• WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!

Why Is Hi-Fi Gear So Darn Expensive?!

Gorgonzola

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Jan 27, 2021
Messages
1,016
Likes
1,398
Location
Southern Ontario
What does Vermeer have to do with this?
Seriously? Need you ask? We're talking about seriously expensive things. After the Mona Lisa, Johannes Vermeer's painting, The Girl with a Pearl Erring, is possibly the most valuable painting in the world.

540px-1665_Girl_with_a_Pearl_Earring.jpg
 

Vacceo

Major Contributor
Joined
Mar 9, 2022
Messages
2,627
Likes
2,748
Seriously? Need you ask? We're talking about seriously expensive things. After the Mona Lisa, Johannes Vermeer's painting, The Girl with a Pearl Erring, is possibly the most valuable painting in the world.

540px-1665_Girl_with_a_Pearl_Earring.jpg
The value of any of those historical treasures is only relative to insurance. They have no value as there is no market for such paints.

Good luck convincing the Reina Sofía Museum about buying Picasso´s Guernica or the Rijksmuseum for Rembrandt´s The Night Watch.
 

Rednaxela

Major Contributor
Joined
Mar 30, 2022
Messages
2,051
Likes
2,673
Location
NL
Ah, Ok. Thanks @Gorgonzola.

Maybe it’s because I don’t know any better, but I have never wondered why a unique masterpiece like this painting has to be as expensive as it is.

Out of the millions of insanely expensive things in the world I would personally not pick this as the perfect illustration to go with the article.

But apparently this is different for TAS and their readers.
 

Vacceo

Major Contributor
Joined
Mar 9, 2022
Messages
2,627
Likes
2,748
Ah, Ok. Thanks @Gorgonzola.

Maybe it’s because I don’t know any better, but I have never wondered why a unique masterpiece like this painting has to be as expensive as it is.

Out of the millions of insanely expensive things in the world I would personally not pick this as the perfect illustration to go with the article.

But apparently this is different for TAS and their readers.
In the immortal words of Indiana Jones: "that belongs in a museum".

The price is an estimate for insurance should it be lended to other museums for exhibition. In truth, like anything out of the market, it is priceless.
 

Gorgonzola

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Jan 27, 2021
Messages
1,016
Likes
1,398
Location
Southern Ontario
The value of any of those historical treasures is only relative to insurance. They have no value as there is no market for such paints.

Good luck convincing the Reina Sofía Museum about buying Picasso´s Guernica or the Rijksmuseum for Rembrandt´s The Night Watch.
So alright: I'll admit I wasn't thinking of buying it myself.

Consider though that thinks can have huge value on the black market where insurance isn't available in any case. It's unsettling to think about what, say, drug lords will buy and trade to settle their accounts with each other.
 

Vacceo

Major Contributor
Joined
Mar 9, 2022
Messages
2,627
Likes
2,748
So alright: I'll admit I wasn't thinking of buying it myself.

Consider though that thinks can have huge value on the black market where insurance isn't available in any case. It's unsettling to think about what, say, drug lords will buy and trade to settle their accounts with each other.
That's why art is nifty for money laundering.
 

MakeMineVinyl

Major Contributor
Joined
Jun 5, 2020
Messages
3,558
Likes
5,871
Location
Santa Fe, NM
This is about as deep as my art knowledge goes. :(

60151824ac92c32dd25766cc65e51293.jpg
 

phoenixdogfan

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Nov 6, 2018
Messages
3,294
Likes
5,068
Location
Nashville
The magnitude is lessened by not having a black light on it. :)
Every room in in my dorm was a gallery complete with the black light classic "zodiac positions" and multiple bongs to faclitate the art appreciation.
 

Puddingbuks

Addicted to Fun and Learning
Forum Donor
Joined
May 31, 2020
Messages
588
Likes
987
Inflation has gone way out of hand.

Today I found some stuff from a hifi event last year. Includedd was a test of the Kii Audio Three speaker. Price in the review (OK, 9-2015) was 10.000 euros a pair. It’a now 15.750 euros. 10.000 was somewhat in reach, but 15.750 definitely is not.

Dutch & Dutch 8c, in summer 2019 - 9.950 euros a pair, now 11.950.

ATC same story, ridiculously expensive.

Neumann KH420:
 

Attachments

  • 58FD1610-F068-4985-882A-FDA6B6C86674.jpeg
    58FD1610-F068-4985-882A-FDA6B6C86674.jpeg
    254.4 KB · Views: 53

kongwee

Major Contributor
Joined
Jan 22, 2022
Messages
1,024
Likes
276
The market is not expanding and inflation push the price up. How many people seriously wanna setup an ideal stereo setup.
 

Mart68

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Mar 22, 2021
Messages
2,605
Likes
4,854
Location
England
The market is not expanding and inflation push the price up. How many people seriously wanna setup an ideal stereo setup.
In the 1980s magazine editorials were always banging on about the 'hobby dying' and here we are almost 40 years later and there's still a hobby.

Back then the market was pretty much solely Western Europe and North America. Communism and universal poverty almost everywhere else. Not the case any more. I suspect China alone now has more enthusiasts than there were in the 1970s in the whole of Europe.

I don't see prices coming down, but give it a couple of years for the supply chain issues to get sorted and I suspect they will stabilise.
 
Top Bottom