Manufacturing equipment costs a LOT OF MONEY. Research and design cost a lot of money. I have been in two high end manufacturer's facilities. Boulder Amplifiers and Dunlavy Speakers when they were in business.
As I remember, Boulder had several CNC machines, these cost megga bucks and you have to have one before you can build any product. So, you finance one, now you have to design a product to build, engineers, designers, CAD workstations... The first design is not always successful, it may not test very well, using the mega bucks test equipment you financed...
Dunlavy's facility had a anechoic chamber! again big bucks, Lots of test equipment. Every componet that was bought from outside vendors was tested before use. Sub assemblies were tested with results logged. Speaker pairs were built using componets that tested similar...
I worked as an engineer for a company that designed and built indutrial robotic manufacuring systems for manufacturers. We had some robotic movement controllers that were the size of an amplifier (and basicly the same thing with a lot of servo loops), that sold for $15,000.00 . A complete system, one built for Johnson Controls ( a HVAC equipment company), cost 3.5 million and took two years to design, build, test, and install.
Just because a product is electronic does not mean it is cheap.
From what I have seen, true high end audio equipment is on the same level of design sophistication as the space program, avionics, medical, really is some of the best product available in the world at any cost.
Jim G.
As I remember, Boulder had several CNC machines, these cost megga bucks and you have to have one before you can build any product. So, you finance one, now you have to design a product to build, engineers, designers, CAD workstations... The first design is not always successful, it may not test very well, using the mega bucks test equipment you financed...
Dunlavy's facility had a anechoic chamber! again big bucks, Lots of test equipment. Every componet that was bought from outside vendors was tested before use. Sub assemblies were tested with results logged. Speaker pairs were built using componets that tested similar...
I worked as an engineer for a company that designed and built indutrial robotic manufacuring systems for manufacturers. We had some robotic movement controllers that were the size of an amplifier (and basicly the same thing with a lot of servo loops), that sold for $15,000.00 . A complete system, one built for Johnson Controls ( a HVAC equipment company), cost 3.5 million and took two years to design, build, test, and install.
Just because a product is electronic does not mean it is cheap.
From what I have seen, true high end audio equipment is on the same level of design sophistication as the space program, avionics, medical, really is some of the best product available in the world at any cost.
Jim G.