Hard to comment without straying into politics methinks…
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Yeah they do - it is called anchoring. Pricing strategy is an important aspect of the overall business model and is only tangentially related to production costs…. People typically will not choose the cheapest option or the most expensive but given the choice of 4 items the most popular choice is the second most expensive you maximise your margins by pricing that product as close to the upper bound as you can.
When I have to explain this to my team at work I typically use the BMW example - they make M3’s in order to sell 330s to sales reps instead of 320s.
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Unless it is a commodity, no one prices anything based on cost plus. It’s basic business. You price based on what it is worth to people.
For example, let’s pretend Naim figured a way to produce a SuperNait3 amplifier for $1. Considering everyone else’s amplifier of a similar performance level is $3000-5000, they could do a 50% markup and sell it for $1.50 and annihilate the competition. They could mop up 100% or near enough of the market share right?
The reality doesn’t play out like that. The market for full width integrated amps is a fixed size. They aren’t going to suddenly sell like iPhones. The truth is, 0.2% of the market share at $5000 each is far more profitable than 100% of the market at $1.50.
Same goes for exotic cables. After a certain price point, the market gets smaller than it already is and demand elasticity doesn’t outstretch a $30k price tag. They might sell 20 at $10k each, and only 10 units at $30k each.
Unless your talking about a bag of flour or a ton of steel, production cost plus markup is never going to be a sensible pricing strategy. And I think some people have accurately costed the parts in a 250dr before, minus the R&D development labour and logistics, and it’s peanuts. But a 250 is worth what Naim charge for it because of how it performs relative to competition in the same bracket.
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Paul McGowan of PS Audio explains their pricing strategy in one of his Ask Paul videos on Youtube. It is cost plus. Video title is ‘How does PS Audio determine retail pricing?’
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It’s bonkers as soon as you start…
The whole thing’s a slippery slope!
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Life’s too short to worry what others spend their money on. Do what makes you happy.
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Yes more than one person has looked at my 2 stacks and commented to the effect “sounds brilliant but far too intrusive and complex” and that’s without them knowing how much it all cost!
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When you start to refer to potential upgrades as rabbit holes and vortexes.
rabbit holes you can escape from, black holes however…
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And for most people, black boxes seem to equate to black holes!
Here comes another event horizon 
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The start of an audio show?
Bell wire??
Definition of bonkers
informal
a**:** very fond, enthusiastic, or excitedShe’s bonkers for/about opera.He’s bonkers for/about her.The fans went bonkers when their team won.
b**:** very angry, annoyed, or botheredFaced with the choice of being driven bonkers by their colicky newborn or inviting an outsider into their lives, Phil and Julie sanely decide to find a nanny.— BooklistAnd the internet went completely and utterly bonkers about it, with critics climbing over one another to criticize Cyrus …— Tom Hawking
csometimes offensive : having or showing severe mental illnessMeanwhile, the greedy trustees of her fortune are trying to confuse her enough to have her declared bonkers so they can make their jobs permanent.
Just to clarify - what bonkers are we on about ?
Of course it’s bonkers! It’s all bonkers.
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Talking about the threshold points of bonkers is itself bonkers.
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Well, you could be marginally bonkers - rather than completely bonkers.
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Very good explanation of bonkers in this educational video by Mr Rascal
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Surely bonkers is binary? Either you are or you are not.
I was thinking more along the lines of:
