@earmonger I’ve touched on your point recently in some initial impressions I had about the now-$300 Focal Elegia. Granted, I don’t know whether these officially counted as “flagship” or even “closed-back flagship” when they were first released, but from my very subjective perspective, I consider them at least as former flagship because of the initial price and Focal’s marketing. You don’t see the likes of Anker or Beats going all-in with the Ooh-La-La marketing angle after all.
On the one hand, like you said, mass manufacturing can be and is done cheaply. On the other hand, research and development do take man-hours, and that too specialized man-hours. The average joe isn’t capable of scrounging materials and making quality equipment of any kind in their garage. Those man-hours need to bear fruit in the end.
And for what it’s worth, Focal headphones are made in France, Sennheiser HD800 and above are made in Germany, and DCA headphones are made in USA. So I think it’s safe to say that higher end gear tend to (still?) be made in places where labor regulations are (still?) on the strong side.
I understand the law of diminishing returns. I don't want to support the deforestation of exotic woods! And really. Is that kilobuck DAP better -- measurably, qualitatively, in what I am going to hear? -- than my disintegrating rubbery $69 Sansa Fuze? If not, is it all marketing and hype? Are we being played for $$$?
I wouldn't be surprised.
Which leads very nicely to my next point: I personally came to realize that high-end gear is mostly wasted on me. I’m glad I came to this realization $300 poorer (courtesy of the aforementioned Focals) rather than $800 poorer. There are audio enthusiasts who claim they can tell minute differences apart. I’m not going to question their judgment; maybe they really can, or maybe it’s self-validation for spending $1000+. I’m not going to project my capabilities on them.
One thing I saw mentioned online: things can be expensive for no discernible reason. But cheap things ARE cheap for A reason or two or three.
I want to add another question. Does a $200 IEM+ $150 bt dac-amp combo sound better than a $200 TWS?
Too many factors to clearly say yes or no. My take: if you’re listening in a bus or on the streets, then no. The external noise interferes way too much, not to mention the fact that you need to stay focused in getting to your destination.
If you’re someplace quiet with little interference, then it gets complicated. For one, with EQ becoming more popular as of late, what “sounds good” is now more subjective than ever. This is a point in favor for DACs like the Qudelix, as some DACs provide hardware-level EQing that you can apply to any gear. But if you aren’t a fan of EQ, then it’s moot.
I personally am not a fan of EQ. It isn’t because I think EQ is inherently inferior or that I have some definition of a “pure sound.” It is because EQ is applied on EVERYTHING that I hear. This was the case in the older days before MP3s became the norm, and this is the case today. I find that some songs sound better with EQ to my ears…but I also find that other songs sound worse with the same EQ settings. As a result, the greater displeasures cancel out the greater pleasures overall. It is possible in some software to apply EQ presets on a song or album level, but then that carries over to different headphones I own.
For two, while I have no firsthand experience, there is a LOT of chatter about the quality of audio from the sub-$100 category of Chinese wired IEMs (Letshouer, Moondrop, Tangzu, etc). Assuming that’s true, then a wired IEM+DAC gum stick combination would be more pleasant to the ears.
Edit: this doesn’t answer your question directly and may be a tangent at best. There is one situation in which TWS would be the inferior choice: the battery life. Batteries degrade because of physics, and eventually portable devices lose their portability. With most TWS, you’ll have to throw them away in a few years. But the majority of Bluetooth DACs released these days also pull double duty as a wired USB DAC. I’m quite confident that barring any unintended accidents like theft, loss or personally induced destruction, I will be using my Qudelix long after the battery dies permanently by connecting them to my computer.
.
