Why are headphone amplifiers so expensive? - Page 3

Price is not always indicative of quality first and foremost (if we paid for what we got, Dre Beats and Bose wouldn't be rated all that badly around here).  Nonetheless I will explain one cause of higher cost.

A DIY amp like the O2 offers outstanding bench (and audible) performance for ~$100.  The difference is this is part cost, doesn't include R&D, marketing, wages, middle-men, etc.  A similar amp without retail channels (straight internet direct) would be ~$200 more than likely, and when you add a retail channel expect $300.  The MSRP may be higher if needed to improve upon potential low production rates/sales or if they want to pad their pocket more.  And this is without doing anything special like a exotic chassis.  It's not hard to see why some amp makers can get away charging $500 or so if they play their cards correctly.

I have no interest in watches and no little about them, from a novices view (mine) most would ignorantly suppose a Rolex to be a luxury item and top of the pile. I guess the advertising has done it’s job well. Thank you for pointing this out to me.

It has been pretty well said here, but it's worth saying again to make sure it sinks in.  Projects like the o2 are showing that with competent design, an extremely competent amp can be built for about $100 in parts shipped to your door.  There are already some manufacturers selling this exact design, built, for about $150 (although I believe that is without the $20 AC power supply), so that's pretty much the bottom of the market for a full featured amp that can drive almost anything under the sun.  If a really big manufacturer were to start building a design like this in volume, they could probably drive the price down to $100 or so.  Under $100 you are looking at competent designs like the Fiio e7 that are not quite up to the task of driving many of the common full-size cans.

For many people though, they see a design like the o2, and they like it, but would like it just a bit better.  This is why most of the bulk of better amps are in the $250 and above range.  If you add a nicer case, perhaps a nicer looking and feeling volume pot and switches, perhaps a couple of inputs and a loop out, plus you are a company that has to go through even this minimal re-design, plus choose parts that are reliably available, assemble the device, test it, ship it, and provide a warranty on it, it's easy to see why $100 in 'parts' can become a $500 amp.  This is where most of the market is at.

Above that level, you are starting to pay for extremely nice case-work, esoteric parts that don't measurably improve the sound, but are nicer to look at and use, and/or additional features.  Also, if you think about it from the point of view of a manufacturer, why make a $200 amp that is up to the task of doing everything, when instead you can sell products at $200, $1000, $2500 and so on?  There are people willing to buy at every price point, why not serve them?

Edit: I see that Shike said pretty much what I did in many fewer words. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skin 

I think a better question is why are headphones so expensive, or rather why feel the need for such expensive headphones. I'd assume spend money on upgrading a source and using a cheaper headphone. If someone asks about a 1k headphone and thats the price range they feel comfortable in then Amps and DACs for it should not be expensive for said person.

 

Its like buying a nice high performance car then not thinking twice about putting retreads on it because you either cant or dont want to purchase new tires.

That's strongly debatable, as there is a very strong case to be made that digital sources, like amplifiers, can be made transparent with a minimal of outlay.  Most people would have a difficult time telling two competent sources apart, while the differences between headphones are generally quite audible.  In general though, the price of almost everything headphone has been driven up immensely over the past 5 years or so.  Prior to that, other than extremely esoteric items, high-end here was considered $500 or so each for an amp and cans.  Today, that's almost the bottom of the market, save for portables.

Supply & demand, small market niche. 

I'm with zhenya here. Some components - fancy volume controls and chassis, when purchased on such a small scale, are fairly expensive, even if the basic design can be built for less. And then if you've got families to feed...

Quote:

Originally Posted by joelpearce 

The fact that we're willing to pay that much also has something to do with it.

Hahahah, I reckon that might be a factor 

Quote:

Originally Posted by joelpearce 

The fact that we're willing to pay that much also has something to do with it.

I'm not...

But it has more to do with my philosophy than my ability to pay.

Quote:

Originally Posted by joelpearce 

The fact that we're willing to pay that much also has something to do with it.

+1

Retail is an eye-opener - the markup on some of the smaller items is astronomical, yet surprisingly small on larger electronic gadgets. Distributorships are the last monopolies, IMO, and many of them nail prices down for all but the largest retailers : I don't know what it costs to become a Sennheiser distributor, but its a license-to-print-money IMO.

Quote:

Originally Posted by johnwmclean 

 

I have no interest in watches and no little about them, from a novices view (mine) most would ignorantly suppose a Rolex to be a luxury item and top of the pile. I guess the advertising has done it’s job well. Thank you for pointing this out to me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sfoclt 

The quality control for Rolex is really low.  They're not much better than other mid-level Swiss watches, certainly not a "thing of beauty".  They're the Beats by Dre of the watch world.

 

http://www.timezone.com/library/horologium/horologium0036

 

 

So if Rolex is the Beats of the watch world, what're the Stax/Orpheus?

Patek Philippe. Maybe Audemars Piguet and A. Lange and Sohne

Quote:

Originally Posted by DesireUsername 

So if Rolex is the Beats of the watch world, what're the Stax/Orpheus?

 

Well, if we're talking about ultimate performance at the most important thing the gadget does (in this case, accurate timekeeping), I'd wager the only reasonable answer is a quartz clock with atomic syncing.  High end mechanical watches would be like the $20,000 tube amp that measures horrifically but is built like a tank and styled like an Art Nouveau masterpiece.