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[Howard Jones]

What I'm suggesting really is down to - if your playing is of a professional standard, it's justifiable spending dosh on an instrument that will do justice to your skills.(Especially if you are a professional and can claim tax back )

Whether or not it's justifiable or not is entirely a matter for the individual to decide.  Whilst of course a better instrument won't make you a better player, it will allow you to develop into a better player.  If you don't succeed in that, it won't be the instrument holding you back.  In my opinion it's always worth getting the best instrument you can afford, rather than one you may grow out of.  Then there is the pleasure to be had from possessing a quality instrument and a thing of beauty, even if you can't play it as well as it deserves.

People are willing to devote time and money to following their passions.  Provided they're not bankrupting themselves in the process, it's really nobody else's business.

[-Y-]

Comparing like with like...   current UK New instrument RRP for a Stephanelli D/G melodeon is £500 and for a Stephanelli 48 bass PA £600.

Possibly where factory-made instruments are concerned, once the parts have been manufactured the process of assembly is perhaps not so very different and so the prices can be kept at similar levels, in both cases aimed at entry-level players on a budget. For higher-quality instruments with a much greater level of craftsman involvement the prices of PAs rapidly outstrip those of melodeons.

I wonder if, even for the assembly, the "added value" of factory processes is not the ability to produce more instruments per unit of time, for reasons well-known since the emergence of fordism and division of labour. The consistency in produced models is also more easily reached, since each unit operation (say, making the reedblocks, or assembling the mechanisms) is done by different people that specialize in each operation, where a single person has to work longer, or take several years before achieving the same level of quality for every operation involved in the making.
The similarity in price between factory-made and craftsman-made accordions may also be due to the fact that for a given set of characteristics, there's a price players are ready to pay. And also factory means you have more people to pay for their work, even if they contributed each only a little to the making.

[Lyra]

Davy Davy Knick Nack sounds so much better on a £3,500 box...

Well it sounds utterly bloody awful on the cheap piano accordion I have the misfortune to stand next to!
Upgrading my "intermediate" flute would cost a lot more than upgrading my "intermediate" melodeon (and would have cost about the same to buy had I not scored a wicked bargain on ebay) and it's just a tube with some holes in it  . I do think the step from cheap to mid-range reflects in what you sound like, if not your dexterity, but going beyond that will only be worth musically it if you have the skill and capacity to drive it. But it still might be worth it emotionally for some folk.
Evidence on this forum suggests the skill (and value) lies not in the assembly, but the set up, and maybe PAs are more complicated but melodeons are more complex?
Anyway people do spend more on things that depreciate more. So...

[Dick Rees]

Whatever makes you happy:

https://youtu.be/fxUY-99TPRY

DR, a happy Hohner jockey.

[Jesse Smith]

Whatever makes you happy:

https://youtu.be/fxUY-99TPRY

DR, a happy Hohner jockey.

You calling my Hohner ugly??

[Dick Rees]

Whatever makes you happy:

https://youtu.be/fxUY-99TPRY

DR, a happy Hohner jockey.

You calling my Hohner ugly??

I don't know about yours, but I've got ten of them and they're beautiful.

[Roger Hare]

I bought a pair of Tony Jacklin golf socks some 30 years ago, and I still can't play golf.

Oh, that's easy - you've simply got them on the wrong feet!

[Rob Lands]

I take great pleasure in putting my left sock on the right foot and the then the right sock on the right foot before I go out for a run.  (L & R so helpful as one ages).

[Theo]

[[ADMIN]]

This topic has been well discussed, and now getting well off topic, so let’s bring it to an end here.