I love Dita for sure but I think they are trying to get closer to AK (who isn't) and in order to get ahead of the competition you are required to attract attention and certainly pricing does that.
I know it will sound good, and I know I will never for sure know the cost price, marketing price and etc but it is a shame with improving technology instead of seen improvement in sound and reduction in pricing we see the opposite. Maybe the sound science field is still much too young to work the same way as the silicon chip field.
Some companies are trying to get closer to AK by means of a fancy exterior design and saturated pricing, but not necessary a quality of content to justify it. What I absolutely love about DITA is they have a quality sound to back it up!
I know you guys are concerned about 2.5mm TRRS/balanced wiring and premium price, but at the same time many of you had no problem paying extra $350 for an upgraded The Truth cable. With AK, you are in a premium price category starting with their lowest model. Now, look at The Answer. For $650 it makes a premium sound affordable and gives an option for those who were eyeballing $1k+ IEMs. If you want absolute perfection, move up to $350 cable upgrade but something tells me we are starting to get into a territory of diminishing returns for those who are on a budget. $300-$400 more for balanced wiring and now you can connect it to your $2.5k AK240 for a cool ~ $4k audio setup.
On a contrary, for $1k plus change you can have this "ultimate" budget hi-fi setup with X5/E12A/L16 + The Answer.
If you want to step up to a higher res sound, wait for Cayin N6 or FiiO X7 daps (for a total of about ~ $1.4k with either one instead of X5). All this with a common denominator of The Answer.
My point is that I know a lot of people are subscribed/reading this thread, and I don't want them to get discouraged thinking they have to get a second mortgage to afford an audiophile quality sound. Btw, by no mean am I considering myself to be a seasoned audiophile, but I have reviewed a lot of headphones in sub $500 category, and The Answer was the first one that gave me this WOW factor which is not fading away.
Another point I would like to make with regard to comments people making about The Truth dependency on a paired up amp. Can't judge The Truth (ain't that a truth
![Headphone Smile :) :)](https://cdn.head-fi.org/e/headfi/smily_headphones1.gif)
), but based on my testing of The Answer I was amazed how well it paired up with all of my sources down to Galaxy Note 4. Yes, you will loose a degree of details, but like I mentioned in my review - it was not night'n'day difference like I have experienced with some other IEMs ($500 W40 is an example) where sound is dull out of smartphone or HO of lo-/mid-fi daps and only comes to live when paired up with external higher quality amp. Just want to bring this up so people wouldn't think you need another $1k+ amp investment for The Answer to show it's full potential.