Reality check here. I've not read the entire thread (just page one) so this may have come up by now. Anyway, here's my reaction...
John Grado is a multi millionaire who is (at least by comparison to the average member of Head-Fi) rolling in money. For years, he has made an amp that costs him less than $30 in parts and labor that he sells for hundreds of dollars. No doubt the same can be said about most, if not all, of the headphones made by Grado. The wood used to make the RS-1 isn't exactly expensive, nor are the semi skilled young employees who turn the wood and assemble the parts.
Note that I'm not picking on John Grado, but actually just using him as an example, because of all of the headphone companies, Grado would be the most likely to "need" funds advanced to them before taking on a project such as is being described here. Even the smallest company on the totem pole doesn't need advanced funding. What about Beyer, or Audio Technica, or AKG, or (imagine) Sony! These companies are (or at least should be) extremely well funded. If they can't manage to front the costs of a high end headphone product that they would know in advance has a wide and receptive audience, then they ought to get into another line of business.
If we were talking about some guy working out of his garage, that would be another story. But look at He Audio, which to the best of my understanding is a one man operation (or at least the brains behind it all belong to one man). Mr. He has developed an outstanding pair of electrostatic headphones that are priced quite reasonably, and I suspect that he has spent considerable personal resources (both time and money) and taken considerable risk in doing so. To the extent that Mr. He's product (He Audio Jade) is a winner - and I sure think it is and hope the market will too - then he ought to be rewarded for both his innovation and the price/performance that he's been able to deliver. Yet, if the Jade did not happen to work out so well for him, then he would unfortunately have to suffer whatever financial consequences came as a result. That's the nature of business.
So when it works out (as it has for Grado Labs and I hope it will too for He Audio), then those individuals who took the risks, and put up their own money and hard work, richly deserve all of the financial rewards that follow. If they can deliver great sounding and well finished products and still manage to keep their costs down, then all the more power to them! But at the same time, I don't think that individual customers (no matter how hungry they might be for a certain product) should be asked to pre-fund the cost of developing that product. Of course, if it's a custom made product that is tailored to the individual customer's needs, that's a different story. In those cases (such as Singlepower amps), I've been willing to pay in advance because I know that I'll be happy with the end result.
I think there are plenty of great products to choose from and don't see the need (in any way, shape or form) to fund the adventures that successful businesses ought to be funding themselves. They should be thankful to us for presenting the ideas and showing support for the high end products that they, themselves, ought to be motivated to be creating in any event!
