Is it possible for a high end manufacturer to overprice their goods?

Once said, the comments made by Pope Francis and the criticism of materialistic values is a slippery slope. Consider a $133k or $3k pair of loudspeakers. If you get on his slope then you have to ask, "Why should we enjoy any stereo or hometheater system when there are poor people living in cardboard boxes?" We also would then have to ask, "Who’s to decide how much we are allowed to spend, if anything, on loudspeakers?"

Who's to decide? Are you suggesting that there should be no limits? 

@hilde45

"hyperbolic price increases"

When the "market" determined that a $4 cup of coffee could actually be enthusiastically adopted when the "norm" was 99 cents -- with free refills, it may have been a good example of a game changer? It might be interesting to take a granular approach and determine how consumers prioritized the elements of that $4 cup of coffee at the time: "the coffee"- 99 cents, "being actively involved in the coffee culture"-99 cents, "looking good while I’m drinking coffee"-99 cents, "an affluent, unique experience"- 99 cents, "free wifi" - 4 cents?

Now take those numbers and project a straight line out to 100,000 times that investment ($400k) while removing the word "coffee". Is there some level of consistency in the motiviators?

Last year I heard the just released Burmester 216 and was very impressed with the liquidity and the ease of operation driving a Sonus Faber Lilium. I asked the sales rep. the usual generic questions and $35k was quoted. I thought this an extreme value when considering brand/build quality and near reference SQ. When comparing the Burmester to any Hegel amp(mid fi darlings?) which company is making more profit(%) on a component. Compare the Hegel H30a at $20k? and the Burmester 216. My conservative guess is the the Burmester is at least 3x more costly to produce. Clearly the Burmester is a superior product and represents better value.

The question is whether the Supra expensive product is delivering an outcome that can’t be achieved at a lower expense 

my dress watch from Tiffany has a quartz mechanism that keeps perfect time and requires a 75 dollar battery change every 3 years

the same model with an automatic movement is 4 times the price, requires a 500 dollar overhaul in 5 to seven years and is less accurate

Resale in my quartz is 20 percent cs cs the automatic held its original price

perception of the value does not match the reality.   Same with tubes bs solid state.  We don’t use tubes to make our TVs have a less clear picture that is more natural

@waytoomuchstuff 

Now take those numbers and project a straight line out to 100,000 times that investment ($400k) while removing the word "coffee". Is there some level of consistency in the motiviators?

I guess...yes? This is clearly in your wheel house, so I'm trying to follow out the logic. My guess is that whether the coffee/audio analogy can be extrapolated in this way would depend on empirical psychological factors which someone could study. It sounds like commonsense to me, but the devil would be in the details! ;-)