[Kirosia]

Quote:

Originally Posted by CookieFactory You probably don't want the HF-1s as they are rather unlucky. A large, disproportionate percentage of HF-1s owners run into unfortunate financial situations, shortly after acquiring the headphones. Alas although the owners love the sound, sadly they and the HF-1s must part via an IC thread, and of course: buyers please remember to include the 3% Paypal fees. Since it's such a recurring theme with these headphones, obviously the logical explanation is that they are cursed.

Often unopened, no less. Ok ok, I'm being a hypocrite by participating in this thread.

Oh yeah, this sorta reminds of that evil stitch doll from ebay . . .

 

[dhp]

yeah, seriously. You know, I listened to these HF-1s, and they're great, but I just got some "unexpected bills" and I need to sell these headphones to pay them off. I've only listened to them for about an hour, but damn, didn't see those bills coming 3 days ago. Then, BAM!! and I don't know how much these are worth, so here's an IC.

 

[Ferbose]

Here is some alternative thinking...please, don't stone me to death...
If HF-1 is so amazingly good and limited edition only, why would original owners want to sell it?
Maybe HF-1 isn't all that special to begin with, and so why fuss about it?

 

[trains are bad]

Well, I guess I'm as bad as the worst of them....I like my HF-1s so much their asking price is effectively infinity.

 

[sxr71]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Squeek It is wrong. Just plain wrong. It's like scalpers that manage to get front row seats to the concert you've been waiting to see. You stay up all night waiting for the sale to start, but despite your best eforts, you end up with terrible seats just to see all of the front row seats on eBay. You mean to tell me that because we live in a capitalist society it is "fair" that profiteers buy all the good seats just to sell them for a profit? I don't think so. It reminds me of the eBayer that bid up all of the Xbox 360 eBay sales and didn't pay for a single one. All of them went for over $1k but the sellers did not see a single penny. **** you. When they re-sold I hope they went for below cost. That guy is my hero. In our society, what he did was very wrong, but I rejoiced. It was a small victory for the little guy. And a sweet one at that.

People were allowed to buy only ONE.

As for Xbox 360, people froze their butts off in the cold to get one while everybody else sat on their asses drinking hot chocolate. I didn't do it, but I understand why our society rewards those who have initiative and take risks.

The style of economy you are looking for unfortunately died with the end of the Cold War. Even China doesn't run like that anymore.

 

[sxr71]

Quote:

Originally Posted by CookieFactory You probably don't want the HF-1s as they are rather unlucky. A large, disproportionate percentage of HF-1s owners run into unfortunate financial situations, shortly after acquiring the headphones. Alas although the owners love the sound, sadly they and the HF-1s must part via an IC thread, and of course: buyers please remember to include the 3% Paypal fees. Since it's such a recurring theme with these headphones, obviously the logical explanation is that they are cursed.

Nicely put!

 

[sxr71]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kirosia Often unopened, no less. Ok ok, I'm being a hypocrite by participating in this thread. Oh yeah, this sorta reminds of that evil stitch doll from ebay . . .

If it is wrong to buy something to sell it later, then our whole stock market system is immoral!

 

[nmculbreth]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ferbose Here is some alternative thinking...please, don't stone me to death... If HF-1 is so amazingly good and limited edition only, why would original owners want to sell it? Maybe HF-1 isn't all that special to begin with, and so why fuss about it?

I think there might be some credence to this argument. I think the HF-1 represents good value in relation to the rest of the Prestige series but I've seen many go for more than the cost of an RS-2 and to my ears they're not in the same class. If I still owned my HF-1 and somebody offered me an RS-2 or the money equivalent to the RS-2 I'd take it in a heartbeat.

 

[Squeek]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sxr71 People were allowed to buy only ONE. As for Xbox 360, people froze their butts off in the cold to get one while everybody else sat on their asses drinking hot chocolate. I didn't do it, but I understand why our society rewards those who have initiative and take risks. The style of economy you are looking for unfortunately died with the end of the Cold War. Even China doesn't run like that anymore.

It was analogy, and nothing more. Meant to point out a desired product that can be gotten by few, though resold by many for a sickening profit.

 

[quoteunquote]

200 originally. people sell them for 350 and even higher.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Connectz Okay i'm lost. How much was it then and how much is it now?

 

[Kirosia]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sxr71 If it is wrong to buy something to sell it later, then our whole stock market system is immoral!

Last time I checked, this was head-fi not the stock market.

Quote:

People were allowed to buy only ONE.

Alas, there were ways around this. People would get a friend or significant other to buy one for them. Then they had a pair for themselves, and another to unload.

 

[PsychoZX]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jjcha Not really. If you feel the need to gripe about current market prices, I think you were foolish for not buying them when they were readily available and unlimited. If you weren't a member during that time, well, they weren't marketed for you in the first place. Be glad they're being offered at all. Best, -Jason

Ditto. Seems like most of the people who make these threads are just pissed because they didn't buy an HF-1 when they had the chance. Now they want a pair but don't want to pay the market price.

 

[sxr71]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Squeek It was analogy, and nothing more. Meant to point out a desired product that can be gotten by few, though resold by many for a sickening profit.

There were 500 of them and limited to one per person.

So 500+ people got them, that doesn't sound like a few to me.

That simply didn't allow for anything like scalping so it wasn't an appropriate analogy.

 

[sxr71]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kirosia Last time I checked, this was head-fi not the stock market. Alas, there were ways around this. People would get a friend or significant other to buy one for them. Then they had a pair for themselves, and another to unload.

Yeah, so market economies so should be different for different participants. So if a group of people believed in socialism they should be allowed to operate in a socialist sub-economy?

However fairness is valued by a market economy and in this case they tried to create fairness by allowing one per person. If people found a way around it, they cheated the system. So damn those cheaters, but the last time I checked life isn't fair.

They could have used a minimum membership period or minimum or post count qualification, but they didn't. Maybe they learned from that. Still people might argue that a new member with a genuine interest in the phones shouldn't have to pay for the dishonesty of dishonest people.

The system isn't perfect, but the only other way to do it would be to ration them out and ban the sale of HF-1s.

If I had a personal pair and somebody offered me $400 for them, and I thought I could get better phones for $400 should I refuse to sell them because I would be profiteering?

 

[granodemostasa]

I'm not sure where i'm going in this post, so bear me out.
evidence of original intent of the sale: Grado didn't make a special head fi headphone to be the best and such... their intention was to test out the idea of a mixed wood/plastic headphone. they priced it at 200 dollars noticing that a large percentage of headfiers were college students or younger...wanted to make it something everyone could afford. TTVJ actually stated that ebay sales are likely to mess up the prospects of such a thing ever happening again.
once they started selling they became popular as people realized the unique sound they had was different from the rest of the SR series headphones. the number incresed to meet the new demand from 250 to 450 of these headphones. when demand got too high, towards the end of november they stopped at 450. shortly there after people started selling them for 417, then 420, then 410, then 250, and such. this is when the original threads about profiteering came up, and various threads about the "community" aspect about head-fi started poping up. original posts suggested that the reason why people never jumped on them when they first came out was that they waited to see the results of the first buyers-so a risk/reward thing might be at play. There is also an assumption of unlimited supply the first month-from what i have read (search), there wasn't but it was stopped after a certain point.
my story, as said before: newer headfiers like me never had a chance for the 200 dollar headphone so i've never thought of it as such. when the extra 20 came out, the idea wasn't so much a 200 dollar headphone for head-fi but one amazing headphone that is worth alot more than it is selling for; maybe my own perspective was tilted towards trying to get it after i heard it at the meet... and i know alot of hype went around it to the point where people are willing to pay maybe a bit too much for it?
nevertheless, all this culminated in less than 1 second...the fact that people are aware they could get a recabled HD650, maybe even a used RS-1 for it made the risk seem so little than even uninterested buyers wanted it.
Speculation- this is hard to figure out since we are never sure of the circumstances surrounding each transaction. the price would certainly encourage it... but is this bad? the basic idea about the "market" that i would love to defend is meant to make the good to be worth exactly what it is worth... to encourage efficentcy; that is the point. what it is worth; depending on it's sound and rarity is hard to know... if one buyer knows exactly how it sounds and has an idea of how hard it is to get bids against a person who is buys it in order that they might profit from it (maybe 600 dollars in a year?) the speculator would almost certainly win. the question now is, is this a bubble?
Head-fi doesn't have an SEC to figure this out... all we have are members of this board who see what is going on... Thus i encourage discussion on this.. i don't think this thread is bad, the product needs to be talked aboud and if we see something not right with the prices of these things we should bring it up...if only to let people know suspicions and all information involved on the sale and purchase of the HF-1.