Why the phono cartridges are so expensive?

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by delmonaco, Sep 30, 2014.

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  1. delmonaco

    delmonaco Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Sofia, Bulgaria
    I wonder why the higher end phono carts/needles command so high prices? Is it because they are produced and sold in very low quantities (so the profit have to be some 500 pct or more), or the materials, technology and hand labor used are really that costly?
     
  2. action pact

    action pact Music Omnivore

    Probably all of the above.
     
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  3. chervokas

    chervokas Senior Member

    Low quantities, high skilled hand labor (you can't hire just anyone), and what the market will bear (and what the market responds to, the super premium buyer of anything: a car, a suit, a watch, wine, wants to spend lavishly, equates extreme price with extreme quality and wants to be able to say he, and it's almost always a he, paid X thousands of dollars. It's like the market for a Piaget watch or something).
     
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  4. paulisme

    paulisme I’m being sarcastic

    Location:
    Charleston SC
    Sometimes it's pure suply and demand. The AT440MLa cartridge is a perfect example of this. It's doubled in price over the last few years as a result of people realizing that the microline stylus virtually eliminates IGD. You used to be able to find one for less than $100; now you're lucky if you can snag one for less than $200, and at one point they were going for almost $300. There's no way manufacturing costs doubled almost overnight; AT just realized how great their cartridge was and jacked up the price to capitalize on it.
     
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  5. delmonaco

    delmonaco Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Sofia, Bulgaria
    Yes, this is quite understandable and logical, but I mean carts that costs something like 5-10,000 USD and even more. Basically they are also made of some body (plastic or whatever), a needle (even if it's whole diamond it's so minuscule that it doesn't cost much) and some suspension and magnets or coils, of course engineered and assembled with some deep knowledge, but it's not space science or brain surgery. Just wonder are these over expensive cartridges really so difficult to make compared to the decent mass market ones, and do they offer really such a big difference.
     
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  6. EdogawaRampo

    EdogawaRampo Senior Member

    I think it is all of the above. Some high end cart manufacturers do much of the assembly and winding by hand. Some of the materials used are becoming scarce and more expensive.
    Not saying all the costs are always justified -- there have been stories in the past of one brand that had an expensive high end cart and another brand rolled out nearly the exact same cart (possibly made by the same people, just getting a 'brand' stamped on it) for a third the price. Caveat emptor, as always.
     
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  7. chervokas

    chervokas Senior Member

    Well, in my experience there can be substantial differences between some of the cheaper mass market carts and some of the more expensive ones made even by big companies -- in the area of channel balance, channel separation, cartridge body damping and cartridge suspension (improved mechanical noise performance), frequency extension. But it's hard to try to create some kind of one to one equivalence between performance and price. And in some super premium categories performance isn't the ultimate goal. I'm not saying this is the case of say top of the line Lyra carts or something, but you know people spend tens of thousands of dollars on handmade watches with mechanical movements that are less accurate timekeepers than the $30 quartz movement watch from the mall.
     
  8. action pact

    action pact Music Omnivore

    I'd be curious to know if the prices in Japan for the AT440MLa have also fluctuated as widely. It's possible that the changing exchange rate has had something to do with it, although I don't believe the yen-to-dollar exchange rate has been especially unstable.
     
  9. delmonaco

    delmonaco Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Sofia, Bulgaria
    I understand what you mean, but watches, for instance, are accessories, made to be seen by others, to look beautiful, a sign of some social or financial stature etc. I doubt that you can impress someone, asking him to look closely to your cartridge, and explaining to him that this small piece of plastic or carbon or whatever (often the expensive carts are even ugly to watch) costs few thousands $. Well, if he's a crazy audiophile he can be impressed, but he will always say that there's something better on the market and this is not exactly the best choice:)
     
  10. paulisme

    paulisme I’m being sarcastic

    Location:
    Charleston SC
    If it were the exchange rate then prices for Japanese products would have gone up across the board, which I don't think is the case.
     
  11. chervokas

    chervokas Senior Member

    No, I think being able to tell someone -- your audiophile peers, others in your personal circle -- that you're the guy with the $10K cartridge (and the $500 bottles of wine in the wine cellar) fulfill some of the same kind of ego stroking appeal of the Piaget watch, again, not to say that a $10K cart might not be an excellent performer.
     
  12. action pact

    action pact Music Omnivore

    Good point, but how many Japanese-made products are available in the US? Nearly everything these days is made in China.
     
  13. delmonaco

    delmonaco Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Sofia, Bulgaria
    Well, may be your right.. but for sure you can impress only your good old male friends with this, the Piaget watch or a fancy car would have more universal and practical appeal :)
     
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  14. chervokas

    chervokas Senior Member

    Actually I think the list prices on those AT's have all gone up a lot. The US list price on an OC9 is $1130, for an AT33EV it's $965, for a 440MLa it's $373; but I don't think the exchange rate doesn't explain it. The dollar is at its highest level against the yen in six years.
     
  15. BrokenByAudio

    BrokenByAudio Forum Resident


    Perhaps you need to actually research the engineering and production of fine phono cartridges ?
     
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  16. delmonaco

    delmonaco Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Sofia, Bulgaria
    This is the reason I asked the original question, hoping that there are some knowledgeable people who can enlighten me about this.
     
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  17. BrokenByAudio

    BrokenByAudio Forum Resident

  18. slovell

    slovell Retired Mudshark

    Location:
    Chesnee, SC, USA
    Because we'll buy them.
     
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  19. curbach

    curbach Some guy on the internet

    Location:
    The ATX
    Well, why are you singling out cartridges then? The same argument could be made for pretty much any audio component? Is a $30,000 pair of monoblock amplifiers really that much different than a $300 amp?
     
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  20. seed_drill

    seed_drill Senior Member

    Location:
    Tryon, NC, USA
    Have you seen what the bodies of some super expensive high end carts are made of? It's not due to the audio properties of jade, I can guarantee you.
     
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  21. seed_drill

    seed_drill Senior Member

    Location:
    Tryon, NC, USA
    Watching that Ortofon video, I'd have to say one factor is that the market for high end cartridges is so small that the economics of mass production cannot come into play.
     
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