David B,
Thanks! That’s good info. You’ve been an enormous help lately with DCC and sound!
The price for command control in general and DCC specifically have come down greatly. As the others have said it is just not as fast a curve as in mass market electronics.
When I started, decoders were $49 for the cheap ones. Adjusted for inflation that would be about $112 today. Then they were enormous, averaging about 1.25"x3.5"x3/8". One almost had to have a dummy “B” unit or a steam tender just to house them. My first SoundTraxx decoder cost $295. Adjusted for inflation probably closer to $350 in todays money. This is the same unit one could buy last year for $79.
Then there is the new product syndrom. The reason consumer products haven’t dropped even more in price is because of the constant addition of new features, technology, and style changes. Many of these “features” are more beneficial to them than the consumer but consumers are generally ignorant of that. Bottom line is that it allows the manufacturers to keep the prices higher than if they just sold the same products year to year.
In DCC expecially the sound units one sees the same thing. Each vendor is now one upping the other. And has some influence on keeping the prices of the newer units up. I believe that is one reason Soundtraxx delayed the tsunami. They wanted to drain off the old inventory at the old prices before they cut their own price with the new unit.
Basically DCC has improved quality, variety, features, and size while the price has come WAY down. I still marvel that I can get that much stuff in a small package for $12! Wow!