Re: N.A.M.M show, GEAR prices !!!

[Andre Cholmodeley <andre@monmouth.com>]

> 
> >lot of manufacturers don't want the general public to know what price
> 
> >they're selling their products to retailers for.....ocaasionaly
criticized for being exclusionary to
> the consumer. In fact, it is sometimes characterized as a kind of Callous
> Cabal of Capitalistic Chuckleheads scheming up ever more devious ways to
> separate the starving musician from his/her last farthing. What it really
> is is sore feet.

here's my .02cents....regar0ding the issue of gear prices...

How come in the last, say 20 years (or 30, etc) computer chips, electronic
components, micro-wiring and soldering technology and technique, plastic,
have all been greatly improved in quality and been slashed in price.

Every consumer iterm that involves these components has become drastically,
amazingly cheaper, yet vasly higher in quality, than 20 or 30 years back -
clock radios, cassette decks, walkmans, VCRs, computers like the ones we're
all on right now, etc.

Yet musical gear, effects processors, many synths, tuners, etc all cost AS
MUCH, sometimes MORE than they did years ago. Of course - many exceptions
to the rule.... but in general, c'mon!!!! why do the people that support ,
yes, a smaller industry, hav to keep paying while the production costs go
down for all these manufacturers??? is it just supply & demand ?? why does
a BOSS TU12 tuner cost like $60-80 , just the same that it did 10 years
ago??? Or most rackmount effects???again, there are lots of bargains out
there, but, as anyone who has looked thru a blue book can see, musicians,
who can sometimes least afford it, shoulder an odd set of pricing
structures/strictures.

I smell a rat.

andre , wicked looper of the east
> 
>