Beagle
His body's not a canvas, and he wasn't raised by apes.
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I'm not sure that's true...
In the case of headphones, well... who knows what would happen if someone like Sennheiser chose to sell an HD700-like headphone for a really cheap price. I like to think optimistically and imagine that they'd gain massive popularity and adoration from the audiophile community, the mainstream, and as a result make bucketloads more money too. But I don't know anything about economics.
Sennheiser is already massively popular in both the audiophile and average consumer markets.
Is there really anything to suggest that Sennheiser's margins on the HD700 are any higher than those of any of their other products? The HD700 has a new form factor and headband. It has a new driver that incorporates elements of both the HD650 and HD800. It seems to me that the relationship of R&D/parts/production to MSRP could very well be exactly the same as their other mid- to high-end products.
Now, one could argue that the HD800 started the "flagship wars" and the general escalation in high-end headphone prices, and that the HD700 continues that unfortunate trend. But I haven't really seen anything in the HD700 (pricing or otherwise) that's out of line with the rest of the industry.
What this thread reflects is a total misunderstanding of how capitalism and the world works! A corporation can ONLY grow and will ONLY have big profits, IF the company creates products that the consumer wants and value and buys with their free will.
with the exception of the federal bailouts.
I also think it's hysterical that people balk at this headphone costing $1000, but many of those same people never complained about the original price or currently insane used price of the Orpheus. R&D costs money, and if Sennheiser only produced as many HD700 as they did HE90 the price would be approaching that neck of the woods. Audiophiles have always and will always justify spending whatever they think is reasonable to them for even just a slight improvement in sound quality. No one is forcing you to buy it. You could instead spend your own money and design your own headphone with similar styling to the HD700 and see how much it costs you to make a prototype. I can assure you from personal experience making a one-off product isn't cheap.
^^.
I've been amazed at how cheap it is.
^^ It is. I'm doing it now.
Amazed at how cheap what is? I'm not talking about making cheap parts from a place like Front Panel Express... I'm talking about making a high-quality, showroom-ready product that would be released by a company making a high-end consumer product. Do you know what it costs to make molds, dies, or do CNC aluminum machining?
How many earcup and driver molds did Sennheiser have to make before they settled on a design? How many driver iterations did they go through? I guarantee you they spent at least $100K or more on the molds alone. So no, making a new product is not cheap, and making a new headphone like the HD700 is really not cheap.