Suddenly all 'new and better' dynamic headphones cost $1000+ - Page 7

Just stop it you pocket emptier....

Wasn't it you who asked Acix about his AKG employment? hahaha

Hehehe No one ever said this hobby was cheap.

But I am not pushing one signal manufacturer...I can't work for both beyer and sennheiser...and if AKG ever got around to issuing their new flagship and I preferred it, I would definitely jump all over it!

Unlike some, I have very little brand loyalty...I just go with what sounds the best .

I have heard the HD650 fully balanced out of a balance B22 amp and it was really good. But still no where as good as the HD800 or T1 out of a good amp. You can only do so much with balancing and amping. And IMO, some of the new flagships are just so good that they are still head above shoulders better.

Stop thinking about how much they cost. Everyone knows and agrees they are expensive cans.

Go to a meet and listen to them. Thats all. It dosnt cost anything but transportation to go to most meets, perhaps a small donation to cover the cost of the room.

The 4 headphones you mentioned there are each soooo different in how they present the sound that I would pick which you like more. Picking the HD800 because (who was it? do you know and trust them) assured the world that Senn made a better headphone than Beyer when they were duking it out with the 580 &the 880 and has been riding it since is crazytoast. If your not going to have 2 or 3 pick the 1 for yourself. Make an educated decision by listening.... for yourself. If someone else listens to your rig (and a great rig could be built around any of those 4 headphones) and dosnt like it, ask them why. see if you can improve your gear for their advice. or if they are just full of ****.

If you are not fortunate enough to have regular meets near where you live perhaps try to run one for yourself. Even if you find only one or 2 other people in the area who are interested in headphones you could organize a mini-meet and listen to the gear each other has and benefit greatly from that. I have a much better time listening to gear at mini meets than full size ones anyways.

I would not worry about whether the amp is balanced or not. It WILL distract you from the end goal of good sound. This is ESPECICALLY true if you are focusing on a budget-rig. There are some truly awesome balanced amps out there, and there are plenty of truly awesome SE amps too, but there are also quite a few sad bits of junk in both camps. If you find a balanced amp you think you may like, cool! Compare it to a similarly priced & regarded SE amp without regards to whether what you are listening to at the moment is single ended or balanced. try it out. Nobody has to listen to your gear but you.

True that. The new flagships have a tendency to sound bigger and more like speakers than ever before. They really do stand a cut above with ease. But way out of my reach now, and probably for a while.

If I went to the meet to listen to all these new cans... well lets say my wallet would be screaming!

I disagree with the thread starter

High end headphone rig cost 5 years ago:

Top of the line Meridian player $4,000
Top of the line headphone amp $3,000 plus dynamics $500-$1,500 -OR- Sennheiser Orpheus $???

Total $7,500 - $15,000 depending on choice of dynamic or electrostatic

High end headphone rig cost now:

Reasonable DAC sounding as good as the source above $200-$1,500
Top of the line balanced amp (outperforming the amp above) $1,600
Sennheiser HD800 (current king) $1,300

Total $4,400


It looks to me like high end headphone rigs are costing a lot less now.

I suppose if you're like 90% of people and buy a $1,000+ headphone but only spend pocket change on the amp and source it's costlier, but even with the right gear, a killer headphone setup is under 5 grand; you can get a pretty good speaker setup for that amount but it's not going to come anywhere near phones at that price level!

-Geek

Id like to know what is perfection. I still look at the frequency response graphs of most of these headphones and there are deviations from flat which indicates that there is significant distortion going on. As long as companies can improve on these impurities, i think it is just that the price is upward. Afterall there are always those who are prepared to pay more for the best....

Id be keen to know how high you would go. If there was a headphone with a pricetag of 10k that sounded leaps and bounds better than the 800's (or the LCD-2's), would you go there? do you think many people would?

 

 

 

I think that audiophiles are partly responsible for dictating the price trend of headphones.

 

Just how did you get a set of ESL-63s that affordably? The ones I've seen on sale were more like US$2,500! (Perhaps it's the same way I managed to get a vintage Stax Lambda system for only $250-being in the right place at the right time with enough cash.)

 

Anyway, back on topic: I think a lot of it has to do with prestige and reputation. Not a dynamic example here, but I'm pretty sure Stax knows their reputation well enough that they can get away with charging $5,000 for the SR-009, or $2,500 for the SR-007 (without the required electrostatic amps on top of that, and if the amp in question is a BHSE, that's another $5,000). And sure enough, there are people here willing to pay that. I'm sure there are technical improvements over the Lambda lineup in general, but do they warrant the massive price increase? Only you can decide that, after you audition them all.

Not to keep this necro-bumped thread alive longer and going more off topic, but a pair of Quad 63s just sold last month on audiogon for 500 bucks. (which I unfortunately missed by a few minutes.) Supposedly these prices do come up from time to time though it'd be more common to find in local/estate sales. 

 

As for the Stax example, it sounds like the same thing that applies to the audiophile condition in general. (ie diminishing returns and marked up prices to cater to untapped markets) I always took headphones as means to a lifestyle that didn't have room for speakers. (Be that a noisy dorm or itty bitty living space) I think I stayed in headphones just because that was the medium I got used to and after reading so much about the hobby headphones became quite interesting in and of themselves. While there's a desire for better music, there's also the pure curiosity about the history and design of these things. What do Jecklins, k1000s, sigmas, or piezoelectric drivers sound like? What were the minds behind them trying to achieve? With the headphone market expanding upwards and out I don't think it's so much the death of value so much as it is the possibility for new innovation born from competition. It might not be manifest in the most affordable models, but there will be competition at every price point, and as such I don't see the consumer losing out.