[FooTemps]

While I was reading the rest of the thread from where I posted, I noticed someone saying that headphones cost more due to diminishing returns.

I'd like to disagree with that statement. Technology development doesn't get more expensive the more advanced we make it. (That is unless we use more materials for the new designs.) Compare the computer market for instance. The 90nm to 65nm CPU jump took a huge improvement and had an improved performance to price cost. (core 2 duo processors anyone?)

The thing is that you throw money at development until it is done. If you finish fast... Great, less cost in the design and development stages! If you're stuck, then it becomes a huge money sink and that's where diminishing returns kicks in. Sure there is less and less innovation possible at our level of knowledge, but even small developments like production efficiency can drive down prices on headphones.

Headphone pricing scales just keep going up instead of being proportionate. If the CPU world were anything like high fidelity audio, we'd be buying $4000+ processors most likely. What I'd like to see is headphone companies improving their manufacturing processes to drive down prices. With the added profits and sales, they could spend more power on developing new technology.

edit: maybe i'm not taking inflation into account and i think i'm leaving out a ton of factors... oh well. What I said actually may be wrong, but I still want to keep it up for discussion purposes.

 

[lutwey]

might be off topic, but i'm pretty sure u been asked with these questions.

are thoose BOSE????(no!-most of our response)

why dont you get some bose??? it's the BEST!!!(yeaaaaaahhhhhh....but not really)

 

[FooTemps]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lutwey /img/forum/go_quote.gif might be off topic, but i'm pretty sure u been asked with these questions. are thoose BOSE????(no!-most of our response) why dont you get some bose??? it's the BEST!!!(yeaaaaaahhhhhh....but not really)

there's a recent thread about that already, lol

here's a link for ya: http://www.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=223637

 

[captian73]

i have to say i've just read the main post and i have to agree with some of what was said.

all through my hi-fi life for the most part we are told about how things are by other people, and some in the hi-fi world even want to tell us how things sound.

i remember over a dinner conversation some 'know it all' guy who spent £5,000 not dollars pounds, on a sony system (someone saw him coming in my opinion) telling everyone how 'shrill' and 'thin' a Linn system sounds. well if anyone has heard a Linn system the last thing it is is 'shrill' and 'thin'.

the same exists in the hi-fi shop assistants. when trying a pair of senn 595's against the booming bass of the Bose triports, the sennheisers bass sounded,.....almost non existent. as i told the shop person, he protested saying,

"i've never heard anyone say they are lacking in bass before."

i wanted to ring the guys neck and scream out,

"i don't care about anyone else, I'm not hearing it!"

yes we are told about bose is superior sound, but we hear how Ford is the best car money can buy, how this shop has the lowest prices, IT"S CALLED MARKETING AND EVERYONE IS AT IT

now to be honest i know after having 4 pairs of triports that bose aren't that good when it comes to overall clarity and bass control, but at the time, i loved the bass and they were what i wanted. i loved the fact that they where lightweight and portable, and i don't give a fat rats backside what headfi or anyone else says. they suited me at the time.

now when i walked in a tourist shop in Blackpool, England, i heard music playing, deep thumping bass, and clear powerful sound. of course instead of looking around the shop i started to look for the system. i though a JVC, or AWIA mini or midi system, but low and behold behind the shop assistants counter it was the Bose wave radio.

now i know how expensive it is, but that little thing was pumping out some sound. the same goes for my bang and olufsen beosound 1. i know it's limitations, and the fact that for the price there's better separates, but that's the point, it filled my needs.

i was sick of wires and ugly black boxes, unconvinced by 5.1. 7.1 (i'll tell you that story later) and i wanted a one box solution. bang and olufsen had the perfect product for what i wanted.

i've heard a £70,000 linn system against a £11,000 audio research ...dyn audio system and what was the difference???? ........ i'll tell you, the price and that was about it. of course the 2 systems are going to sound unique.

now i've heard all the CD rubbish that was floating about in the 90's, outline your cd's with a green pen, freezing them to make them sound better, drilling holes around the centre hole, all that pigs garbage. suggestions like that are rarely given now, why?

i know a millionaire ( one of my dad's clients) who runs his £52,000 turntable/ tube amp/ electrostatic speakers and uses bell wire @ about £1 per metre to hook his speakers up. it's one of the loudest and best systems i've heard! it's still excessive expense though. he says he's tried the £1,000 per metre cable, and the bell wire is just as good. his words not mine!

i know there are clearer better sounding headphones than the bose, because i own a few better sounding headphones than the bose. now, i personally wouldn't say that headphones half the price are better than bose.
but i'd like to say that i have the maturity to let other say what they think, and not get rattled about it.

i have to say that, that day in the shop in Blackpool i was amazed at the sound that was pumping out of that little Bose wave radio. could i buy better for the price? yes. but for it's small dimensions, it was impressive.

is bose the best? is sennheiser the best? are my ultrasone's the best? bose may not fit our expectations for the price, but at the time i brought my first pair, they did.

i didn't find out about ultrasone until recently on this forum. does that mean they are right for me. well i love my 750's but if i had a lesser budget and i had to toss up (forgive the pun) between the new triport OE and the ultrasone 550, and i wanted a lightweight portable headphone, then i would lean towards bose.

if i had that budget, and i wanted headphone for home use only, then i would go for the ultrasones, hands down.

even before my recent acquisition of the 750's, i had to ask myself that question. do i want to use them with my ipod shuffle? how big are these ultrasone (which i've never seen before ) going to be? against, i know the triport OE are portable! tough decisions.

anyway i'll leave it there for the time being.

 

[rapier84]

I believe my ears more than written words.

Value is something thats intangible and means differently to everyone. To you John, spending nearly $1000 for a customized IEM just to hear that bit of difference or more for a top end headphone may seem no better than the fella paying for BOSE equipment (i.e. placebo). However, the main points are these.

1) BOSE sounds okay, just that others sound better
2) Others sound better for less
3) BOSE makes its equipment as though it was disposable

I won't go as far as to say that BOSE sounds hideously bad, its just that for the price you pay, instead of say most of the price going towards improving the product its seems to be going the way of its massive advertising machine, which is why consumers are getting a lot less of what they pay for when getting BOSE than other equipment on talked about on this forum and other fora

Of course we all like being ripped off by UE, Westone, Grado, Sennheiser, AKG et al

But I'd rather get ripped off by them.

 

[F107plus5]

I have never heard a Bose product.

I have heard their radio ads. I have seen countless TV ads for their products. I have read their ads in perhaps hundreds of magazines of the most expensive types to advertise in, and founds their flashy advertisements in my mailbox. I see their products used by some of my favorite actors in many of my favorite TV shows. They tell me all the time about how "Bose" their sound is. How "Bose" their quality is. How "Bose" their research is. And yes; I firmly believe that their "Bose" sound is the best "Bose" sound currently available. So yes; if a listener wants the best "Bose" sound there is; then there is no alternative to "Bose"!

......but yeah, dontya really hate it when someone sees your silver colored MS2i and says "Is that Bose"!! And when you say "No, but they cost almost the same." And they make some comment about how for a couple dollars more you could of gotten the best there is on the planet, for twelve easy monthly payments with no interest charges form Bose.

 

[bellsprout]

Quote:

Originally Posted by F107plus5 /img/forum/go_quote.gif ......but yeah, dontya really hate it when someone sees your silver colored MS2i and says "Is that Bose"!! And when you say "No, but they cost almost the same." And they make some comment about how for a couple dollars more you could of gotten the best there is on the planet, for twelve easy monthly payments with no interest charges form Bose.

not really no.

actually i've never had anyone say that because the market saturation in australia isn't like in usa.

but what's the big deal about being asked that?

bose fan: is that bose?
you: no
bose fan: u could've gotten a bose
you: i don't like the sound

it's simple, truthful and non condescending

 

[alpeggio]

My car has BOSE Speakers in it and honestly I ain't that impressed by the sound. The bass is pretty much non existent and there's no punch whatsoever for rock music.

 

[vilg]

Random pseudo intellectual clowns who every other day create these kinds of topics are getting just as common as the humorous Bose bashing threads.
Comparing Bose marketing to the "marketing" going on at the head-fi for sale forum is laughable at best. Lots of people here, including myself, have heard Bose headphones up against similar priced phones. Anyone without dysfunctional ears will tell you that they underperform for their price range.
Good job coming out as an uninformed fool though, John_M.

Regards,
vilg

 

[TheDarkTrumpet]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Schalldämpfer /img/forum/go_quote.gif A little bit off topic, but... how in the world do QC3 and Triport look decent? I actually can't think of phones that are uglier. Oh, and I'm not saying anything about the quality, as I've not heard either, yet.

Of course one thing may not look good to everyone, but generally speaking when you go up to people chances are they will also feel that bose look good. I've spoken to a number of people at work, and through family, and this is the general comment that comes up, well before sound is brought up.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wmcmanus So basically what you're saying is that now that you have more experience with different competing products, you don't think that Bose headpones are "bad" necessarily, but yet they're not worth the money in relative terms. Does that sum it up? If so, that's pretty much the way everyone feels.

I don't like the sound for the price, basically and yeah I'm kinda reiterating what others are saying, that's true. Some people may like the sound of the bose, though. I know, for bass, they really pump it out (way too much in my opinion, but far more than my A900s).

Nice example about the steam cleaner and all that. I know how you feel about not doing research before buying things. It's really easy to just go with what everyone else has, or what's advertised more. I did this when I got my triports - I went into the Apple store, listened to them and thought 'wow this is good', and it was compared to the koss headphones I had before that (some sort of 10 dollar headphones that I listened to again last night for fun and it was horrible). I didn't do my research, I didn't know about Grados, Sennheiser, Beyerdynamic, or any of the others. All I knew at the time was "bose is the best". My father said the same thing, and to this day he still feels that bose is the best for making speakers (he abandoned the headphone myth after listening to my setup at home - of which is mouth literally dropped at the sound, and he just laid his head back and listened to music for awhile -- something he never does).

 

[chesebert]

wow.. noob audiophiles with untrained ear telling us how great Bose produce good sound. excellent idea

I got a chance go to the Bose store when I was at the mall, so I sat in their "demo theater", if you ever been in one you know, where they first play some great music then lift curtain and you see the speakers as those little cubes. I have no clue how many $$$ worth of equipments is on the back end. But I think I was the only one in that room who thought that system sound like POS. really. no horizontal, no vertical, no depth. The bass is one note at around 50hz which I really hate..There is no mid range, the high is piercing and unextended. Too many shortcomings to list them all. It sounds no better than the $37 Insignia from BB, and Insignia has better bass quality and imaging..LMAO.

Everyone else in that room thought..'oh..this sounded pretty good' (I heard some chatters wrt to that). what can you say? I guess when you have been fed crap all your life, bad is considered an upgrade. The nerve BOSE has charging, IIRC $3000? for the system. Yak.

 

[Blitzula]

Quote:

Originally Posted by vilg /img/forum/go_quote.gif Random pseudo intellectual clowns who every other day create these kinds of topics are getting just as common as the humorous Bose bashing threads. Comparing Bose marketing to the "marketing" going on at the head-fi for sale forum is laughable at best. Lots of people here, including myself, have heard Bose headphones up against similar priced phones. Anyone without dysfunctional ears will tell you that they underperform for their price range. Good job coming out as an uninformed fool though, John_M. Regards, vilg

Shouldn't you be at some sort of forum where people flame a lot and are entertained by it? We try to be somewhat respectful around here of different opinions.

 

[Rylinkus]

Quote:

Originally Posted by alpeggio /img/forum/go_quote.gif My car has BOSE Speakers in it and honestly I ain't that impressed by the sound. The bass is pretty much non existent and there's no punch whatsoever for rock music.

Agreed wholeheartedly. Same thing with my car. My gorgeous headunit has never sounded as bad as when coupled with the Bose speakers. Granted it sounded worse before swapping headunits. Frankly I was amazed as it was my first experience with Bose and had always just assumed they made great stuff. (Maybe read an ad or 2 already.) Thankfully my car is loud enough that any music detail is simply drowned out. So I suppose it's a mute point.

 

[GlendaleViper]

I usually stay away from these - mainly because I have a big mouth... but I can't avoid this one. Not surprisingly, there are four pages since the thread started last night. Even less surprisingly, the amount of posts that actually kept on topic are enough to shorten this to a single page.

OP's post history (and BOSE) aside, the point brought up was vaild: Are consumers who buy BOSE because of the marketing hype any different from Head-Fiers who look for concensus here before purchasing blind?

Honestly, I don't know the answer to that. I can only speak for myself and my answer is a resounding yes, with a big caveat.

Many of us here are no strangers to the audiophile game, regardless of post count. I'm still a relative noob, but I had been interested in audio gear and had been exposed to nice stuff well before I could consider owning any of it myself. One of the curiosities of this hobby is the existence and proliferation of DIY and small builder companies. Even the larger companies are comparitively tiny when compared to the heavyweights in other industries. This is true with loudspeakers and their respective components as well.

Of course, when you consider that many of these products - even those distributed by the larger companies - are not readily available for audition in many cases, and the prospective buyer is forced to look to opinion as a supplement for what would otherwise be a blind purchase.

Much like the perception Bose has (very successfully) tried to build and maintain, many of us on these boards are subjected to groups of people that stand behind certain products. indeed, many thread starters ask specifically to hear the opinions of known (insert product here) supporters, to get opinions and impressions.

If it were left at that, then no, we are no different than the average consumer who buys Bose after reading the marketing and hearing word-of-mouth testimonials.

But remember the caveat? Here it is. Head-Fi was established specifically as a forum for like-minded audiophiles with a penchant for headphone use. Here we have an enormous pool of seasoned and green audiophiles getting their feet wet through experimentation and DIY, thoughtful and hopefully unbiased discussion of findings, and meetings and get-togethers to facilitate the auditioning of otherwise rare merchandise. Is it a replacement for hearing something yourself? Unless you go to meets, then no. Is it a step forward from simply buying into marketing? I say yes.

So I think the question asked is valid if it really was asked in earnest. It's difficult (especially as a newcomer) to see any difference between blind purchases, regardless of whether they were made based on marketing hype or group mentality. But I think the main difference lies in an implied understanding of the risks involved in making purchases like this, combined with a general appreciation for the active community at large here, which is full of knowledgeable members who are more than happy to help. The very active For Sale forums don't hurt either!

I won't touch upon the price/performance ratio issue since, as Wmcmanus mentioned earlier, many personal variables come into play when product features are desired beyond "simple" sound reproduction.

Sorry for the long post.

 

[PhilS]

GlendaleViper, excellent post. To put it in even more stark terms, there's a vast difference between, for example, obtaining the input of sacdlover and others who own several Singlepower amps and have listened to various combinations of SP amps and tube combinations, and who have vast knowledge and experience with other audiophile-grade equipment, and relying to some extent on their knowledge and experience when attempting to determine what amp might work best for you-- and a guy buying Bose because his friends (or ads in airline magazines) them him Bose is "the best."