[HumbleMan]

You don't actually need to evolve when something is good enough. The idea that continuous change is essential is part of the brainwashing of capitalistic thought, which requires perpetual consumerism to sustain itself.

 

[Usagi]

You don't actually need to evolve when something is good enough. The idea that continuous change is essential is part of the brainwashing of capitalistic thought, which requires perpetual consumerism to sustain itself.

Interesting as I recall Henry Ford of Ford Motors saying roughly the same thing when he built the Model T....

He believed the Model T was all the car a person would, or could, ever need.

 

[Hutnicks]

Then again, you could do that more friendly.

If a company could do that for cheaper, then by all means, they should do it. I haven't seen anyone do it yet, so I highly doubt anyone will. Audio is evolving, any place where you don't invest in R&D is a place where the whole niche dies...

P.S. Please remember that the only economic mentality that ever linked cost of production to prices has been communism, and we all know how that ends. If you haven't lived through it, better stop talking now, Romania has been communist until 1989, you don't know what hell means until you go through communism.

Welcome to capitalism, this is the basic backbone of it, whether we like it or not.

Lets just say I am intimately familiar with communism Capitalism is in the process of being modified. The very stalwarts of communism the Chinese are re inventing captiolism in a way that is both beautiful and horrifying at the same time. It will be from those very beginnings that a new process and as mentioned above it has already started, will and has taken hold. It already has spilled over into many other industries who would be loathe to admit the influence. Look at Elon Musks current portfolio for an example. Glasnost and perestroika have migrated to the west, they just have not had the balls to name it yet.

"Emphasizing a lifestyle based on consumption is the ULTIMATE violence against poor countries. - Masamune Shirow as Motoko Kusanagi"

or


"As the American economist Alex Tabarrok has pointed out, “If China and India were as rich as the United States is today, the market for cancer drugs would be eight times larger than it is now.”

 

[Hutnicks]

Interesting as I recall Henry Ford of Ford Motors saying roughly the same thing when he built the Model T....

And 640k is more than enough memory for anyone.

Amazing how short sighted visionaries can be.

 

[Dobrescu George]

Lets just say I am intimately familiar with communism Capitalism is in the process of being modified. The very stalwarts of communism the Chinese are re inventing captiolism in a way that is both beautiful and horrifying at the same time. It will be from those very beginnings that a new process and as mentioned above it has already started, will and has taken hold. It already has spilled over into many other industries who would be loathe to admit the influence. Look at Elon Musks current portfolio for an example. Glasnost and perestroika have migrated to the west, they just have not had the balls to name it yet.

"Emphasizing a lifestyle based on consumption is the ULTIMATE violence against poor countries. - Masamune Shirow as Motoko Kusanagi"

or


"As the American economist Alex Tabarrok has pointed out, “If China and India were as rich as the United States is today, the market for cancer drugs would be eight times larger than it is now.”

I don't necessarily contradict you though.

My point is that the end selling price is defined by demand / offer rather than build cost. What if the price to make a unit is 100$, but there have been over 100K $ invested in R&D before they made the first prototype? You don't know how many units you'll sell, for how long, etc. So they define the price based on demand and their ability to make those things. Most headphones require tens and hundreds of thousands of $ to be researched in general. Just like photo cameras, in the end it is all a simple chip that records the image, glass and plastic, it is the knowledge and R&D that makes them so expensive.

 

[Hutnicks]

I don't necessarily contradict you though.

My point is that the end selling price is defined by demand / offer rather than build cost. What if the price to make a unit is 100$, but there have been over 100K $ invested in R&D before they made the first prototype? You don't know how many units you'll sell, for how long, etc. So they define the price based on demand and their ability to make those things. Most headphones require tens and hundreds of thousands of $ to be researched in general. Just like photo cameras, in the end it is all a simple chip that records the image, glass and plastic, it is the knowledge and R&D that makes them so expensive.

The problem we run into here and not to contradict you either is one of RD and who and where the RD actually happens. Your example of the camera is a perfect example of technology Canadians invented the CCD it was perfected overseas and brought back into the states and mass produced and now taken in several streams by several manufacturers. The point here is what the consumer percieves as RD in most cases (Gendrik Altshuler made a science of this) is simply a re interpretation of others work. Really why would you re invent the wheel when the patent office is around the corner or better yet available via the internet?
Bill Ruger built one of the most successful American firearms company's on that very principle. Back in the day he spent the first two days of every week in the US patent office wearing the clerks out requesting documents ad nauseum.

The problem with boooteeek hobbys is the artificial elevation of the participants to godlike status. Hence Tyll hawking the "Sean Olive curve" which is in fact so similar to the curve etymotic used to build their first ER4 models as to be insignificant in difference. Yet neither the Harmon Hawker or the IF guy see fit to acknowledge that.

Just because some yoyo shouts louder or has better more glossy ad copy does not necessarily mean they have broken new ground. In effect even the patent office has been caught out on more than one occasion by clever wording obfuscating an "invention" that was already patented.

Where it all falls apart is when the hypesters who have no historical knowledge and worse not one molecule of motivation to look into the history of the venue they have chosen to use as their livelyhood push a new product when in a lot of cases a previously released product does the job just as well or better. Current hype then takes hold and anyone who dare compare an older product with the newspeak is labelled as Vintage, oldschool, or whatnot.

 

[Dobrescu George]

Oh well, everyone is entitled to their opinion

At any rate, we shouldn't argue so much

Things won't escalate as they did on speakers, where the prices go way north of 50k$, on headphones you can get something really good for 200$-300$, this price area is quite competitive and we have lots of good stuff.

 

[TWerk]

As bad as some headphone prices can be, other things in our wonderful society are far worse. Housing wins number one, IMO. Education a second.

If rent on just a one bedroom, one bath apartment was 500 a month instead of 950, there would be some more room in the budget for overpriced headphones.

 

[Hutnicks]

Oh well, everyone is entitled to their opinion

At any rate, we shouldn't argue so much

Things won't escalate as they did on speakers, where the prices go way north of 50k$, on headphones you can get something really good for 200$-300$, this price area is quite competitive and we have lots of good stuff.

Oh hell yes we should argue. The PC contingent (spawned by capitalism no less((opinion there)) would like us all to put all fours in the air and capitulate")

My truth and I understand completely and will willingly entertain any other views, in fact I may debate them but consider any opposing or alternative opinion essential to my own growth within the trade/hobby. If at any point I come across as over aggressive or trying to stifle any opinion I would be more than happy for you or any other to point that out.

Argument is good, it is the basis of most legal systems and should be encouraged. Consider the alternative where no one argues but accepts every opinion as fact.

I love the debate and conflicting opinions this thread has to offer. In fact I would go so far as to say that this is the single most important thread with regard to the current state and future of the niche industry that the board claims to service.

If the manu's had the balls to come in here and offer even two cents worth of opinion we might actually get somewhere. Instead we get a cold war type dialogue were they respond with offering retail discounts as that allows them the perceived status of granting coffers unto the peons without accepting any responsibility for their market failures.

Yeah FOCAL I am talking to you.

Good lord, even Ferrari and Rolls are aghast when their product fails to live up to the customers expectation. So High end headphone hawkers, what is you problem?????

 

[TWerk]

I agree, really great thread here with lots of good discussion... keep it coming

 

[Hutnicks]

As bad as some headphone prices can be, other things in our wonderful society are far worse. Housing wins number one, IMO. Education a second.

If rent on just a one bedroom, one bath apartment was 500 a month instead of 950, there would be some more room in the budget for overpriced headphones.

You have to make that relative by providing context as to where you live.

A not great film I watched of late about Americans in Iraq had a simply devastating line of dialogue. "Iraqi, I studied as a Doctor and now I work for you as an interpreter.. Squaddie "Dude, I never went to college, In America nothins free"

Scared the living bejesus out of me that did.

 

[TWerk]

Yeah, suburbs of Chicago, which probably explains some of the problem.

 

[Hutnicks]

Yeah, suburbs of Chicago, which probably explains some of the problem.

Heavens have not been there for a while. But indeed circumstance / context is an amazing delineation in appreciation of anything. To bolster you point I live 40k (25 miles) from Toronto to the west and an apartment starts at 1100 a month. Minimum wage here is 11.50 an hour so when you do the math it aint a pretty picture.

Yet We see Beats wearing kids and absolutely no one here is without the latest Samsung phone. So I wonder where in fact our priorities are and else while,should I be recommending a 5k headphone to the next generation or would I be serving the greater need by telling the to hit on the 15 buck Qian 39's or the Koss KSC75? At what point am I bolstering the industry as opposed to exciting a potential new audiophile.

So Once again Whom do we Serve????

Be great if that was at the head of every review you ever read, would'nt it???

 

[TWerk]

Elear at 700 is still a huge rip off. What a disapointment that headphone was. No wonder its value dropped like a rock. Still has way more to fall...

If they fall 300 bucks in a year, check them out in a few years. Then you'll see their real value when they are no longer the new kid on the block.

 

[kman1211]

Elear at 700 is still a huge rip off. What a disapointment that headphone was. No wonder its value dropped like a rock. Still has way more to fall...

If they fall 300 bucks in a year, check them out in a few years. Then you'll see their real value when they are no longer the new kid on the block.

What did you dislike so much about the Elear?