[Boffy]

I know I am going to receive a lot of hate ad criticism for saying this, but I will say it anyways. Did you know that the drivers of current flagships, such as HD800, T1, HE-6, etc costs around $10 dollars to make? All the extra money are spent on the design, headband, earpad, cable, etc... In other words, one can possibly make a case saying that the sound of these flagships are only worth a couple of dollars. So to answer OP's question, of course not. Probably, all audiophile headphones in the market are overpriced and not worth the money, even the highly praised value for money headphones like Hifiman RE400, Vsonic GR07, or AKG K612. At least in terms of economical and industrial stand point. However, all these discussion about whether this or that is worth the money or not is completely pointless and should never be discussed in my opinion. If you like something and you can afford it, go for it. If you like it regardless of what the price was, it was a good buy. If you didn't, it was not a good buy. If someone sold me a brand new HD800 for $20, but I couldn't resell it, I wouldn't buy it. I don't like the HD800 and it would not be worth wasting my $20 for. Go ahead, I am ready to take all the verbal attacks. 

 

[Music Alchemist]

  I'm wondering if headphones that cost around $1000 are really that much better than say... $200 to $300 headphones?

 
Price is only one factor. Some four-figure headphones sound a lot better than some headphones in the $200-300 range, but it's not guaranteed. Depending on which sound signature(s) you prefer, some expensive headphones might sound awful to you.
 

  I know I am going to receive a lot of hate ad criticism for saying this, but I will say it anyways. Did you know that the drivers of current flagships, such as HD800, T1, HE-6, etc costs around $10 dollars to make? All the extra money are spent on the design, headband, earpad, cable, etc... In other words, one can possibly make a case saying that the sound of these flagships are only worth a couple of dollars. So to answer OP's question, of course not. Probably, all audiophile headphones in the market are overpriced and not worth the money, even the highly praised value for money headphones like Hifiman RE400, Vsonic GR07, or AKG K612. At least in terms of economical and industrial stand point. However, all these discussion about whether this or that is worth the money or not is completely pointless and should never be discussed in my opinion. If you like something and you can afford it, go for it. If you like it regardless of what the price was, it was a good buy. If you didn't, it was not a good buy. If someone sold me a brand new HD800 for $20, but I couldn't resell it, I wouldn't buy it. I don't like the HD800 and it would not be worth wasting my $20 for. Go ahead, I am ready to take all the verbal attacks. 

 
This is actually very helpful information. I did not realize this.
 
Can you provide documentation?
 
I heard that the Abyss AB-1266 drivers cost $2,000 to make, but I didn't see any proof.

 

[Aizura]

  I know I am going to receive a lot of hate ad criticism for saying this, but I will say it anyways. Did you know that the drivers of current flagships, such as HD800, T1, HE-6, etc costs around $10 dollars to make? All the extra money goes to profit

 
Fixed that for you.

 

[Boffy]

   
Price is only one factor. Some four-figure headphones sound a lot better than some headphones in the $200-300 range, but it's not guaranteed. Depending on which sound signature(s) you prefer, some expensive headphones might sound awful to you.
 
 
This is actually very helpful information. I did not realize this.
 
Can you provide documentation?
 
I heard that the Abyss AB-1266 drivers cost $2,000 to make, but I didn't see any proof.

Production cost of any goods is one of the things that every companies desperately tries to hide. Which is why there are no official documentations from companies stating: "It took us X amount of money to make this part, and Y amount to make that part, which costed us a sub total of Z dollars to produce our product." If you do want speculations, opinions by experts, or the logic behind production of headphones, these might answer something.
 
http://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/2a5294/what_is_the_actual_cost_to_manufacture_headphones/
 
Reddit discussion on how much money it takes to produce a headphone.
 
http://headfonics.com/2014/08/12-flagship-headphones-compared-the-totl-guide/16/
 
An expert mentions how a $10 driver can be tweaked or modded to sound very close to a $1000 one.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29iTkYSZ1qk
 
This is a brief video of how Fostex TH900 is made. Obviously, it doesn't show everything but they sure spent a lot of time, effort, and money into other parts of the headphones besides the drives.
 
Again, these are all not good sources to bring to the table to justify my statement of flagship drivers costing $10. However, let's use logic here. What is used to make drivers of headphones? Typically good, high quality metals, wires, plastic, and even rare wood or microbes to make bio cellulose drivers. Yes, they are all great materials, but at the end of the day, it's not like the engineers are putting 24k gold or a piece of diamond inside the drivers. Not to mention the drivers are not that large in size to begin with. From what I know, the largest headphone driver ever made in history was Koss KO/727B with 89mm. That's still only about 9cm, and I don't think it will cost thousands upon thousands of dollars to make a 9cm driver using superior metals, plastics, or other non-jewel materials. 

 

[Music Alchemist]

 
Ah, so you meant the cost of raw materials. Actually designing the drivers (as well as the rest of the headphone, at least the first time) can cost millions of dollars, and after that, manufacturing each one can still cost a decent amount. I don't doubt that there are huge markups involved for the majority of audio companies, but I wouldn't sell them short either. Many flagship headphones are partially handmade as well, so it's not quite as cheap as simply acquiring the materials.

 

[willyvlyminck]

  I'm wondering if headphones that cost around $1000 are really that much better than say... $200 to $300 headphones?

The price of a headphone is not only a qualitiy matter, for example, the HD800 is enginered  and produced in Germany, The Philips,L2, of which I am very fond of, is enginered in Belgium but produced in China,so the price is a lot lower, but that doesn´t mean the L2 is not a godd headphone, on the contrary, another example, the IE800 Senn in ear is also produced in Germany, and the IE80 in China, altough the latter is absolutely great. Reviews are still written in the function of the price not the absolute quality. I remember auditioning a Mark Levinson ensemble which in the end sounded dissapointing, why? In those days the electronics on this level were to good for the average cd, means to get good sound from it, you did needed Audiophile  cd´s as well.but I was not prepared to separate from my collection, in the end we should be music lovers not equipment lovers just for the sake of it.

 

[derbigpr]

  I saw your story on another thread, hope you will enjoy it after exchanging.
K612 is a decent headphone for music, deserves decent front-ends to fully explore its potential.

 
 
Yea, it sucks. It seems like the left channel is louder for about 2-3 decibels. I used an SPL meter on my iPhone to measure the difference in loudness while playing tones of 100, 500, 1000, 2000, 4000, 8000, 12000 and 16000 hz, and up to 8000 hz, the left channel is louder for 2-3 db's, above that it's pretty much identical. The current solution is reducing the left channel to 90% of volume in the Windows sound settings, it sounds balanced that way, but I probably will have to exchange them since using them as they are, imaging is screwed up. 

 

[hamset]

So the mark up is really little details only an intently music lover would appreciate?
 
I found my old akg k701. There is a noticeable difference when i go back to my cheap mp3 earbuds listening to this for example:
 

 

[Music Alchemist]

  So the mark up is really little details only an intently music lover would appreciate?
 
I found my old akg k701. There is a noticeable difference when i go back to my cheap mp3 earbuds listening to this for example:

 
If you're asking if high-end headphones only offer "really little details" as an improvement, the answer is no. It's much more than that. But again, you will have to research and listen for yourself if you want to find one that has the sound you are looking for.

 

[derbigpr]

  I know I am going to receive a lot of hate ad criticism for saying this, but I will say it anyways. Did you know that the drivers of current flagships, such as HD800, T1, HE-6, etc costs around $10 dollars to make? All the extra money are spent on the design, headband, earpad, cable, etc... In other words, one can possibly make a case saying that the sound of these flagships are only worth a couple of dollars. So to answer OP's question, of course not. Probably, all audiophile headphones in the market are overpriced and not worth the money, even the highly praised value for money headphones like Hifiman RE400, Vsonic GR07, or AKG K612. At least in terms of economical and industrial stand point. However, all these discussion about whether this or that is worth the money or not is completely pointless and should never be discussed in my opinion. If you like something and you can afford it, go for it. If you like it regardless of what the price was, it was a good buy. If you didn't, it was not a good buy. If someone sold me a brand new HD800 for $20, but I couldn't resell it, I wouldn't buy it. I don't like the HD800 and it would not be worth wasting my $20 for. Go ahead, I am ready to take all the verbal attacks. 

 
 
Sorry, but that is a completely wrong way of looking at things, and far from how these things work in reality. You can't judge the price of a product based purely on the cost of materials and manufacturing. What you have to take into account is all that it took to make that product, and I mean all, from the cost of electricity used during development, testing and research to the cost of all the materials spent. From the paycheck of the chief engineer that overlooked the project to the paycheck of the cleaning lady that cleaned the offices after engineers went home every night. Every single smallest detail is taken into account in such projects.
 
For example...Sennheiser had spent 5 years developing the HD800's. That's tens of thousands of hours, millions of dollars and a whole lot of knowledge that went into developing, researching, testing, fine tuning, etc. Engineers worked on that product for a very long time, put a lot of effort into it, a lot of time and money was spent in order to achieve the level of performance that HD800's offer. Those engineers had to be payed, materials spent during development cost a lot of money, making a new manufacturing line, or a new factory segment if you will, costs a lot of money, etc. That's what you have to consider. 
 
High end headphones don't sound better because the advertisement says so and because they cost more. They sound better because massive amounts of work and effort went into the development process in order to achieve that last level of performance.  What you always have to remember is that as the quality of a product (any product) increases, the effort it takes to further improve that product goes up exponentially.  In other words,  HD600's might have been 20% better (technically) than HD595's back in the day, but it took probably 5 or 10 times more money, time, skill, knowledge, etc. in order to achieve that level of quality. HD800's might be 20% better than HD600's, but it took maybe 10 or 20 times more effort and money in order to reach that level of performance.
 
So, it's wrong to say that high end headphones (or most high end products regardless of type) are overpriced. I'm not saying the price of high end headphones is completely justified and manufacturers don't boost up the price a bit too much sometimes, but you have to consider EVERYTHING, not just the end product. Of course, most people don't do that and look at things only on surface so to speak. Yes, if you don't care at all about anything else other than the end product that you hold in your hands after you buy it, it might seem like it is overpriced. However, these products don't just appear out of thin air and end up on the store shelves.

 

[hamset]

   
If you're asking if high-end headphones only offer "really little details" as an improvement, the answer is no. It's much more than that. But again, you will have to research and listen for yourself if you want to find one that has the sound you are looking for.

I suppose you are right. As i always say: "you cant teach a blind man to see colours."

 

[gotak]

   
 
Sorry, but that is a completely wrong way of looking at things, and far from how these things work in reality. You can't judge the price of a product based purely on the cost of materials and manufacturing. What you have to take into account is all that it took to make that product, and I mean all, from the cost of electricity used during development, testing and research to the cost of all the materials spent. From the paycheck of the chief engineer that overlooked the project to the paycheck of the cleaning lady that cleaned the offices after engineers went home every night. Every single smallest detail is taken into account in such projects.
 
For example...Sennheiser had spent 5 years developing the HD800's. That's tens of thousands of hours, millions of dollars and a whole lot of knowledge that went into developing, researching, testing, fine tuning, etc. Engineers worked on that product for a very long time, put a lot of effort into it, a lot of time and money was spent in order to achieve the level of performance that HD800's offer. Those engineers had to be payed, materials spent during development cost a lot of money, making a new manufacturing line, or a new factory segment if you will, costs a lot of money, etc. That's what you have to consider. 
 
High end headphones don't sound better because the advertisement says so and because they cost more. They sound better because massive amounts of work and effort went into the development process in order to achieve that last level of performance.  What you always have to remember is that as the quality of a product (any product) increases, the effort it takes to further improve that product goes up exponentially.  In other words,  HD600's might have been 20% better (technically) than HD595's back in the day, but it took probably 5 or 10 times more money, time, skill, knowledge, etc. in order to achieve that level of quality. HD800's might be 20% better than HD600's, but it took maybe 10 or 20 times more effort and money in order to reach that level of performance.
 
So, it's wrong to say that high end headphones (or most high end products regardless of type) are overpriced. I'm not saying the price of high end headphones is completely justified and manufacturers don't boost up the price a bit too much sometimes, but you have to consider EVERYTHING, not just the end product. Of course, most people don't do that and look at things only on surface so to speak. Yes, if you don't care at all about anything else other than the end product that you hold in your hands after you buy it, it might seem like it is overpriced. However, these products don't just appear out of thin air and end up on the store shelves.

Agree.
 
Also, the size of the market matters a lot. If everyone on the street values good audio and so everyone only buys quality headphones the cost would be low for good sound. However, most people don't know what good sounds is or just don't care. So the market is small.
 
Just became your market is small doesn't mean you need fewer people to run the business. So you need to charge more for each to stay in business and make a decent profit.
 
Finally, there's the value proposition. A lump of alumina out of the ground is pretty valueless to you, but some processing to make aluminium and some design work and suddently you have the case of an iphone 6 (bendy lol) which is worth a lot more. 

 

[Music Alchemist]

  I suppose you are right. As i always say: "you cant teach a blind man to see colours."

 
"I see," said the blind man to his deaf daughter.

 
It all comes down to what you are willing to pay to get the sound you want. Personally, I want to get the highest sound quality possible regardless of price, but you can get a great system for well under $1,000. If you play your cards right, it can even sound better than systems costing many times more.

 

[blacknile]

Fantastic post. Thank you for taking the time for writing this.
 
Quote:

  If you have the proper gear (which will usually cost you at least as much as the headphones themselves due to the way hi-fi market works) then you might say the difference between let's say Beyerdynamic T1's and DT880's is big enough to justify the price gap. I have both of these (plus all other "usual suspects" in the mid-end like the HD650, DT990, K701, etc.)  so I can speak from personal experience.
 
In other words, if you have a high end headamp and a high end source like a really good DAC or CD player, and you're listening to material that is complex enough, and at the same time well recorded and mastered enough, then going from DT880's to T1's will be a noticeable jump, not a huge difference, it's not going to revolutionize the way you listen to music and suddenly make everything sound magically good, but it will be enough of a difference to easily notice which headphone is clearly the superior one.
 
You will notice the bass is just that bit more extended, just that bit more tight, the punch of the bass is somehow more separated from the rest of the sound, the mids have that small bit more fullness and texture, a bit more realism and naturalness, highs are a bit more sparkly and fast sounding like they have a higher resolution, and details pop out at you more clearly, overall sounds seems a bit smoother and effortless, the soundstage feels a bit bigger and everything sounds closer to being at the spot where the music was recorded.  In other words, a lot of small improvements all across the board, really tiny improvements sometimes, but when you put them all together, it makes listening to the music feel more natural and realistic, and therefore more pleasant. So yea, if you have the gear, then it's worth it. 
 
However, if you have inferior gear that can't cope with the quality levels of the high end headphones, you might end up with an opposite effect, and actually get a worse sound experience out of expensive headphones than you would out of cheaper ones.
 
The most important benefit of T1's over DT880's (or high end over mid end headphones in general in my experience) is the smoothness and the effortless feel. It's something I really can't describe in words and has to be heard in order to get it, but music seems to flow out the T1's more effortlessly, which really makes them feel overall a bit clearer and at the same time more easy to listen to, it almost totally eliminates listening fatigue.  This is a huge over-exaggeration, but it's like slowly pouring sand out of a bottle compared to pouring water out of a bottle. You can pour them both out at the same rate, really slowly, but the water will flow out more nicely and smoothly.
 
The thing that's most disappointing when going from mid end to high end headphones is the actual sound stage, imagining and that projection of sound that would make you feel like you're listening to high end speakers or a live performance in front of you. This is something that no headphone does very well in my experience. Even the HD800 which is known for sound stage and imaging doesn't compare to a decent pair of bookshelf speakers (considerably cheaper than the headphones) in a half decently acoustically treated room. Not even with amps like the SPL Phonitor which have really advanced crossfeed circuits that should simulate that.
 
 
My problem, and I'm sure a lot of other people with high end setups feel the same, is that once you reach a certain level of quality as far as the equipment goes, it starts to get really hard to find music material that justifies using that setup over a much cheaper one, because it just wont sound "better enough". You begin to realize that 70% of music on  the market is really badly recorded and mastered, especially the new stuff, and it's simply not worth "wasting" your expensive headphone on it. So it gets difficult to find material that you like both for it's musical quality and recording quality.

 

[Nada190]

Best read on this forum so far. I personally cannot justify going over $500. I love floorstanding speakers the most.