariot there (I do not want to walk - its a fairly long road...) ..... SPQR.

And it will be most entertaining for me to boldly go where no man has gone before...... (...I really miss Captain Jean-Luc Picard and his discussions with Q.....).

Back from outer space to ancient Rome.
The old latin term "optimus" does not name a heterogenous group.
There is only one.

Sorry about that - its not my fault nor did I invent it.
Although I might very well again get some critics to bringing this up again.

Don't take it all too serious...
In humble remote.....
D.

All,
does the world need yet another tonearm, I ask?
Me, - I'm not so sure actually.

Hi you,
all is said since Side 1 in this Thread but let's repeat.
You can try it very easily:
you have SME, go out and buy a Phantom Arm with SME mount and do a comparison.
When you hear no difference: great, you save a lot of money in future
When you hear a difference: great, but for what?
In my experience from the last 10 years when I listened to many Systems and spoke with owners I can say, even in very expensive systems it is possible you can't hear a difference between Arm A and Arm B, Cartridge A or Cartridge B, when the System itself is limited all components are stopped at this limit. You can hear a little change but not the whole.
Most of these owners do a kind of description they read somewhere in a magazine, they stored it in their brain and after some time they reproduce it as a quality fact.
Based on that they sit in front of their Altar and want to spend money. They want to move on. But they don't want to sell their overpriced crap because it has got so many "super reviews" and all others "know" this brand and they are a serious audiophile in public.
When owning everything and knowing that it is more or less the same (stop, they don't know it, when they would know they would make a decision to go a real step ahead) they look for the wonder component, the one which makes the whole Systems 3x better than every Live-Performance.
This wonder unit can't be cheap. It has to be expensive. Wrong. More than expensive.
Limited.
And super expensive. Only that gives the guarantee that all others look up to my lips and this makes the audiophile world running.
We want it to, but we can't afford it. but some day, or in the next life, I will buy a Lyra "Olympos" (or Allaerts or a 50K Koetsu) too and I feel good.
Only this can give the real turn around in reproduction.
Ahem, can I do a pre-order (heheh, I am joking...)?