>> ...still not sure exactly why it's so expensive though. Probably design
>> time / production volume.
>>
> 
> Well, I'm sure the powerful electromagnet and the detector add to the 
> expense. Not to mention the serious design time to design a very high 
> gain, low noise amplifier.

I'm no expert, but I don't think a mass spectrometer actually requires a 
particularly powerful magnet. (It's only throwing microscopic particles 
around, after all.) The photomultiplier might be expensive; I don't know 
how it works. The ADC is probably quite expensive as chips go (although 
not hundreds of thousands of pounds, I wouldn't have thought).

-- 
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