Tonearms: Ripoff?

High end tonearms, perhaps even more so than almost any other hi fi item, are artisan crafted works of art. Yes, there is a science to the geometry of a tonearm, but once you have mastered that the specifics of a design come down to materials and the precision with which it is constructed. It's no surprise then that the particular manufacturer I favor (Joel Durand) is a professor of music and a musician himself. The selection of materials (woods and sapphire for example) and the precise way these materials are used in the design of a given tonearm are all critical -- even the size and location of tiny weights all make a difference that is easily audible once you have the system set up.

The economics of such a manufacture is the antithesis of mass production and economies of scale -- you are paying for a lone manufacturer producing in very small quantities. Are the prices justified? Are any prices for any high end component justified? Only if you believe that the improvements in sound you hear in your system are worth it -- personally they are for me (i.e. to be very clear I am arguing that high end tonearms are NOT a rip off in any way shape or form). 

My experience has taken me from Linn->Rega->SME->TriPlanar->Durand and at every step I have appreciated the improvements along the way. Ability to achieve optimal alignment and optimization of every variable is a given at the high end (and frankly one of the shortcomings of the SME designs btw) but there is so much more to that in the art (word chosen deliberately) of tonearm design.

There's another can of worms to be opened about the specifics of the design (parallel vs pivoted, unipivot vs gimbaled etc etc) but my comments about materials choice and specifics of design apply within any particular family witness the extensive threads on the optimization of certain parallel designs for example.

Dear friends: Unfortunatelly now I can confirm with out doubt his very high level/grade of stupidity and with all respect to all of us we are more " stupid " following in this thread.

For the first time ever @rauliruegas and I are in violent agreement, let's leave the OP to fester in his solipsism 

@sfischer1 while I agree with you on economics (i.e. that there is not nor should there be any relationship between materials costs and end product price, provided the manufacturer can make a product you can price to what the market can bear) but the OP's assertion was that the expensive tonearms were a "rip off" i.e. that they provided no improved performance over a sub $1K model and that any perceived improvement was down to the naivety of the buyer.

While I do not want to enter any discussion of what a marginal improvement in fidelity is worth (to some zero, to others a very large amount) my experience was that better tonearms, which are often costly, do deliver appreciable and definite benefits. Whether that is worth it to the buyer is of course her decision, personally I drive a basic car and spend my $ on audio, but everyone's preferences are their own

@vair68robert you may need to expand your range of tonearms values. Top of the range SATs are currently $53K for the 12” and a Durand Telos with sapphire base is $75K so the top end of the market is well served 😉

@lewm SAT have not taken any price increases, these are just the prices for the second generation designs
https://www.analogplanet.com/content/sat-swedish-analog-technologies-begins-delivering-four-new-pick...

Personally id rather like that Telos if I could only accommodate a 12” arm but the “light up” effect is a bit cheesy 😏
https://www.monoandstereo.com/2017/02/durand-tonearms-telos-sapphire-tonearm.html

@madavid0 ahh the tyranny of numbers. 

Lets for for the sake of argument say that the Kairos is 10% better than a generic arm does that make it bad value?

What if I then posit that the only way of achieving that 10% is by spending on a better arm like the Kairos? No other change anywhere else in this system could yield that extra soupçon of versimilitude. Is the value equation now different?

The fact that in audio everything matters and the better the system the more likely it is that everything matters is what makes it so foolish to talk about “massive” improvements like the amp comparison you suggested. See elsewhere for a discussion of why diminishing returns in audio is quite the wrong framework, in fact at the high end you experience increasing returns from incremental changes as each change (like a better tonearm) unearths a new dimension (and new set of problems elsewhere in the chain)