I understand your points.  However,

Funk's marketing department, with all due respect, would not be expecting much attention from this forum - however much I appreciate its qualities.

The products will be featuring at Munich next week, and doubtless picking up press attention.  In the past, that has led to their discussion on forums.  I was just indulging my vanity as an insider to get a "scoop"

I think the patents once established will demonstrate this to be a radically different arm - but time will tell.  The same "dark hints" will apply on the Funk stand at Munich

I agree about the absurdity of the price.  It will sell to a small elite - and certainly not me.  But it is hardly unique in that respect (Look at the whisky cask Linn LP12's).  I think the rational is that it isn't possible for this to be a £50 arm, and there is a benefit to the brand from setting down a marker for a "reference" product

I understand your frustrations and expressed similar ones to Arthur.  However, I think its a bit of a shame the discussion is focussed on the pricing and not the idea that there are some truly new things to do in arm design, rather than reworkings of the same old theme.  I think that will be the focus of wider discussion after Munich - the product and its ability to perform, as well as the "cleverness" of genuinely new ideas.

But since you bring up price, I think it goes something like this.  In the first place, AK knows how easy it is to underprice, and how hard it is to get a price up afterwards (Pip and the first PT).  It is mostly about achieving it as a production item at all.  Sadly, it is in the nature of the thing that the price will need to be "high" - higher than I would be able or prepared to pay.  Partly that is a function of a vicious circle - production costs fall with volume.  Its not the cost of the raw material, but the machining - and in small production runs that is tooling and set up costs.

I've done this elsewhere with lids.  The perspex in a pink triangle lid would cost about £5.  The mould - since it weighs over 1 tonne - would cost about £35,000 to have made - and there would be a run set-up cost of about £5000 (or substantial storage charges) - if you are making 35000 lids - they can sell ex-works for £15.  If you are making 100 lids...

So say at expected volumes (maybe 50 units world wide) you are going to end up with a retail cost of £6000.  I'm still not going to be buying one at that price - but maybe 50 people would.  Chances are, only 10 of those wouldn't if the price is £15000.  So when your market is so small, and so price insensitive, it makes sense to try to get a living from the few you will sell.  And actually you get what is known as an inverted demand curve (or the Irish exception) where demand increases on percieved value.  The more expensive it is - the better it must be in the eyes of some consumers - typically the ones who will pay that much money in the first place

Don't get fixated on the price.  I repeated it because that is the official figure in the Munich blurb.  Once in production, maybe that would change.  But it is never going to be cheap.

So - hopefully, we can forget the price, and get interested in some genuine innovation.  I think that is what wider press reports after Munich are likely to looking at.

To me, it kind of taints the other products Funk make. If a designer can make something a lot better than what they feed the masses, then why not share it with the real enthusiasts?

It suggests the items that are affordable to ordinary punters are clearly inferior if the "top" product is so massively more expensive. Who would want a poor second best? Not me, I can have an SME V for a fraction of that price and it looks like it was hewn by God himself. Not to mention that it's engineering pedigree is beyond reproach.

Knowing you're buying something that the designer himself feels is clearly inferior to his best efforts devalues a product to a point where I would t want to own it. Funk aren't alone so I don't want to make out they are a one-off here. If anything they appear to be following a trend so they cannot be alone.

You are free to make your buying decisions on any basis you choose. Personally I find it bizarre to think someone would be happy to spend £2700 on a sme v, rather than £1500 on an fx3 if the fx3 were the better arm out of some avenging philosophy. I have heard both arms extensively. If I wanted a thing of engineering beauty I'd buy the sme. If I want to listen to music, I'd buy the funk. Most reviews I've read appear to agree with me. 

F1 cannot be implemented cheaply. If you guarantee Arthur a minimum order of 2000 off, I am sure he could review the price. 

The unworked metal in an sme v, melted down, is worth less than a fiver. 

But nobody is asking you to buy funk. Just noting that some interesting new technology is about to be launched (actually I think product sale won't be before December) 

But you are happy to buy an arm from a company that charge £16.5k for a turntable without an arm?

Just suppose the arm tube was ultra-thin walled boron formed like the technics u 205 cantilever by vapour deposition. Any idea what that process would cost? 

As I Said above, if you or anyone can justify the cost then I'm all ears. I sincerely doubt AK would invest those sort of sums on a first working prototype, without having any idea of results. More likely he's been tinkering and applying that active mind of his and come up with something novel. There are far more choices available to him than the one he has chosen. 

Firstly, why spend thousands in patents which will only inflate the price of the arm and make it something nobody can afford. Better to be revered and imitated than protected and unrecognised.

secondly, why not sell direct instead of paying the other parasites in the selling chain? That would probably take two thirds off the price.

Thirdly, if there are significant start up costs why not use kickstarter? He's a well recognised figure with a strong core of support.

If the only alternative is charging £15k then he will only produce a handful of rich man's playthings rather than a legendary tonearm. That's a real pity if it's something special. 

Moving away from the discussion of price.....
Richard is treading a fine line between being an enthusiast with insider knowledge and appearing to be acting as Arthurs advertising agency. Richard is aware of our rules and I think we can see that he is trying to respect them while having a discussion about something that ought to be interesting to most of us.
Care is still required though!

This design then, Richard:
It looks like it incorporates a variation on the Burne-Jones pantograph idea, but done with string?


  

Some folks might remember that, and others may know the Garrard Zero 100 SB