[money4me247]

I agree with all four of your points.

But don't they describe any market? IMO, we've been lucky it's taken this long for ultra high cost/small volume products to appear. Every other form of home audio reproduction has plenty of overpriced gear of questionable audible value.

I'm not defending it - it seemed just inevitable with the headphone market growing so rapidly.

with other tech fields you get constant measurable improvements in the performance anually which keeps the prices very competitive. you can get bettwr tech this year at the same price of last years stuff. the only ridiculously priced items are the extremely cutting edge or just being developed tech, but those items fall fall to afforadable prices after a few years.

with headphones, most manufactors honestly have been releasing the basically the same thing with slightly different sound signatures and there has not been any real revolution in the techology that has caused either a npticeable performance boost or a dramatic price shift.

 

[prot]

this! this hobby in general is overpriced with everything being commonly sold at 50% or more markup.

there is no real concrete objective benchmark to measure the performance of headphones and other components, so prices are subject to whatever whims of the manufactor. there is also no real correlation between price and performance from my experience.

the sonic differences between different dacs and even more expensive dacs are honestly so subtle i'm surprised that there is even a market for such stuff.

the biggest thing that contributes to the huge price inflation is that a lot of audiophiles are just complete suckers and believe almost any marketing claim regardless of what science says and no one in this hobby is interested in blind direct comparisons for evaluating objective performance differences. a company can release a sticker than you stick onto your cable and tell you it'll improve the sound and people here would believe it & get offended if you try to tell them otherwise. it's quite hilarious honestly

Sometimes hilarious ... sometimes it's just sad.
The OP was complaining that the audiophile market is not taken seriously. Well, who in their right mind will take such a bunch seriously? Besides, the market is simply too small for giants like samsung, intel, etc.

 

[Terja]

  This is for jelt2359 (thread starter) .... Isn't the HE1000 simply a planar headphone, not a "planar-dynamic"? The initial header may be confusing to some readers sort of implying this headphone is using dual drivers. Suggest you edit 'dynamic' out, or sub it with Hifiman's own market-speak "ultimate-planar". Just my 0.002.

 
 

Planar headphones are dynamic...

 
Well they are "planar magnetic" not "planar dynamic." Not sure how you're using the word 'dynamic' since that is generally reserved for piston voice-coil drivers. This is simply about disambiguation.

 

[rovopio]

lolz..25.000usd for a car...here in the netherlands u only get the cheapest cars on the market for that amount.. But as already said...u cant compare car prices to headphone prices...25mil for a car is dead cheap..for a headphone is total rediculty...only a few on this world will have the money to buy (or willing to pay) headphones for that amount of money...i remember me buying speakers in the far past for around 1000usd and those were topnotch..now getting topnotch speakers will cost ya the price of a good car. I have a friend who has speakers costing north of 100.000 euro! But hey...he has so much money he buys stuff just to own it...To quote him: i prefer to spend it on stuff then give it to taxes (here u pay huge taxes if u have certain amount of money on ur bankaccount etc)

 
$25.000 is affordable. Most people I know drive cars way more expensive than that. I guess it's all about priorities on where to spend your money on.

 
Does your friend pays their $50,000 car in cash?
Can i installed the LCD-XC in a friendly, $30 / monthly installment for three years?

 

[citraian]

For me, dynamic is reserved to voice coil and planar. They were also called orthodynamic or isodynamic. Who cares?

 

[bfreedma]

I agree with all four of your points.

But don't they describe any market? IMO, we've been lucky it's taken this long for ultra high cost/small volume products to appear. Every other form of home audio reproduction has plenty of overpriced gear of questionable audible value.

I'm not defending it - it seemed just inevitable with the headphone market growing so rapidly.

with other tech fields you get constant measurable improvements in the performance anually which keeps the prices very competitive. you can get bettwr tech this year at the same price of last years stuff. the only ridiculously priced items are the extremely cutting edge or just being developed tech, but those items fall fall to afforadable prices after a few years.

with headphones, most manufactors honestly have been releasing the basically the same thing with slightly different sound signatures and there has not been any real revolution in the techology that has caused either a npticeable performance boost or a dramatic price shift.

In other tech fields you also get things like Brikk modified iPhones with 24k gold and diamond cases. No performance improvement there and certainly not cutting edge. Also won't be falling to affordable prices any time soon.

I'd argue that planar magnetics has been a relatively new technology (to headphones) that's offered improvements.

This might make for an interesting thread so that we don't derail the HE-1000 thread any further. "The Future of Summit-FI" or something similar.

 

[Terja]

 

  This is for jelt2359 (thread starter) .... Isn't the HE1000 simply a planar headphone, not a "planar-dynamic"? The initial header may be confusing to some readers sort of implying this headphone is using dual drivers. Suggest you edit 'dynamic' out, or sub it with Hifiman's own market-speak "ultimate-planar". Just my 0.002.

 
 

Planar headphones are dynamic...

 
Well they are "planar magnetic" not "planar dynamic." Not sure how you're using the word 'dynamic' since that is generally reserved for piston voice-coil drivers. This is simply about disambiguation.

 

For me, dynamic is reserved to voice coil and planar. They were also called orthodynamic or isodynamic. Who cares?

 
 
Yes on orthodynamic or isodynamic. Here is a good article explaining the different driver technologies. Link . . .
 
P.S. The HE1000 would not be considered isodynamic since it uses asymmetrical magnetic fields.

 

[catspaw]

The problem with headphones reaching prices like 10k, 25k, etc is that they become a niche of of a niche product.
Most people I know would not spend 300 dollars on a headphone, much less 1000.
If you told them that a HP is worth 25k and you wanted to buy it, they would think you are rich, because it would be the only reason to do such a thing.
 
Last time sennheiser made the orpheus, they actually lost money on it, so its obviously not the way to go. (bare in mind that with inflation the price of the orpheus today would be nuts).
 
Its rather similar with other goods. Baby trolleys for example can have easy the price of a gaming laptop, and are far cheaper to make, but people will pay for it (well, not me, but you get the idea).
 
Think of iphones, gentleman watches, etc. 
If the HE-1000 is in that price range, I wont bash it, but i wont buy it either.
The sennheiser HD-800 is a middle road. Yes, its over 1000, but it may very well be worth it.
But Stax 009, LCD3, abyss... lets just say I can do better things with that amount of money .

 

[icebear]

Companies always develop cutting edge technology show off products without actual marketing considerations and not designed to a specific price point. This does happen in all areas of consumer products. There are several examples of speakers or amps costing 100k+ to stay within audio. Special editions cars can easily top that 3 to 5 times. Are these niche within a niche? Sure these products are but what's the problem?
 
Let's hope the HD1000 will be more realistically priced than these type of products I mentioned before.

 

[NZtechfreak]

I think that's why you buy (interested in) Hifiman because the price they offer is lower than their competitors. I wouldn't say a $400 headphone and a $2000 headphone have no difference, but the TOTLs are way over priced. I didn't realize that until I got a lcd-x recently.
I would really like to go to NY to listen to the phones but it's weekday and I am in Ohio. I just hate the fact that there's no chance I can listen to the newest product here.

Not the reason for me, I kept my HE-6 because I liked the sound better than the others (I owned many of the others too).

 

[Decoy]

News Update from HiFiMAN:
 
At the recent CES in Las Vegas Nevada, HIFIMAN previewed its upcoming HE1000 planar magnetic headphone and EF1000 Class A amplifier. These new products are radical departures to what the company has offered in its rich history and they were enthusiastically received by show attendees. Listeners were stunned by the HE1000's huge soundstage, lifelike detail and ultra transparency. Many proclaimed HE1000 to be one of the best headphones they have ever heard. Final pricing and availability have still not been set though they will certainly be priced as reference products. HIFIMAN engineers are making final improvements and going through additional testing. Expected availability is late spring to early summer of 2015. Stay tuned for additional updates.

 

[korzena]

  News Update from HiFiMAN:
 
At the recent CES in Las Vegas Nevada, HIFIMAN previewed its upcoming HE1000 planar magnetic headphone and EF1000 Class A amplifier. These new products are radical departures to what the company has offered in its rich history and they were enthusiastically received by show attendees. Listeners were stunned by the HE1000's huge soundstage, lifelike detail and ultra transparency. Many proclaimed HE1000 to be one of the best headphones they have ever heard. Final pricing and availability have still not been set though they will certainly be priced as reference products. HIFIMAN engineers are making final improvements and going through additional testing. Expected availability is late spring to early summer of 2015. Stay tuned for additional updates.

The price may be steep

 

[reddog]

The price may be steep

+1 Yes these headphones look amazing and are supposed to sound absolutely incredible but I feel they will cost far more than I can save up for. I thank Dr Fang for creating such a beautiful set of cans and if I win the lottery or sell a kidney, I will gladly acquire a pair.

 

[subtle]

  The price may be steep

 
If they are above the $2500 price mistakenly shown earlier on the Moon-Audio website I will be spending my money on an 009.  I've been keeping up with the PriceJapan website and the 009 has dropped another $70 since last Friday.  They are currently $2829.  If they fall in to the $27XX range I likely won't even wait to hear a price on the HE1000.  The Dr. really should consider releasing pricing soon.  I'm sure I'm not the only one sitting on the fence.

 

[takezo]

   
If they are above the $2500 price mistakenly shown earlier on the Moon-Audio website I will be spending my money on an 009.  I've been keeping up with the PriceJapan website and the 009 has dropped another $70 since last Friday.  They are currently $2829.  If they fall in to the $27XX range I likely won't even wait to hear a price on the HE1000.  The Dr. really should consider releasing pricing soon.  I'm sure I'm not the only one sitting on the fence.

yes, i'm thinking the exact same thing. with the yen losing ground on the dollar continuously, thanks to japan's monetary easing policy and improving economy in the usa,
it wouldn't be a shock to see the 009 being sold at $2700+ later in the year.