Comment by rustyhancock

Not wild when you consider the industry. Although those prices seem high perhaps by 20% compared to international markets.

IIRC in 2010 a Litmann Classic II was $60 today it's $100. That's what most medical students and doctors might use early in their career and it's probably nearly all the benefits of the premium lines.

But even ~$200 for their top tier lines are not expensive given their the tool of the industry.

That's a single year of JetBrains subscription? Or a single month of Claude? For something they could use for 10+ years.

The ~$500-700 electronic with recording stethoscopes always seemed gimmicky to me. But are legitimately useful for people with a hearing impairment.

> I would bet that there is a 10 USD model that is 98% as good as 200 USD models from 3M Littmann

I'd take this in a different direction, a common adage is that diagnosis is 80% history 15% examination, 5% investigation. In this case too the stethoscope performance is a slice of that 15%, and is dominated by the knowledge and experience of the user. If you don't know what to listen for and why (and many doctors won't compared to say a experienced cardiologist) they won't be able to hear it from a perfectly recorded FLAC file.