[Ike1985]

Also patents are to blame, I understand the companies perspective; They don't want people copying their products but ultimately using a cop to say : "you can't configure those raw materials in the same configuration as X company" is an unnatural marketplace practice that retards innovation and dries up prices of cutting edge technologies. Imagine if every company was riffing off each other's designs and nothing was out of reach, imagine how much cheaper technologies would get from the increased competition and how much faster they would get cheaper and how much better then end user product would be. Consider what a patent actually is; all goods are made of different materials. Those are materials are arranged in a certain way by an imventor/manufacturer and voila a product. Saying someone can't arrange their product in a similar manner is unnatural. Take a 3d printer-an even better example-somebody 3d printed a copper special widget that improves audio performance. I 3d print the same wodgey out of copper with my 3d peinter, i havent stolen anything: it was my copper and my 3d printer. I then manufacture and sell said widgets, bam patent violation. A product is just an idea with a fun behind it, we shouldn't be able to do that. So basically we have a perpetually devalued and inflated and monopolistic currency, laws that restrict competition and create an unnatural market and I haven't even mentioned all the taxes and regulations (which are applied at every single stage of manufacturing ALL THE WAY back to extracting the materials from the earth) that drive up the cost of doing business. Dont firget about health insurance either.

Ponder that, every stage of manufacturing is taxed and regulated repeatedly, anyone want to guess how many times those Utopias were taxed and then taxed again when sold or How many regulations the company had to conform to that drove up cost? Do you think manufacturers are just going to eat those costs or are they going to get their money back by raising the price? I know the answer to that question. In an entirely free market I would say you could easily slice the cost of those Utopias AT LEAST in 1/2. My dad bought his first car NEW for $1500. Bread and milk used to cost pennies. There is no economic rule that days a currency must continuously lose value, we could have a deflationary currency but then we wouldn't have a debt slave society and the big boys wouldn't like that now would they. In a deflationary scenario people actually save money because they believe it will increase in value, unlike now. Some even take those saving and invest in new enterprises, spurning growth. Imagine you save up $1000, in 1.5 years it's worth $2000 meanwhile the utopias have been going down in price due to the currency increasing in value over time. Now you have enough. I'm aware of the whole lending, interest rate, growth thinking of the Chicago school as well but much of that growth due to money printing is detrimental because it is unnatural and often ends terribly like in 2008. Just a reminder: a private monopoly printing a debt based monopolostic currency at interest and another monopoly taxing and regulating every industry to death with millions of laws and interferring with pure competition IS NOT capitalism, it's crapitalisn or corporatism. A free market is free and we have never had that here.

 

[WoodyLuvr]

No headphone in the world is worth more than $300 (perhaps even $200) IN MATERIALS & manufacturing costs, even the Utopia not.. and R&D isn't as much as people think it is, it's mostly a small team of persons who get their regular salary from the company. It's all about ''are you willing to pay this much for it's sound''. it really got out of hands and headphone manufactures are profiting big time.

Very good points and concur on many regards however the same has been said about another overpriced and supposedly high-margin market, luxury brand automatic watches. But time, and time again, many of the more well known houses, although very quietly and politely, have shown very solid contrary evidence that R&D is not as cheap as many presume it to be (especially when sourcing new or rare materials and/or delving into breaking edge technologies) but even more importantly the often overlooked huge cost required to source/stock completely new materials/parts, as well as the complete retooling and setup required for a new model line production.

 

[WoodyLuvr]

...Just a reminder: a private monopoly printing a debt based monopolostic currency at interest and another monopoly taxing and regulating every industry to death with millions of laws and interferring with pure competition IS NOT capitalism, it's crapitalisn or corporatism. A free market is free and we have never had that here.

So true... a transparent and fair flat tax would be a nice first step towards true capitalism and democracy in the US! Just our leaving the gold standard during the Nixon years insured that we would never have a truly capitalistic and healthy financial system. Our government and country loves debtors! Easier to prey on the poor, ill-informed, ignorant, lazy, and knee-jerk opportunists!

 

[WoodyLuvr]

To add to this point Musk has said numerous times that he would love to introduce a few more models to the Tesla line but in doing so to responsibly cover the costs for R&D and manufacturing it would definitely drive up the sticker price on all the models and the current number of models Tesla is making is the max possible before the sticker prices rise more than 25%! I believe him.

 

[thefitz]

Are you worried about being priced out of headphones altogether, or losing out on being part of the dick-parade that is saying "I have a TOTL can, lalalalala!"? By my estimation, there's a headphone available at any price point that sounds as good as any headphone at a given price ever sounded. If you're sad because you can't brag that you have a top of the line can, get over yourself.

And let's not pretend that TOTL technologies don't eventually trickle down into less expensive headphones....

 

[Hondadude85]

The best thing to come out of these really high-priced flagships is that their old (and still jolly good) flagships have gotten dirt cheap. I picked up a pair of HD600's for $288, new. And just recently got a set of DT880-250's (black special edition no less, with T90 alcantara headband and nice hard case) for only $189. Also new. So at least there's a good side to all of this and I'm loving it!

 

[WoodyLuvr]

Are you worried about being priced out of headphones altogether... ...? By my estimation, there's a headphone available at any price point that sounds as good as any headphone at a given price ever sounded...

And let's not pretend that TOTL technologies don't eventually trickle down into less expensive headphones....

A really great post if you had only left out the unneeded and highly personal and inflammatory asides. Reread above... now that would have come across extremely insightful, mature, and polite and still with a very strong argument (one that I am actually having difficulty coming up with a counter for, touché sir!).

I really don't understand why people forget their manners and need to be jerks on a forum. You would never get away with that kind of talk with strangers in a real life/professional/business-like environment nor would you be considered a productive/contributing member of the fellowship if you did. I guess I am getting old...

 

[Muinarc]

To be fair, with inflation the $500 headphones of 20 years ago would be around $700 today, and the current crop of headphones you can get in the $700-1,000 range are pretty amazing. The manufacturers are definitely playing on the psychology that bigger, fancier, more expensive is better; but if you can overcome that thinking or go out and try all of the megabuck headphones like I have at CanJams or local meetups, you'll see the diminishing returns hit them quite hard and you don't gain that much in a $2,000+ headphone.

 

[thefitz]

A really great post if you had only left out the unneeded and highly personal and inflammatory asides. Reread above... now that would have come across extremely insightful, mature, and polite and still with a very strong argument (one that I am actually having difficulty coming up with a counter for, touché sir!).

I really don't understand why people forget their manners and need to be jerks on a forum. You would never get away with that kind of talk with strangers in a real life/professional/business-like environment nor would you be considered a productive/contributing member of the fellowship if you did. I guess I am getting old...

I fight whining with sauciness. Sauciness doesn't get anyone anywhere in real life, and people don't complain like this in real life either. Fantasy land doesn't only apply to meanies like me.

 

[vrapan]

I think head-fi and other hobby forums present a very distorted picture of their respective industries. You do not need the 3000-4000k headphone, there is a large amount of them that are much cheaper which are much better what your money would be even 5 years ago. The market has stretched from very low to very high and that is fine.

 

[canthearyou]

Then please go ahead and make a sub $300 headphone that sounds as good as say the Utopia or HE-1k and you'll become rich. Matter of fact, make sure to send me an invoice for serial #0001.

 

[Tim Le]

The best thing to come out of these really high-priced flagships is that their old (and still jolly good) flagships have gotten dirt cheap. I picked up a pair of HD600's for $288, new. And just recently got a set of DT880-250's (black special edition no less, with T90 alcantara headband and nice hard case) for only $189. Also new. So at least there's a good side to all of this and I'm loving it!

Definitely agree with this. I feel like the release of expensive flagships benefits all parties. Because of how quickly they're being released, the offerings in the used market under $500 are incredible.

On the other hand, it's nice to know that when I graduate and have the money, the options to get even better performance are there (albeit at a premium).

But then again, aren't all fine things in life?

 

[ubs28]

Back then Sennheiser had flagship headphones at $15.000. Sony also had $3000 flagship headphones in the past.

If you adjust for inflation, those prices are much higher.

 

[DancingShade]

You can get some pretty amazing headphones in the sub $1k range you could easily be happy with.

Maybe summit-fi isn't getting any cheaper but mid-fi quality is definitely going up all the time.

 

[watchdog507]

The ultimate decider of price is the consumer. Two flagship products from two of my favourite companies are being discounted rather publicly. WOO Audio's WA33 is marked down to $6799 from $7999 and Hifiman's Susvara at $6000 gets you a EF6 Amp included. This tells me that there is pushback on the prices. When I see something that doesn't present value I respond with my feet and I take a walk. I've been around too long to care about being an early adopter of products. I'll let someone else take a hit and then I'll buy them heavily discounted on the secondary market.