[Currawong]

I think that for $1000 I should be able to get a pair of headphones that nobody says anything bad about online.

 

[headr]

More options in the marketplace are never a bad thing.

If you take a look at headphone development over the last couple years, companies are investing in different things: drivers, acoustic filters, housings, etc. The ring radiator driver from Sennheiser. The beryllium drivers of Focal. The 120 khz driver from Sony.

How does the release of these products effect you? Why would anyone want them to stop?

I like the car analogy, because it is similar. Bentley will sell you a six figure sedan. Ferrari will sell you a six figure coupe. Mercedes will sell you a six figure SUV. These are simply options, and they don't devalue other options in the marketplace. Some people aspire to own them, others don't really care about cars. Or have no need for an SUV. Or can appreciate them without buying them.

There will always be lower priced headphones, and indeed, while headphones with high price tags might make headlines, there has never been more options across the price spectrum in the world of headphones. Not everyone likes the higher priced headphones either, the Z1R in particular is very polarizing.

Again, simply options in the marketplace. If you don't like them, don't buy them. If you can't afford them, don't buy them. But, in my opinion, the mere presence of options should not be derided, and I think people underestimate how all this investment in experimentation will trickle down. Ferraris get faster every year, but so do Ford Mustangs. If you love cars, your options get better every single year. Same with headphones.

Try not to focus on the things you can't afford, and remember to enjoy the music.

 

[kman1211]

Honestly I like seeing all these different driver implementations come into play, the more unique products there are, there more the more appealing things are to many people, sameness is boring to me. It's these unique aspects of the headphone design that make the HD 800, Utopia, Z1R, etc. sound the way they do. I like uniquely designed headphones, some of these uniquely designed headphones do things exceptionally well and can be ear-opening experiences good, bad, or mixed. The Z1R is definitely polarizing, I really like the Z1R from my listening though, though an extremely polarizing headphone is the DT 48(a very controversial headphone, it's thread exploded a few years back, they are definitely weird and unique in design but are the original dynamic). I'm personally a fan of the DT 48 and it's sister headphone the DT 480, definitely educational listens. I could never get into isodynamics(planars) some reason, something doesn't sound right about them to my ears, I'm an dynamic and electrostatic guy. Everyone has differing experiences, definitions of high fidelity, and preferences. Listening to both modern and vintage gear also expands your horizons noting how the industry has changed, sometimes I prefer the vintage stuff to the modern stuff.

 

[WoodyLuvr]

I think that for $1000 I should be able to get a pair of headphones that nobody says anything bad about online.

I think that as well but at the point of diminishing returns (~300-400 USD)!

 

[Slaphead]

Your writing seemed to me to indicate that you consider $1000 to be a ceiling for mid-fi. If this isn't what you meant, then I mistook your intent.

For a grand, a set of headphones should have very few deficiencies and sound great. IMHO, $1000 should get you end game gear. I have listened to 2 sets costing over that amount that had serious flaws. One set had several flaws.

Cheers!

I'm thinking that $500 should get you that.

It's not like driver technology, acoustics, and the manufacturing processes aren't well understood today - even planar tech has been around for over 40 years and electrostatic even longer. When you consider the advancements digital technology has given R&D - these days you can run some serious analysis on a $300 landfill laptop, and the advancements digital control technology has had on the speed and accuracy of manufacturing then theoretically we should all be getting more for less.

As I see it this industry has a multitude of problems that directly affect us, the end users directly, by screwing with our perceptions, and attempting to empty our wallets of a lot of case in exchange for mere mediocrity, but I'll single out just a couple for the moment.

The first I see are small boutique manufacturers popping up and making headphones out middle earth tree wood, unicorn fur, and phoenix feathers, while using unobtanium for coils and atom thick neutronium for drivers, then slapping a multi-thousand dollar price tag on them while the marketing departments spew all kinds pseudo-science and other overly wordy guff in an attempt to convince you that the rubbish you're hearing is the way it's supposed to sound. Then you have the Hi-Fi press perpetuating this by salivating over and worshipping all manner of 5 figure gear while dismissing perfectly competent and even brilliant $500 gear and looking at it as if it's a piece of dog crap they've just stood in.

Yes the above is an extreme exaggeration for illustrative purposes, but I think anybody who's been in this hobby for more than a few months will probably get what I'm trying to say here, and that is price is absolutely no guarantee of anything, despite how the industry colludes to convince us otherwise.

That said there are a lot of good guys out there as well who try to and do deliver good quality gear for fair prices, and by fair I mean priced accordingly to performance.

I have to admit that at the moment there isn't that much in headphone Summit-Fi that's out of my reach, but it's not always been that way. I've also been in the position where once all the bills have been paid I've barely had $20 to last the month, and I'm also aware that I could find myself in that position again. As a result I look for value in what I buy. The fact that I've settled on a $500 DAC/Amp and a $500 pair of headphones as my current home rig having demoed all manner of gear in all price ranges should be telling in either one of two ways. Either I'm deaf, or I really have hit the value for money sweet spot, at least for my ears.

 

[kman1211]

I'm thinking that $500 should get you that.

It's not like driver technology, acoustics, and the manufacturing processes aren't well understood today - even planar tech has been around for over 40 years and electrostatic even longer. When you consider the advancements digital technology has given R&D - these days you can run some serious analysis on a $300 landfill laptop, and the advancements digital control technology has had on the speed and accuracy of manufacturing then theoretically we should all be getting more for less.

As I see it this industry has a multitude of problems that directly affect us, the end users directly, by screwing with our perceptions, and attempting to empty our wallets of a lot of case in exchange for mere mediocrity, but I'll single out just a couple for the moment.

The first I see are small boutique manufacturers popping up and making headphones out middle earth tree wood, unicorn fur, and phoenix feathers, while using unobtanium for coils and atom thick neutronium for drivers, then slapping a multi-thousand dollar price tag on them while the marketing departments spew all kinds pseudo-science and other overly wordy guff in an attempt to convince you that the rubbish you're hearing is the way it's supposed to sound. Then you have the Hi-Fi press perpetuating this by salivating over and worshipping all manner of 5 figure gear while dismissing perfectly competent and even brilliant $500 gear and looking at it as if it's a piece of dog crap they've just stood in.

Yes the above is an extreme exaggeration for illustrative purposes, but I think anybody who's been in this hobby for more than a few months will probably get what I'm trying to say here, and that is price is absolutely no guarantee of anything, despite how the industry colludes to convince us otherwise.

That said there are a lot of good guys out there as well who try to and do deliver good quality gear for fair prices, and by fair I mean priced accordingly to performance.

I have to admit that at the moment there isn't that much in headphone Summit-Fi that's out of my reach, but it's not always been that way. I've also been in the position where once all the bills have been paid I've barely had $20 to last the month, and I'm also aware that I could find myself in that position again. As a result I look for value in what I buy. The fact that I've settled on a $500 DAC/Amp and a $500 pair of headphones as my current home rig having demoed all manner of gear in all price ranges should be telling in either one of two ways. Either I'm deaf, or I really have hit the value for money sweet spot, at least for my ears.

$500 can definitely make one satisfied if they get the right headphone, really depends if the company is actually selling a competent product in that price range. Yes higher prices and the tech industry in terms of computers have altered people's perception of actual progress with headphones. It's not like computers at all and it's a fallacy to think headphones have improved like them, it's better to compare it to cars, slow subtle improvements and refinements over the years but not everything has been an improvement. The concept of electrostatic headphones existed before they ever came out, I believe Eugen Beyer(Beyerdynamics founder) was one of the first to put the concept to paper, STAX is the first to implement it. Honestly I realized I personally just stick with a few select brands as I know they are quite safe choices, after having some experience now, I would only try a few brands new products pretty much blind.

Nah, you're not deaf, once you find the sweet spot for yourself it almost seems pointless to spend more unless you want to squeeze that extra last bit out. Some of the high-end amps/dacs are amazing but the cost is too much for me to even consider it and justify it.

 

[Audman71]

The inflation in headphones prices is running amok. It's not that long time ago that "flagship" headphones, like HD600 and its predecessors, cost below $500... and that was considered quite rich for a pair of cans at the time. Sure, Stax was the odd one out, with some of its offerings costing an order of magnitude more, but they were always more of an exotic singularity than a real-world alternative. And there were some other pricey offerings, such as K1000 and the various hardwood cupped Denons, but the median price for a pair of high-end cans was still solidly anchored to earth.

It was around this time that the mainstream interest for headphones started to grow exponentially. This was of course driven in part by the younger generations affinity for portability and convenience but in no small part also for budgetary reasons. Young people tend to have less money (I know, it's unfair) but I don't think this is the only reason because most MP3 youngsters couldn't give a rat's arse to the quality and experience afforded by high-end audio. Instead, I think there was also a mass exodus of audiophiles and enthusiasts from traditional home audio that for a decade or so had experienced a tremendous inflation in hi-fi gear (e.g. compare the cost of a pair of B&W 801 Matrix to the same mfg's flagship today, in real dollars... not to mention those +$1m offerings from other more "exotic" producers...). This development, not saved for long by the attempt to migrate and reignite the interest of the crowd over to home theater (which quickly got even more costly if you wanted to maintain quality), IMHO played a big part in if not killing then at least decimating the interest and potential consumers in the high-end home audio space. The flight to the headphone space was I believe very much a reaction to this development, this feeling of abandonment, inaccessibility and greed by the audio manufacturers.

This is also why it worries me so much that we have been seeing the same development in personal audio of late. Since the HD650 (which was a more acceptable price increase over the HD600), it's just got ridiculous, with big jumps in price (typically 50-100% for each new generation, every 12-24mo) first with $1,000-1,500 offerings (Audeze's and HifiMan's first models being good cases in point), "forcing" also Senn to follow suit with the HD800 (because you don't want your offering to come across as inferior based on price alone, now do you?). Consequently, the others had to up their game so to speak (price-wise at least, quality-wise is debatable) with another step-up in prices, now approaching the $2k mark (e.g. LCD-X). Now the latest "must-have flagships" (LCD-4, Focal Utopia, WM1Z etc) are about $3k!!

I'll be the first one to appreciate the R&D, craftsmanship and incremental improvements that go into these products but these things are supposed to come with time anyway, without a huge premium increase annually, at least in a competitive market economy. That very economy which pretty much has been non-inflationary since Lehman by the way....

I think the headphone industry is becoming a victim of its own success, attracting more suppliers (not only cans but also amps, DACs, cables etc), all trying to come across as better than peers by price positioning their latest offering just above everybody else's. Sure global demographics and the emergence of a middle class with strong purchasing power in countries like China, India, Russia etc means a bigger market potentially, but I'm afraid that the little bang-for-the-buck haven that this space has been for audiophiles for some time will face the same decay as that experienced by home audio hobbyists due to ramping inflation for the best products. Sad but true.

It's got to stop. Massdrop can't save us all...

Interesting point. When reading this post it occurred to me: Why should I worry about the price of the "best of the best" increasing over time if the quality of a what-is-now-$3k headphone sounds little to no better than a currently $500 headphone? I went to a high end audio shop, tried out some headphones, and this is the conclusion I drew at the time: The $300 pair of Shure SRH940's sounded better than the $1k-or-so Sennheiser HD800's they had, and I can assure you it wasn't because of the bass!

Don't get me wrong, I agree with your point about increased price on high end headphones. I hate this sort of inflation, and I understand what you are getting at. I'm just saying if you aren't a complete audiophile, even if you do care to a point about good sound, why should you care about the cost headphones that are touted 'Flagship'?

But this comes from a guy who prefers not to carry something literally worth the price of a car around his neck, so take what I said here with a grain of salt.

 

[Little Bear]

...then slapping a multi-thousand dollar price tag on them while the marketing departments spew all kinds pseudo-science and other overly wordy guff in an attempt to convince you that the rubbish you're hearing is the way it's supposed to sound.

LOL, the moment I read that I thought of one word...Bose!

 

[Hutnicks]

I'm thinking that $500 should get you that.

It's not like driver technology, acoustics, and the manufacturing processes aren't well understood today - even planar tech has been around for over 40 years and electrostatic even longer. When you consider the advancements digital technology has given R&D - these days you can run some serious analysis on a $300 landfill laptop, and the advancements digital control technology has had on the speed and accuracy of manufacturing then theoretically we should all be getting more for less.

As I see it this industry has a multitude of problems that directly affect us, the end users directly, by screwing with our perceptions, and attempting to empty our wallets of a lot of case in exchange for mere mediocrity, but I'll single out just a couple for the moment.

The first I see are small boutique manufacturers popping up and making headphones out middle earth tree wood, unicorn fur, and phoenix feathers, while using unobtanium for coils and atom thick neutronium for drivers, then slapping a multi-thousand dollar price tag on them while the marketing departments spew all kinds pseudo-science and other overly wordy guff in an attempt to convince you that the rubbish you're hearing is the way it's supposed to sound. Then you have the Hi-Fi press perpetuating this by salivating over and worshipping all manner of 5 figure gear while dismissing perfectly competent and even brilliant $500 gear and looking at it as if it's a piece of dog crap they've just stood in.

Yes the above is an extreme exaggeration for illustrative purposes, but I think anybody who's been in this hobby for more than a few months will probably get what I'm trying to say here, and that is price is absolutely no guarantee of anything, despite how the industry colludes to convince us otherwise.

That said there are a lot of good guys out there as well who try to and do deliver good quality gear for fair prices, and by fair I mean priced accordingly to performance.

I have to admit that at the moment there isn't that much in headphone Summit-Fi that's out of my reach, but it's not always been that way. I've also been in the position where once all the bills have been paid I've barely had $20 to last the month, and I'm also aware that I could find myself in that position again. As a result I look for value in what I buy. The fact that I've settled on a $500 DAC/Amp and a $500 pair of headphones as my current home rig having demoed all manner of gear in all price ranges should be telling in either one of two ways. Either I'm deaf, or I really have hit the value for money sweet spot, at least for my ears.

This is a real "bingo moment" of a post and addresses quite well the whole idea that overpriced Flagship phones are priced due to the RD behind them. First off look at here for starters http://dx.doi.org/10.1121/1.4984044

There are hundreds of papers published up there covering every aspect of audio all of which are readlily available.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1121/1.4984044
Then factor in that there has been an enormous amount of research in acoustics, electro mechanics, and material science in the past 20 years. All this is freely available right down to the equations to model everything from the driver to the housing to the seal to the ear.


In short. It has never been cheaper to do the actual research and design as it is right now. It has also never been cheaper to source component manufacturers either.

 

[WoodyLuvr]

This is a real "bingo moment" of a post and addresses quite well the whole idea that overpriced Flagship phones are priced due to the RD behind them. First off look at here for starters http://dx.doi.org/10.1121/1.4984044

There are hundreds of papers published up there covering every aspect of audio all of which are readlily available.
Then factor in that there has been an enormous amount of research in acoustics, electro mechanics, and material science in the past 20 years. All this is freely available right down to the equations to model everything from the driver to the housing to the seal to the ear.


In short. It has never been cheaper to do the actual research and design as it is right now. It has also never been cheaper to source component manufacturers either.

Concur, albeit I am still on the fence a little in regards to R&D as I have an inkling that we may be ignorantly dismissing an important aspect of the research, design, testing, manufacturing, and packaging portion of the business that could possibly explain some of the costs tagged onto the price tag. I wonder if this is where summit-fi is headed?

A very similar hobby with exorbitant prices, mechanical watches, has faced the very same criticisms for decades but is now at a point where most everyone realizes that a mechanical movement is neither a superior or accurate timepiece (compared to a quartz watch; smart watch; or the clock on their smartphone) in so much as it is a piece of art to collect and the price tags keep marching on regardless.

I would love to hear a solid counter argument explaining true R&D costs and all the required re-tooling and costs associated for a new product line.

 

[Whazzzup]

That electronic rabbit hole, it's taken a whole lot of digging to get here. How can I stop, I'm getting near to the other side....

 

[Harry Manback]

I think that for $1000 I should be able to get a pair of headphones that nobody says anything bad about online.

If this is humor, it escapes me.

 

[Currawong]

I was taking the piss out of forum discussion in general.

More seriously, I don't believe we'll be seeing SR-009 or Utopia performance for $500 anytime soon.

 

[Hutnicks]

I was taking the piss out of forum discussion in general.

More seriously, I don't believe we'll be seeing SR-009 or Utopia performance for $500 anytime soon.

O'wd that make it past the censors?

Certainly not when the latest entry using the pre made by the roll estat material shows up on the market for .. wait for it... the obligatory 5 grand bracket.

So much for cheaper technology making for a cheaper end user product. If only Dell, Acer and the lot had twigged to this model we could all be happily paying 10 grand for a laptop.

 

[Currawong]

I think Audeze have done pretty well with the Sine in getting good resolution at a reasonable price.