[ubs28]

Well for starters look at the Etymotic ER4 series. Can be had for around 250 bucks and still is one of the best IEM's around.

Pricing is a joke these days on flagship stuff. Review sites tell us we should pay it and people go out and do just that. Look at the current Focal fiasco with their QC issues on a 5 grand phone that does little better than a modded HD650.

I wont even talk about Audeze, they have enough dedicated threads outlining owner issues here.

I can see a grand being the upper limit as these are a limited market item. But getting into multiple thousands of dollars is simply ludicrous. Particularly when Koss will still sell you an ESP950 for around 800 bucks.

Not for me. Tried those Etymotic IEM's and their comfort is horrible. Will never use them. I think you need to upgrade to a more resolving setup if you think there is little difference between the HD 650 and the Utopia. Even my IEM's have better speed and clarity than the HD 650.

I don't see the current prices as a fiasco. If it is overpriced, nobody will buy it and then the market will automatically force a lower price. I don't think Hifiman can sell their headphone for $6000 if the SR-009 is $4500, but I haven't heard them (nor interested) so we shall see what the market will say.

 

[Silent Xaxal]

The problem is the fact that our specific market is saturated with companies looking to market the highest prices for an ever decreasing increase in performance, coupled with consumers who believe that more $$$$$ = INFINITELY BETTER PERFORMANCE. Coupled with some segments in our milieu who take the PC Parts mindset with regards to Headphones (I've seen people criticize the HD650 merely for being an old design. To which, I say, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Not all change is good.), when, for all intents in purposes, good audio equipment can last as long as a good/well-maintained car.

I wouldn't mind the increasing cost IF it translated in a trickle down of these technologies into the cheaper price brackets. Which largely hasn't happened, from what I've seen.

 

[Silent Xaxal]

Another explanation is that people who get an existential crisis about the rising cost of audio prices needs to stop lurking these forums for a while. Clearly isn't good for their health.

 

[XLR8]

There are some real valid points in this thread.
As always, caveat emptor.
Good luck with your shopping.

 

[ThomasHK]

These are the last twitches of the audiophile headphone market. With the advent of better and better wireless links (yes, Bluetooth), well designed active headphones will kill the audio performance you get from these gazillion dollar headphones easily.

Why you say? If the requirement to have a good passive headphone response (ie. well tuned passive response) is gone, you can develop transducers that are more aimed at being good at high excursion and low distortion. Some well designed EQ to hit a target exactly, calibration of said EQ on the line to get perfect L/R matching and soon you will hear headphones that outperform anything out there currently. I'm already seeing developments in this direction from several big brands.

EDIT: and I even forgot to mention spatial audio processing being added in the mix. In the last year alone I've heard some very cool stuff from Dirac, Waves etc...

It's going to be a very interesting couple of years ahead. Sub 500 dollar wireless headphones with exceptional performance are coming guys.

 

[ubs28]

I must say I have been impressed by the possibilities of wireless headphones recently, as I acquired the B&W P7 Wireless as a portable all-in one
solution.

However I don't think they will kill the flagship market because the chips inside are not that good. Something like a Chord Mojo solves all the problems people have with B&W P7 in Wireless mode.

A headphone with a dedicated DAC + amplifier will always beat a Wireless headphone based on my experience so far. (The Sony MDR-1000X and the Bose QC35 sounded even worse than the B&W P7 Wireless when I tried them)

 

[Hutnicks]

Not for me. Tried those Etymotic IEM's and their comfort is horrible. Will never use them. I think you need to upgrade to a more resolving setup if you think there is little difference between the HD 650 and the Utopia. Even my IEM's have better speed and clarity than the HD 650.

I don't see the current prices as a fiasco. If it is overpriced, nobody will buy it and then the market will automatically force a lower price. I don't think Hifiman can sell their headphone for $6000 if the SR-009 is $4500, but I haven't heard them (nor interested) so we shall see what the market will say.

Certainly if they don't fit comfortably they are not for you. IEM's by definition should have better speed and clarity than a supraaural can. I don't use the 650 myself and there are plenty of phones around that will do better for considerably less than 5 grand a pop.

Overpriced is the new black. There is one thing missing from all these sites that crank out huge volumes of reviews. A value index. They will graph everything else ad nauseum but you will never ever see a graph of the price performance index of audio equipment. With credit being so easy to get these days, all of a sudden a 5 grand phone is accessible to just about everyone.

The industry works to some sick inverse version of Moore's law Double the price for a minimal performance gain around every two years.

The problem is the fact that our specific market is saturated with companies looking to market the highest prices for an ever decreasing increase in performance, coupled with consumers who believe that more $$$$$ = INFINITELY BETTER PERFORMANCE. Coupled with some segments in our milieu who take the PC Parts mindset with regards to Headphones (I've seen people criticize the HD650 merely for being an old design. To which, I say, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Not all change is good.), when, for all intents in purposes, good audio equipment can last as long as a good/well-maintained car.

I wouldn't mind the increasing cost IF it translated in a trickle down of these technologies into the cheaper price brackets. Which largely hasn't happened, from what I've seen.

Pick up an old Yamaha HP1 and listen to it. Then do some simple mods

Once again the trade works to inverse principles. No downward movement of technology into lower tier items. It's a limited appeal market and the extraction of the maximum amount of cash from the customer is paramount. It preys upon the human inability to judge value accurately (as do most "luxury" markets) and ruthlessly extracts every last cent possible and worse yet, in some cases outright refuse to take responsibility when their product is defective. If folks applied the same attitude toward buying, sales would drop off a cliff.

 

[Sound Eq]

in my opinion companies that go with sky rocket prices for their products are just loosing out on reaching to more mass sales, I believe in the model of sell for reasonable price and sell more.
And I am so happy to see Chinese made iems on aliexpress getting more sales, and they are learning fast and soon those high prices will be history

 

[Sound Eq]

It's because people will pay. Let's be real, a HD800, HD650 and Elear are more resolving than most of these headphones apart from a few 4k examples.

Yet people Still believe they are getting an upgrade to the point their minds tell them they are hearing setting better. Take expectation out of it and you won't find anything other than different improvements and issues in other areas(If we are talking about a well made headphone)

I do believe the Utopia is legit but compare it to a HD800 both on a good system and the actual resolution is similar and in some cases I found the HD800 to dig deeper for detail, they are both close but look at the price difference.

We also did a test a HD650 on a simple Vali 2 hooked up to a Modi Multibit was more detailed and resolving compared to my LCD-3 on every combo we tried. It was more level on entry level gear like the 02.

Prices will continue to go crazy with Audeze, Mrspeakers, Hifiman especially. The Ether Flow open I had was terrible, bright mess with awful tonal balance and it was the case for other units of the Flows. The Flows are £1700 here..my HD800, HD650 and Elear all nested the flow for slam, micro detail and macro dynamics with only the HD650 losing out on background clarort die to it's very background and bass texture.

Over the years I've trained myself to be more immune to expectation bias but it's difficult with so many paid sponsors and reviewers. It's a tricky hobby.

go figure and at first the flow was hailed as a gift from that landed from heaven on us. Mrspeakers needs to look in tuning his headphones as been a while since he mad a good tuned headphone

 

[Sound Eq]

$4,000 headphone is the new $1,000 headphone. Don't count on it going down anytime soon. The bar will be pushed higher and higher. Wait until Focal comes out with Utopia version 2 or Nirvana or whatever they will call it in a few years or so....do you honestly think it's going to stay at or below $4K? Let's take bets...I say $6K.

u mean in 5 months not 2 years and utopia owners will sit there scratching their head if they should shell out 6000 usd, then comes one review and boom they will

 

[HiCZoK]

I just want someone to call me one day and present with headphone better than Porta Pro. But I am a poor asshole so ignorance is bliss I guess

 

[paradoxology]

The runaway prices for elite headphones would stop in a heartbeat if people simply stopped buying them.

 

[moriez]

Affordability is one part of why the headphones hobby is fun. Above lets say 1.5k(?) is just super absurd. What all of these companies to me are really loosing out on here big time is integrity and credibility. The fact of the matter seems to be that most of them are merely following and reacting to the uber TOTL example. You're not going to lag behind if you have the means, I understand that. But it would adorn one to say NO, we as a company don't go there because the type of pricing is completely disproportional to what you're going to get.

 

[HiCZoK]

The runaway prices for elite headphones would stop in a heartbeat if people simply stopped buying them.

I still have no idea who is buying those 1 or 4k headphones. I know NO ONE who would spend more than 100$ on pair of headphones.

Do theses companies really sell more than few units monthly ?

 

[GearMe]

$4,000 headphone is the new $1,000 headphone. Don't count on it going down anytime soon. The bar will be pushed higher and higher. Wait until Focal comes out with Utopia version 2 or Nirvana or whatever they will call it in a few years or so....do you honestly think it's going to stay at or below $4K? Let's take bets...I say $6K.

Well I hope Focal is working on the Utopia V2 since the sound signature for the Innerfidelity 2016 Product of the Year and 'World's Best Headphone' was actually an outlier that is ~5db different from roughly 3 to 10Khz than what the majority of them actually measure!

This isn't to say that some people won't find that the Utopia V1 is a great product for $4K...I'm sure they do. But...can you imagine that little nagging voice in their head? 'It better be, I paid $4K for it!

u mean in 5 months not 2 years and utopia owners will sit there scratching their head if they should shell out 6000 usd, then comes one review and boom they will

Well...maybe two or three reviews this time!

EDIT: The $4K hits keep coming!...just looked at Innerfidelity's home page and the LCD4's may have some issues.
For this price, I'd expect distortion, channel balance, etc. to not be an issue. Factory QC should be exceptional.
https://www.innerfidelity.com/content/first-lcd-4-measurements-and-little-help-readers