tienbasse said:

   
Summary:
What you pay has not much to do with R&D costs these days, people should stop thinking that prices are related to actual costs for R&D/manufacturing/whatever, it's ONLY marketing strategy (including ****ty market studies to see what people are willing to spend).
 
And as long as there are people with "too much" money in their hands, and no common sense (which is tightly related, since you tend to lose contact with reality when you have very high income), prices will continue to inflate. Emerging countries are such a wonder for this, along with the slow decline of scientific education (why studying science only to get underpaid jobs ?).
The more it goes, the more people make completely uneducated decisions when it comes to hobbies, making marketeers life easier and easier.
 
When you see Sony selling a microsd card making music "sound better" while music is stored numerically, any bulls**t will do the job fine !

 

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I don't think the situation with medical companies (who are the ones mainly responsible for medical treatment costing so much) compare to the small guys who build headphones. Go to the actual factories of companies like Audeze and MrSpeakers and go and see for yourself the work that goes into what they do. I want to see (based on whomever made the comment) you tell them that it only takes "a few months" to design a TOTL headphone, and do it yourself, including building a business around it, to prove them wrong. Don't forget that once the headphone is released to the public, it will be torn to shreds publicly on here, irrespective of whether you are a paid sponsor. You get to watch people who have no idea of the efforts you made criticize everything you've done, and then everything you say, then everything other people said you did whether you did or not.
 
I'm with you on the decline in the level of scientific education. However I don't think that relates. People, including those with a science background, want to buy expensive toys as well, and there is a lot of science in the design of expensive headphones.

currawong said:

   
I don't think the situation with medical companies (who are the ones mainly responsible for medical treatment costing so much) compare to the small guys who build headphones. Go to the actual factories of companies like Audeze and MrSpeakers and go and see for yourself the work that goes into what they do. I want to see (based on whomever made the comment) you tell them that it only takes "a few months" to design a TOTL headphone, and do it yourself, including building a business around it, to prove them wrong. Don't forget that once the headphone is released to the public, it will be torn to shreds publicly on here, irrespective of whether you are a paid sponsor. You get to watch people who have no idea of the efforts you made criticize everything you've done, and then everything you say, then everything other people said you did whether you did or not.
 
I'm with you on the decline in the level of scientific education. However I don't think that relates. People, including those with a science background, want to buy expensive toys as well, and there is a lot of science in the design of expensive headphones.

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currawong said:

   
I don't think the situation with medical companies (who are the ones mainly responsible for medical treatment costing so much) compare to the small guys who build headphones. Go to the actual factories of companies like Audeze and MrSpeakers and go and see for yourself the work that goes into what they do. I want to see (based on whomever made the comment) you tell them that it only takes "a few months" to design a TOTL headphone, and do it yourself, including building a business around it, to prove them wrong. Don't forget that once the headphone is released to the public, it will be torn to shreds publicly on here, irrespective of whether you are a paid sponsor. You get to watch people who have no idea of the efforts you made criticize everything you've done, and then everything you say, then everything other people said you did whether you did or not.
 
I'm with you on the decline in the level of scientific education. However I don't think that relates. People, including those with a science background, want to buy expensive toys as well, and there is a lot of science in the design of expensive headphones.

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or maybe they should spend more time to finishing the product as final product because that's also part of the R&D. instead releasing new iteration for the same products every 6 months or a year 

ruhenheim said:

 

currawong said:

   
I don't think the situation with medical companies (who are the ones mainly responsible for medical treatment costing so much) compare to the small guys who build headphones. Go to the actual factories of companies like Audeze and MrSpeakers and go and see for yourself the work that goes into what they do. I want to see (based on whomever made the comment) you tell them that it only takes "a few months" to design a TOTL headphone, and do it yourself, including building a business around it, to prove them wrong. Don't forget that once the headphone is released to the public, it will be torn to shreds publicly on here, irrespective of whether you are a paid sponsor. You get to watch people who have no idea of the efforts you made criticize everything you've done, and then everything you say, then everything other people said you did whether you did or not.
 
I'm with you on the decline in the level of scientific education. However I don't think that relates. People, including those with a science background, want to buy expensive toys as well, and there is a lot of science in the design of expensive headphones.

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or maybe they should spend more time to finishing the product as final product because that's also part of the R&D. instead releasing new iteration for the same products every 6 months or a year 

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At some point they have to release the product and sell it otherwise nobody gets anything. In many cases, updates are the result of new discoveries which they weren't aware of, or hadn't developed at the time. I don't think that any company would ever feel that a product is 100% complete and that there is no further work to be done, otherwise we'd all still be using technology from decades ago, or living like the Amish.  
 
With some headphones I do agree that a couple of issues that shouldn't have been in a multi-thousand dollar headphone shouldn't have been there.

currawong said:

 
At some point they have to release the product and sell it otherwise nobody gets anything. In many cases, updates are the result of new discoveries which they weren't aware of, or hadn't developed at the time. I don't think that any company would ever feel that a product is 100% complete and that there is no further work to be done, otherwise we'd all still be using technology from decades ago, or living like the Amish. 

 
 
With some headphones I do agree that a couple of issues that shouldn't have been in a multi-thousand dollar headphone shouldn't have been there.

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when you paid a lot of money for a product. you want it to be finished final product. not to be a beta tester. if company want to do an update.that's good i don't have problem with that.but that also part of the r&d. its not a software update when you could release it anytime you want to fix minor bugs or minor updates. and its not like its only one or two times updates.there few updates in very short period of time. i don't think that a very good r&d. a company could charge anything they want.just make sure it's justified and finished product. not many people like to be a beta tester especially when they are the one who spend the money

currawong said:

There's nothing wrong with enjoying equipment, if you can afford it. If people are happy with what they buy, who are we to disagree with them?  Two of my friends bought the full AK380 Copper stack. They can afford it, and it gives them enjoyment. I have the AK380 here on loan and it is clearly more resolving than other DACs I've tried. I don't use a DAP enough to consider buying one, but if I liked it enough and my entire system was to be based around it, I would seriously consider it.

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More resolving than the chord Dave you loaned ? :O

deftone said:

 

currawong said:

There's nothing wrong with enjoying equipment, if you can afford it. If people are happy with what they buy, who are we to disagree with them?  Two of my friends bought the full AK380 Copper stack. They can afford it, and it gives them enjoyment. I have the AK380 here on loan and it is clearly more resolving than other DACs I've tried. I don't use a DAP enough to consider buying one, but if I liked it enough and my entire system was to be based around it, I would seriously consider it.

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More resolving than the chord Dave you loaned ? :O

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Thanks for pointing that out, it was a typo. It should have said "DAPs". 

ruhenheim said:

 so maybe the amount of money involve in r&d not that big

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That depends on the player, the size of their game and what they want to accomplish

currawong said:

I don't think the situation with medical companies (who are the ones mainly responsible for medical treatment costing so much) compare to the small guys who build headphones. Go to the actual factories of companies like Audeze and MrSpeakers and go and see for yourself the work that goes into what they do. I want to see (based on whomever made the comment) you tell them that it only takes "a few months" to design a TOTL headphone, and do it yourself, including building a business around it, to prove them wrong. Don't forget that once the headphone is released to the public, it will be torn to shreds publicly on here, irrespective of whether you are a paid sponsor. You get to watch people who have no idea of the efforts you made criticize everything you've done, and then everything you say, then everything other people said you did whether you did or not.

I'm with you on the decline in the level of scientific education. However I don't think that relates. People, including those with a science background, want to buy expensive toys as well, and there is a lot of science in the design of expensive headphones.

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The counter to that is that there is also a tonne of hype and positity as well. In-fact I'd argue with Audeze and MrSpeakers, their major releases have seen predominantly positive responses. Lots of people constantly praising, endorsing etc, not just because of the quality of the products, but also partly borne of justifying their own investments, which is only natural.

Add to that, I would argue that Audeze in particular has been able to get away with a level of poor quality control that simply would not be accepted in many other areas of technology or product releases, eg mobile, IT, consoles, fashion etc. How they've been able to release such premium ultra high priced headphones, with such a high number of quality issues, is beyond me. I'm almost surprised they've not had a class suit thrown at them, because Lord knows there's been some right damaging stories posted on these forums etc. The sheer volume of which have always been surprising to me.

naim.f.c said:

The counter to that is that there is also a tonne of hype and positity as well. In-fact I'd argue with Audeze and MrSpeakers, their major releases have seen predominantly positive responses. Lots of people constantly praising, endorsing etc, not just because of the quality of the products, but also partly borne of justifying their own investments, which is only natural.

Add to that, I would argue that Audeze in particular has been able to get away with a level of poor quality control that simply would not be accepted in many other areas of technology or product releases, eg mobile, IT, consoles, fashion etc. How they've been able to release such premium ultra high priced headphones, with such a high number of quality issues, is beyond me. I'm almost surprised they've not had a class suit thrown at them, because Lord knows there's been some right damaging stories posted on these forums etc. The sheer volume of which have always been surprising to me.

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Completely agree here, sometimes people seem to ignore factors that they feel are less important to them in the name of "almighty-sound-quality-god".
 
In some topics regarding headphones/IEMs/DAps, I am amazed by the amount of crap that people are ready to go through because the sound is ok for them.
Built quality is an obvious one, but probably not the prime example because it is still important to many people when pricetage gets high because of longevity reasons.
 
The best example is really UI when it comes to DAPs and DACs. When I see people talking wonders about FiiO / iBasso DAPs or even Opus #1, I just cannot agree because their UIs are such a bloody pain to use (lag of large libraries, non-working features, unresolved bugs, counter-intuitive functions, you name it you have it).
Of course it tends to get better with their newer models (Opus #2 for example, but given the tripled pricetag, it's the minimum one could expect), but old model users are left with a bad taste in their mouth because these manufacturers do not always adress the most obvious shortcomings in updates.
Then compare that with the level of support people get with other brands (Cayin is a prime example for DAPs that get updated to quasi-perfection) and it gets more obvious than avoiding beta testing with paying customers is not an impossible task, you just have to want to make it happen.

I don't think vendors with big lines - can lower price on premium headphones because they would then have to lower prices on all of their line. I've been looking at AKG 872 to go along with my Koss ESP 950 electrostatics. But it's $1450 on Amazon.

tienbasse said:

 
Completely agree here, sometimes people seem to ignore factors that they feel are less important to them in the name of "almighty-sound-quality-god".
 
In some topics regarding headphones/IEMs/DAps, I am amazed by the amount of crap that people are ready to go through because the sound is ok for them.
Built quality is an obvious one, but probably not the prime example because it is still important to many people when pricetage gets high because of longevity reasons.
 
The best example is really UI when it comes to DAPs and DACs. When I see people talking wonders about FiiO / iBasso DAPs or even Opus #1, I just cannot agree because their UIs are such a bloody pain to use (lag of large libraries, non-working features, unresolved bugs, counter-intuitive functions, you name it you have it).
Of course it tends to get better with their newer models (Opus #2 for example, but given the tripled pricetag, it's the minimum one could expect), but old model users are left with a bad taste in their mouth because these manufacturers do not always adress the most obvious shortcomings in updates.
Then compare that with the level of support people get with other brands (Cayin is a prime example for DAPs that get updated to quasi-perfection) and it gets more obvious than avoiding beta testing with paying customers is not an impossible task, you just have to want to make it happen.

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and people still talking about the r&d being so ridiculously high so companies need to pricing their products to certain price range to still be able compete in the business... just to produce a half baked products.

ubs28 said:

 
​Focal spend 4 years into R&D for the Utopia headphones. Since the same engineers worked on their TOTL loudspeakers, they are senior engineers most likely so they earn around $80.000 per year probably if not more. Not sure how big their engineering team is, but let's assume the team consist of 10 senior engineers (their team is probably much bigger), it's $80.000 x 4 x 10 = $3.2 million just for R&D salaries.
 
Let's assume that the entire headphone cost $0 to make (which is not true ofcourse), then Focal needs to sell $3.2 million / $4000 = 800 headphone just to breakeven for the salaries. And considering how difficult it is to make the headphone, they can't let it go for cheap. The real costs are much higher though.

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Four years of R&D for a pair of dynamic-driver headphones??! I find that very hard to believe for a company with decades of experience designing and selling audio equipment. And unless you've seen Focal balance sheets for the past decade I highly doubt the math quite that simple for a company with five major product lines, over 300 employees, and annual revenues in excess of 60 million euro (if you include Naim). 
 
However, Focal now being owned by a private equity company (AFAIK) might explain why they released such elite headphone products -- milk the brand name and pump up the company's perceived value ahead of a sale. Call me a cynic!

naim.f.c said:

  The counter to that is that there is also a tonne of hype and positity as well. In-fact I'd argue with Audeze and MrSpeakers, their major releases have seen predominantly positive responses. Lots of people constantly praising, endorsing etc, not just because of the quality of the products, but also partly borne of justifying their own investments, which is only natural.

Add to that, I would argue that Audeze in particular has been able to get away with a level of poor quality control that simply would not be accepted in many other areas of technology or product releases, eg mobile, IT, consoles, fashion etc. How they've been able to release such premium ultra high priced headphones, with such a high number of quality issues, is beyond me. I'm almost surprised they've not had a class suit thrown at them, because Lord knows there's been some right damaging stories posted on these forums etc. The sheer volume of which have always been surprising to me.

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I don't know. When I used to work selling computers and whatnot to small businesses, I saw a model of Sony notebook where every single one sold failed a short time afterwards, and that was just on the surface. We had a policy to only sell products that more or less never came back for repair. Sales reps used to hate us. 
 
As for positive responses, it's because their products generally don't suck (sonically, driver issues aside). I think I pointed out earlier, but Ultrasone make very expensive flagship headphones which don't get a lot of discussion. People go on and on about the number of stars products get in reviews in a negative way, but I'd say that, compared to when I started, the quality of gear is vastly better. When I first started going to the Tokyo headphone festivals, a lot of the gear I tried was average, and some awful -- actually anything very cheap was dreadful. Recently though when I've gone there, nothing, even the super cheap stuff, has been other than at least good, and the flagship stuff has been mostly pretty awesome, with only the occasional "What were they thinking with this tuning?" impression.
 

wordfool said:

  Four years of R&D for a pair of dynamic-driver headphones??! I find that very hard to believe for a company with decades of experience designing and selling audio equipment. 

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If they are going to sell them for $4k, you'd want them to be perfect! But it does depend how much time they were actually working on them over that period and how perfect they wanted to get them first and, not to mention, that headphone acoustics are radically different to that of speakers.