Why are cartridges now so goddamn expensive

[MajorFubar]

AT95 was once a cheapo-matic budget cartridge that cost the same as large pizza. You fitted it into into starter decks, and it was often someone's first step above a ceramic. I bought one in the 1980s from my hifi dealer for £9.99. Now it's £40.

OM10 was Ortofon's equivalent budget model, and similar priced. Now it's so comparatively expensive (circa £50) that they've had to invent the OM5 and OM3 to under cut it.

The last cartridge I ever bought brand new as a Goldring 1006 in 1995. Purchased from the same local long-gone hifi dealer, it set me back about £50. I let it go in a Toshiba automatic turntable I gave to my ex sister in law in 2002. And I've just fell through the floor having seen it's still being sold 23 years later but with a staggering £200 list price.

 

[thescarletpronster]

Three reasons, I reckon:

1. Inflation, generally reckoned to amount to about 100% every 25 years under normal conditions;

2. Economies of scale: these things are probably produced in only a small fraction of the quantities they were 20+ years ago, which makes unit price more expensive;

3. The crash in the pound against other currencies since that referendum thing those idiot politicians held a couple of years ago. Anything imported is likely to be significantly more expensive than it was only 21 months ago.

 

[davidf]

They don’t sell as many today as they did back in the 80s, so have to take that into account. It’s still generally a hands on job to build, so requires specialist workers - it’s not really something that has been taken over by production lines of robots. Some cartridge manufacturers will also farm out the whole thing to other manufacturers that already have the necessary in place. Audio Technica make a surprising amount of cartridges for other manufacturers.

 

[Al ears]

Three reasons, I reckon:

1. Inflation, generally reckoned to amount to about 100% every 25 years under normal conditions;

2. Economies of scale: these things are probably produced in only a small fraction of the quantities they were 20+ years ago, which makes unit price more expensive;

3. The crash in the pound against other currencies since that referendum thing those idiot politicians held a couple of years ago. Anything imported is likely to be significantly more expensive than it was only 21 months ago.

+1

I cannot think of a 'home grown' cartridge of the budget variety that can be recommended. We are now on the so called second phase of vinyl resurgence and although decks can be made cheap the essential cartridge cannot be bought cheaply, and shouldn't if you are serious about your vinyl replay.

 

[MajorFubar]

Either way, the knock-on effect is that unless you have very deep pockets it's extrordinarily expensive now to buy a cartridge which wasn't once just a nothing-special budget or MOR model.

 

[Al ears]

Either way, the knock-on effect is that unless you have very deep pockets it's extrordinarily expensive now to buy a cartridge which wasn't once just a nothing-special budget or MOR model.

I would agree. It's also the same way with vinyl itself. This has never been a cheap method of playing music and it is never going to be.

 

[trevorok]

This is why I don't bye new hifi anymore u get much better value for money going down the second hand root

 

[chebby]

AT95 was once a cheapo-matic budget cartridge that cost the same as large pizza. You fitted it into into starter decks, and it was often someone's first step above a ceramic. I bought one in the 1980s from my hifi dealer for £9.99. Now it's £40

Spot on ...

http://www.in2013dollars.com/1980-GBP-in-2018?amount=10

1980 was almost half a lifetime ago. You can’t reasonably expect things to cost the same.

If you want 1980s prices then you, presumably, won’t mind 1980s wages.

 

[Gray]

Either way, the knock-on effect is that unless you have very deep pockets it's extrordinarily expensive now to buy a cartridge which wasn't once just a nothing-special budget or MOR model.

I would agree. It's also the same way with vinyl itself. This has never been a cheap method of playing music and it is never going to be.

As a Thorens 160S owner, was just looking, out of interest on e-bay a while back. Someone was asking £600 for one - probably 3x what they'd paid for it. Taking advantage that's for sure. We don't expect to make money selling SH do we?

 

[MajorFubar]

AT95 was once a cheapo-matic budget cartridge that cost the same as large pizza. You fitted it into into starter decks, and it was often someone's first step above a ceramic. I bought one in the 1980s from my hifi dealer for £9.99. Now it's £40

Spot on ...

http://www.in2013dollars.com/1980-GBP-in-2018?amount=10

1980 was almost half a lifetime ago. You can’t reasonably expect things to cost the same.

If you want 1980s prices then you, presumably, won’t mind 1980s wages.

It was more like 1987 than 1980 to be fair. See how you get on with the £50 Goldring 1006 I bought in 1995. Pretty sure £50 then isn't £200 now.

 

[trevorok]

Yesterday I saw a vms 30e in good condition with a new original 30 e stylus go for £68 now what can you buy to that amount these days long live the 80s or 70s cheers

 

[davidf]

To be fair to the hi-fi industry, monthly magazines (in general) are now a fiver a pop - how much were they in the 80s? most things have increased by a similar figure in the last 30 years, which seems to be around four or five times more.

 

[chebby]

Lot’s of rose tinted history going on here. The 1980s were a s**t decade for prices (I remember our mortgage interest was around 14 percent in 1985 when we bought our first house).

House prices more than tripled in the next few years and then collapsed leaving millions with ‘negative equity’ for years afterwards. I dodged that bullet but it left people bankrupt or even homeless or at least with massive debt.

Food was (relatively) way more expensive than it is now, even if your cartridges seemed cheap.

 

[chris_bates1974]

My grandad died in 2016, one thing I'll always remember is that he said he'd had to kind of reset his expectations of price for certain things.

I've been thinking about it quite a few times. For instance, when I was much younger, a pint was £2, it's now a minimum of £4. (Yes, I know there are exceptions, I'm giving an example.)

The one we've come across most recently is that we have had to accept that for the family to eat out, it is a minimum of £80, rather than the £50 we used to think of when planning.

I know these things vary from place to place, and depending on taste, but I think cartridges are probably the same. As others have mentioned above, other items have increased in price way more.

 

[bigfish786]

As a child of the 70’s and a teen in the 80’s I remember prices for Video Recorders were around £500 . My First Sony system was £550 quid, and beer at my local was 62p a pint.

Technology in general has plummeted in price, although high end seems to be Ultra High these days.

I think the price of carts and styli is quite reasonable for what they are and the work needed to create.

 

[BigH]

Mostly inflation and rates of exchange. A few 1980s prices pint of beer was about 35p, now about £3.50, petrol was 28p a litre now about £1.30, average house about £24,000 now about £224,000. Ecomomies of scale and recent higher demand probably also pushed up prices.

 

[daytona600]

Budget cartridge in the 1980s was circa £15 & a pint of beer was 50pence & packet of fags less than £1.00

Budget Ortofon OM & Audio technica AT95 now £30 & a pint £4 & fags £10

prices have a real terms fallen by a huge margin for a hand made unit with a diamond on the end

 

[MajorFubar]

Budget cartridge in the 1980s was circa £15 & a pint of beer was 50pence & packet of fags less than £1.00

Budget Ortofon OM & Audio technica AT95 now £30 & a pint £4 & fags £10

prices have a real terms fallen by a huge margin for a hand made unit with a diamond on the end

I'm not really feeling the 'prices in real terms have fallen' when a cartridge I bought in the 1990s for £50 is now £200. Beer and fags are probably not a great example either: they're both taxed to high heaven, but weren't so much 30 years ago.

 

[BigH]

Budget cartridge in the 1980s was circa £15 & a pint of beer was 50pence & packet of fags less than £1.00

Budget Ortofon OM & Audio technica AT95 now £30 & a pint £4 & fags £10

prices have a real terms fallen by a huge margin for a hand made unit with a diamond on the end

I'm not really feeling the 'prices in real terms have fallen' when a cartridge I bought in the 1990s for £50 is now £200. Beer and fags are probably not a great example either: they're both taxed to high heaven, but weren't so much 30 years ago.

Yes thanks to 2 Scottish chancellors with the duty escalator. When I started drinking it was 14p a pint, now it's over 400p in many pubs. You could compared albums prices, there were about £2 for a single album and £3 for a double in the mid 70s, now you are looking at around £15-£20 for a single album.