Why is the price of new tonearms so high

Hi D.
"The world wants to be deceived, so let it be deceived."

... modern day marketing (which incidently is my profession....

So is that by any chance some kind of confession about your 'profession', and what you therefore keep telling us?

Dear Axel, ....rather the implication, that I very well realize the mechanisms of the game....

Dear T_bone, glad to see you back. Its not roman origin this time (but I admit - it would fit...), but swiss/german 15th century renaissance satirc essay in latin (not uncommon back then).
The damping is the more effective the softer the material in conjunction with surface area covered and how "sticky" the damping really is (blue-tech et al....).The usual chewing gum-like material does "eat" up some of the vibration by transfer in heat (no joke! - same method as Sorbothane - vibration (=energy) transfered into heat (=energy).
This is of course hardly measureable, but its the way it works.
Other way of damping a tonearm is heat skrink pipe - large area and good damping. This is an old trick on the SME V (Axel !!) to eliminate its vibration peak towards the bearing (blue-tech works fine too).
Often far more effective than any damping by oil-filled through.
Cheers,
D.

Dampening material coverts the mechanical vibrations into heat. Very effective on just about everything. You wouldn't be able to stand riding in your car without it.
But don't expect to improve your system by putting dampening material everywhere. Too much of a good thing is a bad thing. Just like too much dampening of your listening room can make your stereo sound lifeless and dull.

Hallo D. , T_bone

>>> Other way of damping a tonearm is heat skrink pipe - large area and good damping. This is an old trick on the SME V (Axel !!) to eliminate its vibration peak towards the bearing (blue-tech works fine too). <<<

Eish, funny, YOU 'FR man' should mention THAT :-)
Let's a take a cart/arm, switch of the phono-pre and then listen running the record.
I don't know the FR from listening (only pics) but any R300, or 9c will happily chirp along to the music that you can easily hear it from the listening place, in fact with the R300 much further.
That is some dead give away about arm resonance (damping?).
Now take a current SME V and ---- you hear NOTHING, until you put your ear VERY close to the arm tube. So, I guess we need no 'socks' with a V then.

Next, still with 'socks', I actually did a test to see what would happen if you 'sock' an arm - the V.
Guess what? The material plastic, rubber, you can now 'hear' as an unusual signature being added to the sound. Amplifiecation at 10 000x has just that effect. (Mess with the arm, and you will hear it)

So, it's that 'effect' that is either to once liking or not, like the ringing of a bell.
Cast iron sound crappy in deed, bronze rather beautiful by comparison.

Last point, where does it go (the resonance?) it dissipates in heat eventually (even without a sock), but arm designers talk of 'sinking' it, and of 'closing of a resonance loop' via arm/mounting/back to main bearing/platter/record/pick-up.
Some maintain, that if this loop is 'disrupted' it will cause 'bad vibrations' i.e. affect the sound negatively.

Could well be the old Romans would object to all this --- thankfully I'm not an arm designer :-)
A.