[fuzzy1969]

The threads off topic most of the time, regarding the price of something which hasn't been released or extensively reviewed.

 

[atty101]

Quote:

 
No one said the 535 was mid tier...  Shure has just created a tier above 535.  Think of it as a higher premium. 

But technically, assuming we're using the tiered model, the 846 effectively makes the 535 mid tier within Shure's lineup.

 

[tinyman392]

Quote:

Funny thing about the 1000$+ iems is that they still get beaten by iems in the 200$ price range, they just haven't been as far apart in performance as the price suggests. FYI I only haven't heard the Ultrasone IQ, but fwir it's one of the lesser ones. Regardless, there are reasons why these manufacturers priced like they did as we can merely speculate as to why

 
The IQ aren't that great for the price.  They're not bad headphones, just not that great.  I never felt that any IEM is worth 1k, or even 500+ for that matter.  Don't expect the Shures to be a bang for the buck I guess
 
Quote:

But technically, assuming we're using the tiered model, the 846 effectively makes the 535 mid tier within Shure's lineup.

 
I don't think it does.  The 535 is still upper tier IMO, just not top tier...  There are companies that have multiple tiers from <100, <200, <400, <600, <1000...  Would you call the <600 mid-tier?  I personally wouldn't.  It's not the top tier any longer though.

 

[eke2k6]

Quote:

Your smartphone is also subsidized by your carrier to the tune of several hundred dollars in the US and in turn you commit to a time contract. I can only imagine the outcry if we had to pay MSRP for them without subsidy being an option. If I'm not mistaken, the iPhone 5 costs $168 for parts only, no other expenses factored in. An unlocked and unsubsidized iPhone is $650. I'm sure the retail markup for resellers is very low. With a normal retail markup, that would put them in the 1k range.
 

 
True, but the prices largely remain the same year after year, despite the ever increasing level of engineering, software and hardware, that goes into the successive products.
 
The original iphone was $600, and that was ok because it was quite literally head and shoulders above everything on the market in terms of performance, polish, and the app environment.
 
FWIW, the iP5 costs $207 to manufacture...$199 in parts, and $8 in labor costs. Labor is cheap in China.

 

[tinyman392]

Quote:

 
True, but the prices largely remain the same year after year, despite the ever increasing level of engineering, software and hardware, that goes into the successive products.
 
The original iphone was $600, and that was ok because it was quite literally head and shoulders above everything on the market in terms of performance, polish, and the app environment.
 
FWIW, the iP5 costs $207 to manufacture...$199 in parts, and $8 in labor costs. Labor is cheap in China.

 
What original iPhone are you talking about?  It was poor in terms of performance and had no app environment.  Hell, Palm had more 3rd party apps for their OS 5.0 than Apple did for iPhone OS 1  
 
The prices remain the same because it's the same tiered item.  It's simply one iPhone replacing another...  If Apple were to make, theoretically of course, a more premium iPhone they wouldn't price it the same as the current iPhone. 

 

[vwinter]

The point is the analogies are weak at best and we are all making large assumptions with very little public information to zero inside information. To think we know expenses, mark up and profit margins here is just blowing smoke out our backsides. Having been involved in costs assessments for projects in a very large, fortune 500 corporation, the complexities can be staggering and completely aggravating.

I was going to say pretty much this... But then I realized that I must defend the car analogy as the best one!

But that's ok. I think you and me, we're gonna do a good job on this analogy thing.
You know why?
Because you and me, we understand business.
And you know why?
Becuase you and me, we're from the streets.

I'll PayPal gift the first person who gets this 50 whole cents toward their SE846 purchases :rolleyes: but seriously.

 

[roy_jones]

Quote:

Funny thing about the 1000$+ iems is that they still get beaten by iems in the 200$ price range, they just haven't been as far apart in performance as the price suggests. FYI I only haven't heard the Ultrasone IQ, but fwir it's one of the lesser ones. Regardless, there are reasons why these manufacturers priced like they did as we can merely speculate as to why

 
 
Instead of car or apple product analogies, the best analogy I've seen is to the world of speakers.  The argument against the price of the new shure is that the degree of improvement between price tiers is getting spread over a wider and wider range due to the market.  The value of the top tier IEM's is decreasing relative to their price. 
 
It doesn't mean they shouldn't be entitled to price their products however they wish, but to argue against it being a market dynamic, and instead as a natural progression that is justified by cost/improvements/etc.. is weak to say the least. 

 

[music_4321]

Okay, enough speculation, PLEASE.
 
Here is a fact: I am very glad the AKG K3003, with its horribly incoherent sound, bloated & slooow bass, atrocious treble spikes, and an appalling fixed (non-removable) cable is still 30% more expensive than the SE846 — who cares about good SQ when you can get seriously hot chicks approaching you whenever they notice you're wearing your K3003s instead of not so hot and very elderly ladies approaching you only to ask about your protruding hearing aids known as the Shure SE846?

 

[Saraguie]

Quote:

Okay, enough speculation, PLEASE.
 
Here is a fact: I am very glad the AKG K3003, with its horribly incoherent sound, bloated & slooow bass, atrocious treble spikes, and a fixed (non-removable) cable is still 30% more expensive than the SE846 — who cares about good SQ when you can get seriously hot chicks approaching you whenever they notice you're wearing your K3003s instead of not so hot and very elderly ladies approaching you only to ask about your protruding hearing aids known as the Shure SE848?

FINALLY.........an argument that makes sense. The Alpha and Omega of arguments. As Billy Crystal said on SNL, "It's not how you feel it's how you look, darling"  Well done Music.......
BTW, thanks for the help when I was just a grumpy old newbie sparrow here in Head-Fi Land 

  Now I'm  just a grump. 

 

[h1a8]

I think offering such things for $1000 is foolish.
Only a handful of people could get it, and only a handful of those people would get it (since most believe that $1000 for earphones is foolish even if they can afford it).
 
 
Also, the lower end earphones are closing the gap in sound and provide a much better bargain. Trust me as I had the sm3, f700, se530, denon ad2000, etc. and I'm just as happy with my equed soundmagic e10 and ba200 as I was with any one of those other ones.
 
Competition makes prices go down. How is shure going to compete when others get into the fray or when lower end headphones continue to close the gab?
 
Let's assume they cost $300 to make. Then one can make more profit selling 20,000 of them at $600 than 5,000 of them at $1000 (2.5 million dollars more profit).
The object is to maximize profit, even if that means sell for lower price.
 
 
IMO, anything more than $600 for universals is plain stupid and will net less profit in the long run.
 
The reason why the iphone could initially sell the phone at those prices because it was in a class of it's own with no competition. Nowadays it's losing stock since Android has caught up and surpassed iphone.
There are plenty of good headphones out here and certainly no best one. A good equalized headphone could easily make it sound $100-300 more than it cost. I'm an expert on this.

 

[tinyman392]

Quote:

I think offering such things for $1000 is foolish.
Only a handful of people could get it, and only a handful of those people would get it (since most believe that $1000 for earphones is foolish even if they can afford it).
 
 
Also, the lower end earphones are closing the gap in sound and provide a much better bargain. Trust me as I had the sm3, f700, se530, denon ad2000, etc. and I'm just as happy with my equed soundmagic e10 and ba200 as I was with any one of those other ones.
 
Competition makes prices go down. How is shure going to compete when others get into the fray or when lower end headphones continue to close the gab?
 
Let's assume they cost $300 to make. Then one can make more profit selling 20,000 of them at $600 than 5,000 of them at $1000.
The object is to maximize profit, even if that means sell for lower price.
 
 
IMO, anything more than $600 for universals is plain stupid and will net less profit in the long run.
 
The reason why the iphone could initially sell the phone at those prices because it was in a class of it's own with no competition. Nowadays it's losing stock since Android has caught up and surpassed iphone.
There are plenty of good headphones out here and certainly no best one. A good equalized headphone could easily make it sound $100-300 more than it cost. I'm an expert on this.

 
It's foolish to assume you know how something will sound without listening to it first; it's even more foolish to assume that what you have is better.  Even if full frequency graphs were given by a 3rd party, you still wouldn't know 100% how it sounds. 

 

[h1a8]

Quote:

 
It's foolish to assume you know how something will sound without listening to it first; it's even more foolish to assume that what you have is better.  Even if full frequency graphs were given by a 3rd party, you still wouldn't know 100% how it sounds. 

It doesn't matter how it sounds. All that matters is maximizing profit, which is my MAIN point.
 
I'm not claiming that these headphones don't sound great or better than the ones I tried. I'm saying that I and many others are just as happy with equed lower end ones as i we are with my upper end ones.
 
 
Law of diminishing returns does exist, especially with the gap constantly closing.

 

[eke2k6]

Quote:

I think offering such things for $1000 is foolish.
Only a handful of people could get it, and only a handful of those people would get it (since most believe that $1000 for earphones is foolish even if they can afford it).
 
 
Also, the lower end earphones are closing the gap in sound and provide a much better bargain. Trust me as I had the sm3, f700, se530, denon ad2000, etc. and I'm just as happy with my equed soundmagic e10 and ba200 as I was with any one of those other ones.
 
Competition makes prices go down. How is shure going to compete when others get into the fray or when lower end headphones continue to close the gab?
 
Let's assume they cost $300 to make. Then one can make more profit selling 20,000 of them at $600 than 5,000 of them at $1000 (2.5 million dollars more profit).
The object is to maximize profit, even if that means sell for lower price.
 
 
IMO, anything more than $600 for universals is plain stupid and will net less profit in the long run.
 
The reason why the iphone could initially sell the phone at those prices because it was in a class of it's own with no competition. Nowadays it's losing stock since Android has caught up and surpassed iphone.
There are plenty of good headphones out here and certainly no best one. A good equalized headphone could easily make it sound $100-300 more than it cost. I'm an expert on this.

 
 
Everyone, meet my less polite twin brother.

 

[PFKMan23]

Quote:

It doesn't matter how it sounds. All that matters is maximizing profit, which is my MAIN point.
 
I'm not claiming that these headphones don't sound great or better than the ones I tried. I'm saying that I and many others are just as happy with equed lower end ones as i we are with my upper end ones.
 
 
Law of diminishing returns does exist, especially with the gap constantly closing.

 
A couple of years ago I was in a discussion with a protorietor of a business involved in another hobby who basically said to me that a statement product isn't necessary there to sell itself but drum up interest in the lower products in the line.  That said, while I want ot believe that this sounds great, of course I'm not sure.  That said I do remember when the 500, JH13, Westone 3 came out and the reaction was similar.  It'll be interesting to see what actualy happens in the year or so following its release.

 

[bobeau]

Quote:

A couple of years ago I was in a discussion with a protorietor of a business involved in another hobby who basically said to me that a statement product isn't necessary there to sell itself but drum up interest in the lower products in the line.  

 
Totally.  A statement product can sometimes be nothing more than a marketing exercise - you might as well just assume the R&D budget is procured from the marketing budget.  The Lexus LFA was brought up in this thread - Lexus loses money on every one *directly*.  Indirectly though, as a display of technical prowess, the ability to create something highly coveted/exclusive, all the free press coverage, etc, they have in effect elevated the status of their brand.  
 
I do think the truth lies somewhere in the middle.  They have direct competitors with offerings in this range already (Sennheiser/AKG).