WILL THE NEW 60,000 AVALON ISIS BE THE BEST YET?

Agree with sirspeedy but with different reasons. I don't care how much things costs per se in that each to his own. The value is the sound quality and there can be different judgments that, let alone the value of the marginal dollar spent by each individual. There is really no point in dicussing whether something is justifiable in cost: each to his own, period.

My take ... though again I am more of each to his own camp. The Cost of Goods sold plus margin approach is not a good way to go about thinking about this. Its not just a matter putting together metals sheets, wood and some components together after all. What you are ingoring is the cost of intangible goods & property, namely engineering & design.

Another aspect to consider is that high end audio, especially models like such the Isis lack economies of scale production due the addressable market's size in the first place. Autos on the hand do....the equivalent would have to be say collector antique cars or the equivalent where the tailor made, individual labor (as opposed to coming of automated production line) is intensive.

The analogy the luxury goods is a good one. High fashion, jewelry (not just any diamond stud but well cut, designed one) etc etc all have these high mark ups due to a) engineering/design costs and b) lack of economies of scale production.

At the end of the day, the very highest end is just is as other such niche industries are. That should not mean there should not be pricing points that allow the purse challenged enthusiast to have a quality system. And indeed we all know there are wonderful products out there (and many duds too).

So at the end of the day as consumers, I really don;t think there is much point in discussing margins or cost of production....at the end of the day that is not what we are purchasing. We are buying the delivery of sound quality and the latter is subjective. If the Isis does that for you, congrats!

U do have a pt Jtgofish. If I knew how and do it well at that, then yes your'e right. But the problems is most of us and certainly I do not have ability to what you are suggesting.