there is nothing forcing a product to be the best because it's the most expensive. even down to earth economical reasons like limited quantity, or massive R&D don't say anything about the resulting quality. only that it must cost a lot to cover cost.
but because you guys keep that nonsensical idea of expensive=best, more and more products come out with a ludicrous price tags simply as a marketing idea to make you think they are good products. and it works because amateur audio people almost never fact check anything, nor look too hard into objective fidelity.
even worst, in this hobby we've come to assume that a technology is better simply because it costs more. like tubes vs solid state, R2R kind of chips vs delta sigma, balanced vs single ended...
Iriver as a DAP manufacturer had been almost completely forgotten after a few IMO cool DAPs back in the days. they came up with zero new technology and instead went for a rebranding. named the stuff A&K, put a ludicrous price on a really average device with massive defects, and sold it like it was the best stuff ever made for the elite of this world. all based on marketing and the decision to price some crap chips on PCB like they're a luxury item. later on they corrected a few of the defects and instead of saying sorry, went to sell that for double the price. and again it worked and they sold plenty. didn't take a genius to guess what they would do next. "let's see how far we can go before those suckers stop paying" is obviously what everybody thought.
sony also on the verge of being forgotten by elite audiophiles because of their consistently sub par amp section, saw that and jumped on board. started selling some good looking DAP for too much money when it didn't measure better than an iphone. became all the rage when it came out. so of course like a good student, sony also went for the new stuff at twice the price joke.
headphones are even worst IMO. prices are stupid, half of the expensive ones don't even comes with a certified fidelity or signature. the stuff measured on demos is often not what the consumer will buy, the same model will go though X silent revisions and if you liked the first one, well F you. in the end you basically we pay crazy prices for an EQ into something that isn't even always comfortable. but it's above 1k$ so it has to be the best am I right?
pricing is a complicated process but when you say stuff like "...if you have money, you buy the costlier and the better...", you're showing how they're right to keep rising prices purely as a marketing stunt no matter the quality of the product. because why bother with objective quality when you can ride on a great fallacy like the preconception that better and expensive are one and the same?
if a product was clearly and objectively the best, I would find it alright to have an exaggerated price. excellence is truly special and anybody who's the best at something has IMO the right to make up his own value as long as nobody can challenge him. but that implies evidence of being the best in the first place, and accountability when it's proved to be untrue. something that doesn't exist in consumer audio. so until we get better accountability, high prices mean nothing aside from how many hours we worked to get that value.
