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Actually yes, I am complaining about the HD800 in particular. The SA3000, okay, I understand a $150 headphone having some bad flaws. The HD600.. I guess its ok for a $400 headphone to have a crippling issue... but a headphone costing well over a thousand dollars? What? That makes absolutely no sense to me.
Please keep in mind that we're talking four digit prices for a god forsaken headphone. Back in the 70's and '80s, even the most expensive headphones (except for extremely exclusive boutique products like high-end electrostats) would have costed no more than $700 in today's money. Like seriously, the 4AAA was KOSS's flagship back in the late 70's. It was quite literally the best dynamic headphone in the world at the time of its introduction, and its starting pricetag was $100. Taking inflation into consideration, that translates into about $486 in today's money. For the best dynamic headphone. Plus, after a few years it could be had for as little as $40.
My point is, Sennheiser could make quite a large profit off the HD800 at a price point well below what they're asking for it, and they haven't even put in enough effort to make their best headphone as good as they possibly can. Headphone companies have just gotten incredibly greedy and incredibly lazy in the past few decades, Senn of course being one of the worst offenders. It's inexcusable.
Also uh, I'm sorry, but the TH900 is easily the absolute best headphone we've seen since the MDR-R10. That's a very, VERY bad example. The TH900 doesn't do anything wrong and it's from a company with a HELL of a lot more experience than Sennheiser, and it only costs $500 more than the HD800 (which does a hell of a lot of things wrong). The TH900 uses biocel for its diaphragm, just like many of the best headphones ever made. Add the urushi laquer on the earcups and you've got a very logical reason to charge ~$2k. Definitely a lot more of a luxury product than the HD800.
Well rate of return is much lesser the higher bracket you go. Its pretty unfair to compare value with 300, 400 dollar headphones with HD800 (4 digit cost headphone) and complain about value. If you want dollar for dollar value its very hard to beat something like grado sr80i or HD 600. You can compare it with other headphones that are much more similar in price like $1350, $1100 headphones. Plus a very large group of people myself not included would easily claim that HD 800 sounds better than TH900 by a noticeable margin. (i would choose to listen to the TH900 over HD 800 anyday unlike a lot of people i've seen post on the forums but i do not find the price diff agreeable) A lot of people will claim that TH900 is a great pair of headphones but in general purely sound wise it will fall behind T1, HE-6 (well driven), and HD800. (if youo include LCD 2 to the mix, it would be the 4 that generally has the opinion of great value high end in thsi community although it is very divided in whcih is the best) I generally find the term "great value" to have some what of a different meaning when comparing value with headphones sold at a few hundred to over a thousand. (maybe this is where our fundamental differences in opinion lie)
Although high end is very strongly based on personal preference i have very rarely seen people claim that TH900 sounds better than the previous 3 with the correct setup. (but they do exist) And personally i do not find the price difference margin between the 3 phones and TH900 to be marginal at all. To me $500 margin is a lot of money even in the high end. Also headphones like LCD 2 have a pretty noticeable issue of discomfort due purely the weight of the phones itself, costs 4 digits but is considered great value yet many people would still consider HD 800 to be better than LCD 2 although i personally prefer LCD 2 over HD 800. Lastly you were talking about $700 dollar headphones like 30, 40 years ago. Unfortunately i would say that there is a noticeable inflation rate between such a time period. Very possible and unsuprising if its higher price today even after inflation margin, but this gap is smaller than you may think is all i want to say for that.
Also the biggest factor for price when you go to high end is not production cost or R&D cost. (like you said i bet they would have sizable margins even if it wasn't 4 digit cost) But the cost is very strongly dictated by its direct competitor product specifically which would mean flagship products that other companies are made in similar price. (T1 vs HD800 is the most ideal example in my opinion) Normally this wouldn't matter as much in a monopolistic competition market but this happens because it is a olipology based market (cheaper headphones would be closer to monopolistic competition market). These types of market also attributes to a very large price margin difference between the actual cost to make the product and price sold. Yea it sucks for us. And no it is not worth it to me in my books (as you have made it clear it is not to you either). But its selling well and they're making profit so the market disagrees in general good for me,you, and them. They just doing what it takes to make the most profit as possible and frankly any company would do this. I would find it unfair to call them greedy since it is something any company would usually do. If the marketing division told the higher ups we have to price this product as "x" to make most profit. Pretty much any company would set the price that way. Also i doubt companies were noble in the past but turned greedy in the recent years. I would mostly attribute to the fact that more people than in the past would be willing to purchase high end headphones and people in general have more purchasing power today than 30, 40 years ago. so even if quality/standard dropped or remained the same since demand is higher they would have no problem selling their product. (company in certain situations can make more money by not making the best product possible cause there are also costs associated to it. As long as the quality is similar to their direct competition market they will just live with it) With more and better market and mathamatical model the company can also set a price that is closer to what would maximize their profits as well. People have always been greedy if you can call it that its just that the environment back then and now is slightly different. (but perhaps i have digressed too much here)
But i would like to give you a challenge to go around and try to find people that would claim that HD 800 is noticeably worse than its direct competitors. (T1, HE-6, etc) You may find some people since nothing is absolute but i'm pretty confident that the general concensus would be HD 800 is not noticeably worse than its direct competitor products and in the end thats the reason for quality drop(although some will disagree), pricing increase, etc. Basically the point i want to make is that fundamentally its price as well as the quality of the product came out as it did because sennheiser had a specific price bracket in mind (targeting a specific market) and also specific competitor products in mind. Frankly I would give them a check mark for both boxes in terms of executing what they had planned to do. A goal of a company is not to make the best possible product even if it may be the very highend side as long as the consumer thinks its competitive to its similarly priced. Its to maximize profit.
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