Why JVC XRCDs are so expensive?

They price at what the market will bear. The premium price supports a high end aura for XRCDs. If it costs more, it must be worth more. I mean guys that pay $10,000 for some old tube circuit oughta be able to handle 25 bucks for a CD, right?

OK, you can argue that XRCDs cost more to make. Their literature describes the upgraded engineering process that's employed, and we can appreciate the different packaging they use, with the cardboard holders and paper sleeves. But this can't be that much more -- not by $5 per disc, can it? I haven't ever seen the numbers, but I doubt it.

So I'm with you. We should all hope for a price cut. I'm even going to hold my breath until I turn blue.

One likely culprit is volume. Since the audiophile disc market is so small, JVC has to spread its fixed costs, like remastering, over many fewer units. But I wouldn't discount the idea that pricing it higher makes it seem better. (But an audiophile would *never* fall for that, right?)

And many of the JVC remasterings are available on other labels for something closer to mass-market list prices. This is a classic market segmentation move. You charge a high price for those folks who buy their CDs from, say, the Music Direct catalog, and a lower price for people browsing the bins at Tower Records.

Part of the reason is meticulous care taken at every step of the process, including replacing anything that can improve things when it is discovered. I understand some people think the price is too high. The sound sure is considerably better than conventional CDs, however. Whether it's worth it or not is obviously an individual decision.

New technology always has a price. I remember paying $15.00 for "Discovered Again" by Dave Grusin on Sheffield, new in 1978. Direct-to-disk records were very high priced compared to regular LPs at the time. Quality recordings are worth every penney.