A Little Hypocrisy?


How would you respond to the record company exec who say -

"I look on the Audiogon web site and I see people buying and selling $5,000 cd players, $10,000 speakers, even cables and wires for several hundred dollars per linear foot. Nobody complains about those kind of prices. Yet you complain about cd's costing fifteen to twenty bucks. What gives?"

I include myself in for this criticism, but I'd be fascinated to hear how anyone else would respond to this.
kinsekd
I don't think the people who have been bitching and moaning about CD prices are the same group of folks who spend $10K on speakers and $5K on CD players.
If you spend $50k on a car, should you then not be upset if the price of gas goes up by a nickel? The difference, I think, is that with gas, cd's etc, are items which have to be purchased in order for your toys to work. Therefore you feel that you're being taken advantange of if the prices are (or seem) inflated. A very justifiable complaint. If you can afford $50k cars or speakers or amps etc, and you feel it's worth the money - you are paying for quality, performance, durability whatever. But when you're forced to pay inflated prices, it just doesn't sit well.
I would be the last to defend the price of CD's, not that I buy all that many anymore. But, Tok20000, and with all due respect, when you say "HOWEVER, when you break it all down, a record production company is marking CDs up way higher than Audio manufacturers are.", I have to ask you if this opinion would hold if you consider the realm of cables and interconnects. Talk about mark-up. Even the dealers I know think it's ludicrous. There is gouging aplenty in all areas of audio (and elsewhere, for that matter).
I believe that you will find the general conscensus to be the same.

We don't mind paying more for equipment (in which we consider to be of fine quality), meals, clothing and possibly even automobiles (in many cases)this also includes high quality recordings. Personally, I would have no problem paying $20 for a quality recording. However, most of what they offer us is trash. Thus, you are comparing apples and Turnips.

Happy Listening,

Damon
Ok, I will admit that audio cables may be more marked up (or on par with CDs) than CDs.

I was mainly referring to electronical components. The stuff the post is initially referring to: $5k CDP, $10k amp.

Cables themselves do cost very very little to produce in many instances. However, many cable companies swear that their high end cables cost lots of R&D to produce.

My 2C

KF