[jbarrentine]

2k price would definitely not be market suicide and would be cheaper than I'm expecting.

 
It won't be, but it *should* be. People have to learn to say no.

 

[dan.gheorghe]

2k price would definitely not be market suicide and would be cheaper than I'm expecting. Considering their previous models 2k msrp would probably do very well.

If they did not change anything else except from adding the dampners, a price of 2k won't justify the difference from my perspective. 

 

[Dobrescu George]

   
 
Doesn't make sense to me why you think designing a headphone is any different than designing any other product, but then again, what do I know, I'm just a mechanical engineer.
 
Let me clarify, the best headphone ever made is a joke in terms of engineering compared to something like a base model smartphone you can buy for 100-150 dollars. And I'm not exaggerating at all. The only reason headphones sell for more than 500 dollars is because people are willing to pay that much, that enables manufacturers to have high profit margins and sell fewer products, instead of having smaller profit margins and having to manufacture and sell more units for the same amount of profit.   (seriously, no sarcasm)

Have you used a cheap smartphone? I have. 
 
It is glueing cheap pieces of cheap. a microprocessor for a smartphone costs like 1$. the outer parts cost very little. The design and everything are dictated by the form factor, all you have to do is glue everything together and write the basic firmware based on linux. A kid can make a rasberry pi, a kid can make a cheap smartphone. 
 
I agree on how harder it is to enstablish a good business model, because with smartphones the profit margin is much smaller. 
 
But on headphones, it is much harder to obtain better quality. Because of how drivers interact with air, and because of ear's properties and soundwaves properties. 
 
To make working headphones can be done very easily. Like, I made my custom on ear headphones some time ago. They sounded quite clear, rolled off at both ends, awfull to listen to and uncomfortable. It costed me under 5$ to make them. 
 
But I like to see the high end of things, as it is fun to watch and use. 
 
All being said, I, in fact disagree with you about engineering. Headphones are simple to make, but good headphones are hard to make. Very hard sometimes. from 200+ headphones tested up until now, only 4 impressed me

.
 
I have high hopes that this new hd800 might impress me. But again, I would love to see those prices drop. There is quite a large margin between cost of production with engineering and advertising, and the price, and I like to be economical. But the elasticity between price and demand are already economy theories, and they favor rising the price, at the risk of selling fewer units. 

 

[kugino]

used hd800 can be had for about $1K these days. though j was never a fan of the hd800 I'm interested in the hd800S as it looks as though they've addressed some of my issues with it.

my guess is that they'll be around $2500-3000 in the states. the question is, how will they compare against the sr009, as they're around the same price.

 

[logam]

I don't get it. It's like people are kind of requesting higher prices. So many threads were the manufacturer is clearly expecting feedback on price by the community and suggestions of absurd prices start to pop up instead the opposite. Maybe I'm poor, or perhaps I'm just not satisfied about the direction the hobby is heading.

 

[derbigpr]

Originally Posted by Dobrescu George /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Headphones are simple to make, but good headphones are hard to make. Very hard sometimes.

 
 
Today, with todays technology, headphones like HD800's are easier to design and manufacture if you start from scratch than HD580's were 25 years ago, yet, they were sold for 300-400 dollars, not 2000. That's my point. Prices are too high, and advances too small.  When you go from a BMW 5 series to a 7 series, you get a considerably better car, in every way, yet, you only pay 30% more, not 4-5 times more for a small improvement. All markets function in that way, except for hi-fi markets. Why? Because the consumers allow it. Not only allow it, some love the fact that they're paying a lot of money for headphones and own something very exclusive that most people can't afford.

 

[Dadracer]

Why is everyone getting so stressed out when you don't know the official price yet and almost no one has listened to them????

 

[sgtbilko]

   
 
Today, with todays technology, headphones like HD800's are easier to design and manufacture if you start from scratch than HD580's were 25 years ago, yet, they were sold for 300-400 dollars, not 2000. That's my point. Prices are too high, and advances too small.  When you go from a BMW 5 series to a 7 series, you get a considerably better car, in every way, yet, you only pay 30% more, not 4-5 times more for a small improvement. All markets function in that way, except for hi-fi markets. Why? Because the consumers allow it. Not only allow it, some love the fact that they're paying a lot of money for headphones and own something very exclusive that most people can't afford.

I was listening to Tyll's Big Sound videos the other day, and there was an interesting discussion between him and Bob Katz about EQ'ing HP's to the point where the high end units would effectively sound the same.
 
Although I would love to hear more from both Tyll and Bob on how they would approach this, it does beg the obvious question about how much better $1k+ can get when set up correctly.
 
I have a pair of HD700's that I've now eq'd to an agreed set of Foobar improvements for the HD 700, and they are so much better. It's always made me question about whether its worth going to the HD 800 - which I have auditioned many times.
 
Whilst I'm tempted to go to a higher model at some point, I'm vary wary of the law of diminishing returns

 

[jbarrentine]

Why is everyone getting so stressed out when you don't know the official price yet and almost no one has listened to them????

 
It would be stupid to believe they aren't going to be noticeably better in all the ways Sennheiser says they are. I'm sure they will deliver. 
 
The price though. It's almost certain they will charge more rather than do the reasonable thing which would be to drop the hd800's price a bit and slot the 800S in where the 800 was. Greed is king.

 

[prot]

I don't get it. It's like people are kind of requesting higher prices. So many threads were the manufacturer is clearly expecting feedback on price by the community and suggestions of absurd prices start to pop up instead the opposite. Maybe I'm poor, or perhaps I'm just not satisfied about the direction the hobby is heading.

Yes they are asking for it. That's people.

And btw, I can pay $2k or more without blinking much. And many people can, cause I'm just a regular guy with a good IT job. But I refuse to. Afaik, there is not a single HP who costs more than $500 to manufacture and those dizying new prices are simply a creation of a few smartarses in marketing.

 

[zotjen]

Well, not everyone has issues with the sound of the HD800. As an HD800 owner, with no mods, I'm perfectly satisfied with what I have. Are there newer headphones that sound better? Probably. Will the HD800s sound better? Maybe, but at this point in my life, my quest to achieve sound nirvana has ended. If there was only one improvement I would like for the HD800, it would be to make the ear pads easier to change!
 
As far as the HD800s goes, I actually prefer the original look. Since Sennheiser will still continue the older model, I would expect the HD800s to be more expensive unless they do a price drop on the HD800. I hope that those who do get the new model find the improvements they are looking for but as someone who has been on Head-Fi a long time, there will be those that will always have an issue about some aspect of a headphone. There will also always be something better that comes along regardless of how marginal an improvement it is.

 

[richardlu]

What is the difference besides the cable? Does it have the same driver? Need more info.

 

[derbigpr]

  I was listening to Tyll's Big Sound videos the other day, and there was an interesting discussion between him and Bob Katz about EQ'ing HP's to the point where the high end units would effectively sound the same.
 
Although I would love to hear more from both Tyll and Bob on how they would approach this, it does beg the obvious question about how much better $1k+ can get when set up correctly.
 
I have a pair of HD700's that I've now eq'd to an agreed set of Foobar improvements for the HD 700, and they are so much better. It's always made me question about whether its worth going to the HD 800 - which I have auditioned many times.
 
Whilst I'm tempted to go to a higher model at some point, I'm vary wary of the law of diminishing returns

 
Yes, EQ'ing headphones can be very effective if you know what you're doing, and very bad if you don't. I've been doing it for a long time with some incredibly good results, that why I say that future of headphones lies in digital sound processing.
 
I usually avoid mentioning this on head-fi to save myself from ridicule (since I can't prove it at this point), but I've made a headphone at home using 3D printed parts that I've designed in Autodesk Inventor CAD and Superlux 50 mm drivers from their 30 dollar headphone, and with some careful EQ'ing in order to make its measurements as similar to T1's, I've managed to achieve a result that I still can't quite believe yet, because it sounds virtually identical to my T1's, in fact, in some ways it sounds better. I'm not gonna say more, because I have no time now, but soon I'll go further into development and make a few more versions. I can't even take pictures now because I'm not at home until the 23rd of December, but I'll make a thread in the DIY section then.

 

[Jozurr]

I don't think it's pure coincidence that companies are coming up with new flagships even with just marginal changes when they realize how high consumers are allowing the prices to go up to and money can be made off of them.

 

[derbigpr]

  I was listening to Tyll's Big Sound videos the other day, and there was an interesting discussion between him and Bob Katz about EQ'ing HP's to the point where the high end units would effectively sound the same.
 
Although I would love to hear more from both Tyll and Bob on how they would approach this, it does beg the obvious question about how much better $1k+ can get when set up correctly.
 
I have a pair of HD700's that I've now eq'd to an agreed set of Foobar improvements for the HD 700, and they are so much better. It's always made me question about whether its worth going to the HD 800 - which I have auditioned many times.
 
Whilst I'm tempted to go to a higher model at some point, I'm vary wary of the law of diminishing returns

 
 
Btw - wanna play with your HD700?  Here, a treat for you:
 

 
Get yourself a 31 band EQ for foobar 2000 and use this data. All data here are measurements of headphone FR's, basically graphs turned into raw numbers that can go straight into the EQ, just pick any headphone, and compare the data of the HD700's to the data of that headphone, and input the differences into the 31 band EQ.  It doesn't work always,but in some cases it's really great.  I can report for example that T1's EQ'd to pretty much every other open back headphone sound very similar to that headphone, not identical obviously, but similar. Can't EQ a closed back to sound like an open back or vice versa, but it's fun to play around with. I assume you will be able to EQ the HD700's to sound more similar to 800's, 600's or 650's. My favorite one is the DT880 EQ'd to sound like a GS1000 Grado, now that's a fun sound and a massive improvement with just an EQ. There's even a Harman target curve data in here, but you'll have to find raw (uncompensated) FR's online in order to apply it, I only have the raw data for HD800's, HD600's and T1's.