Even then it's still overpriced in my opninion. And companies will keep raising the pricetags because many people doesn't question the absurd prices.
I agree to an extent. I see the value of the HEK in these terms. Prior to the HEK, I had multiple headphones, all at around the $300 price range. Each one did a certain thing well, and none of them did anything exceptionally well. When I upgraded my DAC to an R2R, I found more pleasure listening to it on my speaker setup. I went seeking for a headphone to better match with my speaker sound, at around the $1500 going price:
- Audeze LCD-X (or LCD-3)
- Mr. Speakers Ether (open and closed)
- Sennheiser HD800
And I listened to each one of these. And for me - I found they all circled around what I thought was the ideal. Some hit too hard, others too soft, too much bass, too much treble, etc. Some people at the meet, where I was able to audition all these phones, suggested that the highest satisfaction might be to buy an EtherC and an Ether. Then regardless of the music, one would certainly find happiness by plugging in the one best matching headphone to the particular song. I agreed, but that would turn out to be a $3000 investment.
Then I put on the HEK, and simply put - it ticked all the boxes, for my ears. I would never consider it to be a
value headphone, but it simply worked for me. Everything else was a compromise, and if I'm going to compromise, I'm going to stick with my $300 headphones. So yes, it was costly. But yes, it was something I could reasonably do. If it did not basically replace every single one of those headphones I heard, I would not have bought it. But it did for me. It's a very personal thing, and I say - more power to the people releasing the LCD-4. If it works magic for some people, let them buy it and be happy