Press Release-HeadRoom "official" announcement of the Audiophile Desktop - Page 3 - Head-Fi: Covering Headphones, Earphones and Portable Audio

Liver · #31 (**permalink**) 08-05-2008, 02:24 PM

But you all fail to see, the stands are rated 5 out of 5 for value. That must be true since its on their website.

grawk · #32 (**permalink**) 08-05-2008, 03:27 PM

They are a good value, if you compare them to other options, or if you compare them to what they cost to build. Expensive doesn't mean it's not a good value.

JorgeC · #33 (**permalink**) 08-05-2008, 06:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thedauntlessone

LTTP but I would also like to know why the stands cost 500 dollar. No matter how high quality I don't see it costing 200+ dollars to make each stand.

For comparison, paintball markers use aircraft grade aluminum to make the body complete with annodization, solenoid and electronics wiring and a mid range marker cost about 400-600 dollars.

The reason why I use paintball marker as a comparison is because the body uses high quality metal that needs to be cut to exact specification. Another reason is because while paintball is quite popular nowadays, markers aren't exactly mass produced on a large scale. Moreover, big manufacturers produce them in the US of A... not Asia.

As a consumer, that stand is worth maybe 50-100 dollars at most. Just an honest opinion.

The paintball comparison is not at all apt... The speaker stands costs HeadRoom about $425-$430 a pair to manufacture including parts and labor costs. I believe the $70 mark-up is fair. There are no other similar products anywhere on the market (that we can find) so obviously breaking trail here has proven quite costly for us ... As Tyll stated earlier in this thread, please don't buy if you can't afford!

Jorge
HR Sales/Product Manager

thatwunguy · #34 (**permalink**) 08-06-2008, 02:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Liver

But you all fail to see, the stands are rated 5 out of 5 for value. That must be true since its on their website.

i appreciate the sarcasm

i guess my new goal in life is to reach a point when I can 1.) afford $500 computer speaker stands and 2.) convince those who believe that outrageous cost = outrageous quality that the law of diminishing returns exists for a reason.

Even when you can afford the best, why pay 20x the price of the next best when you can spend it on maybe (a novel idea) music for your gear? Isn't that the reason we all break our wallets? Don't we all aim to enjoy our music to the fullest?

That said, I'd save $400 on the stands, buy some that are quite good, and spend the rest of the money on a vip concert experience backstage with my favorite band.

warpdriver · #35 (**permalink**) 08-06-2008, 04:20 AM

I guess one way to justify the stands is that these stands would probably outlive your speakers, your computer, and probably you even. Maybe you can pass these down from generation to generation then. In that case, these stands are an investment as long as we need speakers that sit on a desk but it may also be true that they may become obsolete once they figure out how to beam the music directly to our brain cells.

I'm actually surprised to hear they cost that much to manufacture. I would have thought they were the highest margin item instead of the other way around. Oh well, I guess I shouldn't expect them to drop much in price over time unless you start outsourcing them to China

Ivy · #36 (**permalink**) 08-06-2008, 04:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kodreaming

If you are charging such premium price, I would highly recommend you get some good marketing ppl do the marketing for you.

The picture in the press release is like from last century.

...Point well taken. Not last century, just last year or so...

Believe me, I am hoping that over time HeadRoom will not only be able to price specialty items more affordably, but also that our marketing efforts will continue to grow and we can afford the kind of photography that a ground-breaking system like this really warrants.

otoh- Imagine if we had the $50k marketing campaign that this system really "justifies"... what would the price of our Stands be then??

The simple truth is that this is a specialty item, and that means they're extremely expensive to make. These are manufactured in stupid low quantities-- try to have 50 pieces of steel stamped, bended, and anodized; plus assembly, packaging, and manufacturing a custom in-house headphone hanger... and the cost is shockingly high.

I am pasting Tyll's comments in here again, it really sums it up. We were hoping to price them lower, but this is a break-through product. Here's the good news: the law of diminishing returns is a real thing, and you can accomplish 75% of the goal by spending $30 at Target on a couple free standing bookshelves! That's my plan!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyll Hertsens

1) I'm not happy with the price either, but at the $499 they are the lowest margin item we build. There's a lot of fairly expensive materials in there.

B) By the time you cable up a system with decent cables, you'll have more in cable then the stands. I'd say that's reasonable appropriate.

iii) If the concept takes off and we can build stands in larger quantities we'll be able to eek down the price.

IV) Too much? Don't buy it. Get wall cubes ... or a stack of books. At this point the product (the whole system) is really targeted at folks with serious cash. Over time, it'll be more affordable.

amphead · #37 (**permalink**) 08-14-2008, 09:39 AM

Nice component selection Tyll! If only I could scrape up some cash. ;-) YGPM

Planar_head · #38 (**permalink**) 08-15-2008, 10:11 AM

I'll back Headroom on this one.

Firstly, those stands can tilt back and forth, allowing for some phase-adjustment, so there is a mark there for the individuality of those stands.

No amount of DIY can match the sleekness of how they implemented that.

200 pounds seems kinda crazy -- I really want to see that

If I had the cash, there is no doubt that I'd consider the Headroom stand, simply because there isn't that kind of thought put into a speaker stand.

grawk · #39 (**permalink**) 08-15-2008, 02:01 PM

I saw something considerably larger than 200 lbs on the stands. Well, maybe not "considerably", but Tyll's pretty good sized...

Planar_head · #40 (**permalink**) 08-15-2008, 06:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by grawk

I saw something considerably larger than 200 lbs on the stands. Well, maybe not "considerably", but Tyll's pretty good sized...

JorgeC · #41 (**permalink**) 08-15-2008, 11:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by grawk

I saw something considerably larger than 200 lbs on the stands. Well, maybe not "considerably", but Tyll's pretty good sized...

Well, some of us have actually witnessed Tyll pull off graceful -- albeit shaky -- one-foot pirouettes on fully-extended HeadRoom speaker stands (both his parents were professional touring ballet dancers, y'know!) ... No one came out any worse for wear except innocent onlookers.

Bizzel · #42 (**permalink**) 08-16-2008, 12:11 AM

These look great for someone like me with a totally laptop-based music collection, just plug in the Squeezebox network cable and I can choose from two sources of great sound without messing around with two different systems.

qqn · #43 (**permalink**) 08-20-2008, 06:07 PM

looks great, although I don't like the Mac

and for the stands, they look good, but i would tend to DIY saving the money on CDs, ...

ironeisnna · #44 (**permalink**) 09-01-2008, 11:55 AM

The stands looks nice. They have an industrial look though that is not to my taste. And.. something is wrong... I mean, stands are for supporting components, not become dominant elements of a set. Anyways... The mac-speakers combo though is stunning!!

xlin58 · #45 (**permalink**) 09-16-2008, 01:04 AM

just each of those speakers is 1,350 Anyone know how good amphion speakers are?