[mikeblas]

Looks like Sennheiser HD-600's retail for $350. I think you can find 'em for about $300 without trying too hard.

What do you think Sennheiser's cost to manufacture them is? What is their profit margin?

 

[rickcr42]

wrong forum.belongs in "headphones"

 

[[AK]Zip]

Wrong section, but I have seen them for a little under $200 new.

-Alex-

 

[mikeblas]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rickcr42 wrong forum.belongs in "headphones"

Oops! I guess I'll have to rely on a moderator rescuing me, as I don't appear to have the priveleges required to move my own thread.

 

[JahJahBinks]

Not much.

 

[granodemostasa]

I got the HD650 for 290 dollars without trying hard. i'm sure they cost them about 80-90 in total.

 

[MASantos]

I know from the portuguese distributor the aproximate value for the manufacturing of the HD650 and it is REALLY LOW.

 

[rickcr42]

Quote:

as I don't appear to have the priveleges required to move my own thread.

me either though there was a time...................

 

[Garbz]

Define profit margin. On the one thing i'm sure they make quite a bit from the 580 600 and 650s regarding gross profit. But then That series would have quite a bit of R&D to recover. I suppose one could always grab their stock sheets and check but that would not give you a breakdown of headphones, just of total business.

 

[setmenu]

The actual raw cost of parts would be pretty low, as the thing is made
mostly from injection moulded parts.
Obviously you also have to consider assembly costs,but everything is
designed to click together with little apparent tweaking or fettling.
Sennhieser headphones do seem to be slick assembly line designs.
I would not be surprised if they cost around $30 to make.



.

 

[Daroid]

I think they have to throw a lot of mismatched drivers away which makes it take more time.... I.e. if they don't follow specs they should be thrown out. Maybe that is one reason why the HD25-1 costs what it costs (120 dB SPL, tested by some other website to 138 dB SPL).
More of the profit lies on the replacement parts, not that it is cheap to keep that much stock, but.....

EDIT: Apparantly this was true with the AKG K1000 and is why it is discontinued - too many mismatched drivers + Harman = discontinued.

EDIT: There's profit marking on anything - right now TFTs are grossly overpriced. It costs about $10 to make a 1400x1050 14" TFT, which sells for $700. This is the LCD display only. Imagine the gross markup on 32" LCD tvs with a lower resolution

 

[flecom]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daroid I think they have to throw a lot of mismatched drivers away which makes it take more time.... I.e. if they don't follow specs they should be thrown out. Maybe that is one reason why the HD25-1 costs what it costs (120 dB SPL, tested by some other website to 138 dB SPL). More of the profit lies on the replacement parts, not that it is cheap to keep that much stock, but..... EDIT: Apparantly this was true with the AKG K1000 and is why it is discontinued - too many mismatched drivers + Harman = discontinued. EDIT: There's profit marking on anything - right now TFTs are grossly overpriced. It costs about $10 to make a 1400x1050 14" TFT, which sells for $700. This is the LCD display only. Imagine the gross markup on 32" LCD tvs with a lower resolution

yes but the complexity of building an LCD compared to a headphone is very different... LCD's are much much harder to make also...

 

[setmenu]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daroid I think they have to throw a lot of mismatched drivers away which makes it take more time.... I.e. if they don't follow specs they should be thrown out. Maybe that is one reason why the HD25-1 costs what it costs (120 dB SPL, tested by some other website to 138 dB SPL). More of the profit lies on the replacement parts, not that it is cheap to keep that much stock, but..... EDIT: Apparantly this was true with the AKG K1000 and is why it is discontinued - too many mismatched drivers + Harman = discontinued. EDIT: There's profit marking on anything - right now TFTs are grossly overpriced. It costs about $10 to make a 1400x1050 14" TFT, which sells for $700. This is the LCD display only. Imagine the gross markup on 32" LCD tvs with a lower resolution

I would expect Sennhieser to have manufacturing consistently performing
drivers down to a fine art, considering how long they have been in the
business.
Most of the chosen price points would be calculated on the expectations of
the target market as what to they would expect pay for the given
performance level of the product in relation to the competition.
People expect to pay for the 'best', but not too much.

I suspect Sennhieser has quite a bit of room for maneuver with product
pricing compared to say, Grado.



.

 

[NotJeffBuckley]

Grado uses both injection moulded parts and incredibly inexpensive metals and woods in their construction. The "hand made" aspect doesn't really mean as much as you think it does, either, except perhaps on the RS-2 and RS-1 (and you see where that gets us, with the most recent ones). They're both making quite a lot of cash on each sale, and have likely long ago recouped their R&D costs and are now profiting solely.

 

[Daroid]

LCDs are mass production, zero human interaction - and still have fewer and fewer dead pixels. People still buy at inflated prices, and LCDs for HDTVs are so low-res per area that the price does not make any sense.

Yes, the demand sets the price basically, headphones don't cost that much to make, but i think regardless of brand, throwing out drivers happen often, considering people still get (pricey) off balance headphones. They are assembled by hand (or are they?), so that would maybe drag up the price somewhat. I'd say HD580/6XX would cost about $40 to make+freight, you do the rest of the math

It is just a guess judging by the materials.