Tube Amp Pricing

Wow thats a tough one its the quality of the parts and construction of the unit also were it is made that helps determine the price.

While there are plenty of tube amps that one could call over priced the reality is it's hard to make a truly good tube amp cheaply. Parts cost can be quite high transformers in particular can be quite costly and are critical to an amps overall quality. Other parts such as capacitors and wiring can also be rather pricey. Basically  in an amp with fewer parts the quality of those parts is even more important. Also the relatively beskope nature of these amps makes them that much more expensive, parts are bought in small quantities and cost more. Sometimes even vintage or very specialized parts are used. Factor in build time labor and a solid markup and you start from a fairly expensive "floor" cost. It's when you start seeing glitz and glam on amps and marketing hype and technobabble that prices start to skyrocket.

This question comes up periodically.  The answer in good part lies in the aesthetics.  The faceplate is often the most expensive element.  Then the rest such as the capacitors as mentioned, some use large banks of them, then volume ladders and other resistors, wire transformers  and so on depending on the design.

Thanks for the responses guys. It has been enlightening. Competition being what it is, I kind of figured pricing was where it should be.

I doubt it is where it should be(!)

Benchmark is an xlnt amp for $3k - I'd like to see the reliable listening tests of amps that can 'beat' it.

At some level one might select resistors carefully (maybe after caps, active devices, transformers, circuit design, etc.), so see this:
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1278251&page_number=1