[masterfuu]

Yeah the T1 has to be the best value flagship.  The gen 1 version is closer to mid-fi price territory if anything, and it can easily compete with $1000+ headphones.  You'll be hard pressed to find a dynamic/orthodynamic headphone that's considerably more detailed than the T1, and with considerable sound stage improvements.  As a bonus the T1's build quality is much better than the vast majority of more pricey headphones.

I have gen 2 T1. I Still am amazed every single day how good they sound and how comfortable they are. Build like a tank if you take care of them they will take care of you a lifetime. A true audiophile masterpiece. Sound again so realistic that there have been many moments where I don't know if I'm hearing it from headphones or if the sound is coming someplace else from outside maybe. I love that feeling when it's getting and playing my mind. That's to me real end game.

Before that I had HD800 and before that king of closed back Fostex TH900. While both are awesome and could be your final headphone Beyer T1 really surprised me when I didn't expect it. My plan was to trial and return T1 but now my HD800 might need selling to pay for T1 because I found my headphone.

Now to topic. As long as there is demand there will be supply. LCD4 are for few extreme audiophiles with thick wallets or a big credit line. I rather buy realistic priced T1 from a German engineering that has been around since 1940s. Proven track record in terms of qulity and price.

On a positive note congrats to Audeze. Engineering new headphone is lots of work.

 

[prot]

I think the only way we're going to stop this absurd price gouging is to simply be vocal about our displeasure of it, and speak loudest with our wallets. The best thing would be if people stopped buying these massively price inflated products,

Good luck with that .. just look at the latest new launch threads and you'll see that is never going to happen.

 

[superlowfi]

The mere fact that Sennheiser is parading around an amp (not even a headphone, an amp) made of material that was used by Michelangelo means, to me, this company has officially jumped the shark. I can't take anything they do seriously any more.
 
Same with the HE-1000 and it boggles the mind that Audeze thinks that an acceptable reaction to their poor quality control is to release a 4k headphone that is "specially built to order".
 
These companies do it because the "audiophile" community has always been about falling all over themselves to spend more and more money because more money equals better. Until now headphones have been largely innocent of the worst offenses of the audiophile world, but those days are officially over.
 
I agree with others, companies like Shure, Beyerdynamic, and KOSS are some of the only corporate entities who are exhibiting any whiff of integrity in recent times.

 

[prot]

Mostly agree superlowfi ... but Shure just released a pair of $3K IEMs, you may wanna review that list.

 

[prot]

And btw, in a somewhat perverted way these new launches may be a good thing.
Hfman went 3k, shure too, audeze 4k and jplabs seems to be planning a 5k+ pair .. senn will prolly go over 2k with the new hd800s.
Ppl may finally start getting truly annoyed!
And while there is surely a market for such outrageously expensive HPs, it's definitely not big enough for all those. Another 3-4 of these expensive new launches before christmas and we'll have a lot of fun when some of those inevitably start to crash hard next year. It's pretty much the only way greed dies .. in it's own filth.
So bring em on guys

 

[Rhamnetin]

 
I agree with others, companies like Shure, Beyerdynamic, and KOSS are some of the only corporate entities who are exhibiting any whiff of integrity in recent times.

 
Stax too.  The new SR-L500 costs less than the headphone it's replacing.  The SR-009 was a bit much at $4.5k years ago, but now you can find it for under $3k, and the SR-007 for a little over $1.5k.  The new SR-L700 is well under $1.5k so we'll have to see how that performs.

 

[arnaud]

Unless I was hallucinating today, I think Stax has picked up the right fight with the L-700, I can't wait for when more people get a chance to hear it. That should make some rethink about the legitimaticy of releasing a 3,4 or 5kUSD phone . Heck, even the SR009 is in serious trouble, lol. Exciting times indeed!
Arnaud

 

[Pingfloid]

  It's hilarious really. Pure greed fuelled price gouging. The bigger sham is that many of the newer Audeze cans have had terrible reliability issues as well, which makes it that much worse.

 
Talking about reliability issues, this are my LCD-2 after 2 years, very little use, and good care:
 

 
Amazing sound, but there is something wrong with the leather. Cheapo headphones last much longer than that.
 
$80 for an earpad replacement

 

 

[RUMAY408]

   
Talking about reliability issues, this are my LCD-2 after 2 years, very little use, and good care:
 

 
Amazing sound, but there is something wrong with the leather. Cheapo headphones last much longer than that.
 
$80 for an earpad replacement

 

that HP has mismatched wood WTH

 

[Maxx134]

The technology is old on the planars.
LCD & hifiman only playin with thinner membranes.
Hifiman cans gettn larger.
LCD puttin more magnets..
Both charging rediculous amounts of money...

Sennheiser sitting on their laurels like a turtle just cashing in on old designs because nobody surpassed them yet except for bass..

Newcomers like Dharma, Mcintosh, Poineer, etc.
All nice but in the end, just another "flavor of the day", that we will forget, by not excelling enough.

A few "main stays" that will always be nice favs like ZMF, oppo, and then your sea of popular midfi cans below them..

Only MrSpeakers Ether really gave some innovation with their "Ether" having new driver design.

To me, only the Ether and the Oppo PM1/2 series look to me to have actual planar innovations, rather that just reconfigure/optimize same technology (like LCD/HiFiman).

Anyways, debatable but thats the way I see it.

 

[knorris908]

OK
 
At long last I have some observations to offer regarding the Sennheiser HD-800, Beyerdynamic T1 ver. 2, and unexpectedly, the Beyerdynamic T1 original...
 
The Beyerdynamic originals were shipped to me by mistake, and our original auditions were performed with those BELIEVING that they were ver. 2s.  ( didn't watch videos about them until afterwards as I didn't want to have preconceptions colouring our judgements.  But afterwards, I saw that the headphone cables weren't removable, so called the vendor, who next-day'ed the version 2 direct from Beyerdynamic without question.  (Good service for a product shipping mis-step.)
 
So again, with the round-after round auditions, but this time with the ACTUAL version 2 Beyerdynamics.
 
No need to drag it out.  With our Schiit Audio ASGARD 2, iFi Micro iDSD, and iFi Micro CAN amps; the breakdown was with very little variation
 

1. T1 & HD-800 neck & neck with almost every music track, DSD64, DSD128, DSD256, FLAC 44.1, or MP3
2. The HD-650s came in noticeably "second" to the HD-800 & T1 in all genres except blues or old-time 60s-80s "funk"  Think "Brothers Johnson" or "Funkadelic"

 
When the T1 2nd versions finally arrived, they just sounded as good as the 1st versions right out of the box.  After some burn-in, I went back and re-auditioned everything.
 
The 2nd version is VERY close to the 1st version.  I wouldn't say that they are "Sonically" different from each other.  At most, I'd say that the version 2s have the same characteristics, but the "jaggedness" of the upper end is smoothed a bit, but not lost.  The mids remain largely identical, and the bass is VERY close, but on certain tracks (Think Planet Ps' "Why Me" or Holst's "Mars The God of War") 
 
So in the end, for our household (STOCK); the Beyerdynamic T1 version 2 (Or even originals) are the best all-rounders.
 
The HD-800 are VERY nice!  Close/neck&neck with the T1s.  If you are interested in spending more to "Tube roll", modify headphones, or buy multi-thousand dollar amps in eternal pursuit of "The perfect sound", then I would not argue against claims that the HD-800 simply scales-up to even greater heights.  IT IS an incredible headphone, and has a noticeably "larger" soundstage.  But for us simple folk, who just want to plug-in and listen to incredible music from just about anything, the T1 (Either version) wins hands-down.
 
Audition List:
Windows 10 64-bit
FOOBAR2000 ver 1.3.5 (Flat Audio Profiles) / JRIVER Media Center 21  (Flat Audio Profiles)  All DSP enhancements "OFF"
iFi Micro iDSD USB DAC / FIIO e17 USB DAC
iFi Micro iDSD AMP / FIIO e17 AMP / iFi Micro iCAN AMP / SCHIIT Audio ASGARD 2 AMP
 
Music Files:
192kHz 24-Bit FLAC
DSD 2.8MHz 1 Bit DSF
44.1 16-Bit FLAC
Old, 8-Bit MP3
 
Bands:
YES
Van Morrison
Thelonious Monk
The Mood Blues
The Eagles
The Alan Parsons Project
Tesla
Simon & Garfunkle
Rush
Roger Waters
Ravel
Rachmaninov
Queen
Planet "P"
Pink Floyd
Peter Gabriel
Mozart
Michael Jackson
Miles Davis
Meatloaf
Metallica
Lionel Richie
Linked Horizon (Outstanding Fusion Mixture)
Kitaro
John Denver
Holst
Hayden
Hans Zimmer
Genesis
Funkadelic
Eric Clapton
Eddy Grant
Deep Purple
Daft Punk
Chesky Records (Ult. Demo Disc)
Brothers Johnson
Billy Joel
Beethoven
Asia
Arturo Sandoval
AC/DC

 

[LFC_SL]

The HD800 would cost even more than the LCD-4 if Audeze manufactures it.

And it would break

/ joke

 

[leng jai]

   
Talking about reliability issues, this are my LCD-2 after 2 years, very little use, and good care:
 

 
Amazing sound, but there is something wrong with the leather. Cheapo headphones last much longer than that.
 
$80 for an earpad replacement

 

Seriously what's with the wood looking completely different on each side?