[GL1TCH3D]

Sure, but all depends on how much you've got spend.

I own a few watches, and my collection includes a very simple Casio.

I love that watch, it's cheap, durable, the battery lasts forever and it tells the time certainly more precisely than any mechanical watch. It's quite the bargain at 20 bucks.

I don't care that much about how it's made. When I spend 2K on a watch though, I tend to care.

With that said, you could argue that, since it's not functionally better than my 20$ Casio, the 2K watch has to justify its cost by some more subjective aspects, and you'd be right.

2K watch are Veblein
goods, made to satisfy their owner with something else than logic and objectivity. Is that crap ? It's up to you to decide, I won't try to argue on that.

What I don't understand though, is your very last statement.

The law that fixes price on a niche-of-a-niche market like ours, is how bad the customer wants something. Not how much it costs to produce.

Take Grado
for example. Look a their high-end line, the GS/PS1000i/e/x/y/z's
. Do they look like they're expensive to build ? Not to me, yet they cost a fortune. Why ? People are willing to buy them at that price.

Another example : the mighty HD800. Their drivers might cost a lot to produce (and they have to cut the R&D costs, too) but what's around does not. Yet, again, they're very expensive.

Should we boycott them ? "Come on, sennheiser
, stop the ******** and bring us some good and cheap cans "! ... "But, Sir, we have the HD650 ?".

My point is : most hi-fi
brands will not price their products based only on what they cost to build, but on how much their customers are willing to shell out for them.

Those customers won't
change anything the lower-end products. Grado
still makes SR60's and Senn
still makes HD650's.

The problem in this hobby of ours are not those guys. The problem comes from the average summit-fi
head-fi'ers
who think 1K cans are cheap because they do 90% percent of what 2K cans do.

This state of mind caused the relentless increase in price we've seen over the last few years.

The problem also comes from the beats guys, who were convinced that 300$ were socially acceptable and screwed the whole market.

R10's and L3000's have nothing
to do with it.

 

Some people buy a watch because of craftmanship and that each individual part of the watch was sung a lullaby by the watchmaker. Other people buy a watch because they need to tell the time.

I buy headphones for sound not craftmanship and I don't care what materials the headphone is made of. Whether they were churned out of a factory at hundreds of units per hour or took weeks to assemble by a single person is irrelevant to me. Though you could argue that presentation and materials will affect you psychoacoustically i.e. something that feels premium will be perceived to sound better than something that doesn't feel premium.

Besides, I'd rather have mass-produced flagship headphones that are cheaper to make and cheaper to buy. People that want to spend more to be in some kind of exclusive club make it worse for everyone else.

Very good point about beats raising the average price of headphones.
In the point of view of a manufacturer, I'd say "my headphones > beats so my price > beats price"

Another thing to consider though is worldwide price fixing. Sennheiser last year (IIRC) brought prices back up in line with their msrp.
While to Americans this was an outrage, it had no effect on other countries because we already paid that price after all the taxes and fees.

About cost prices, you're absolutely correct. I've gotten tidbits of information from friends that work in the Canadian headphone retail about their cost prices. I obviously won't discuss what brands or cost prices I know of because that's confidential but certain models... damn.
Though, just like regular products at a store like bestbuy. certain headphones might be sitting around on a shelf for a long time before they'll be sold. So if they have to keep a set stocked for 6-8 months at a cost of let's say $600-700, that's quite a bit of money tied up in that investment for a long time. So even if cost price is marked up 25% to their retail price, it's necessary for them.

I'll admit, I considered the Alpha dogs cheap. I know people got mad at me when I felt the alpha dogs were budget.
But you also have to consider my point of view too.
The law of diminishing returns states that the more I invest the less I get back for the same amount.
For me if I wanted the sound that only a 5.5k setup can produce, and I find a setup at 2k that does 95% of that, that can still be budget to me, but high end to someone else.

Another thing to consider is the exclusivity of TOTL products.
Take the AK120, when it came out it was the only product over $1k (besides the tera player) in its category.
As soon as the higher end / newer versions hit shelves the used price dropped about 25% and the new price dropped about 10-20% depending on the retailer.

 

[Beagle]

Perhaps it is high time for us Head-Fi'ers to band together and boycott the major manufacturers until they can come up with a great headphone at a reasonable price. Mind you, just not buying anything anyway is a form of boycotting and nobody is forcing anyone to buy anything. Still....
 
This has nothing to do with Sony or the thread topic, I just thought I'd throw it in.

 

[GL1TCH3D]

Perhaps it is high time for us Head-Fi'ers to band together and boycott the major manufacturers until they can come up with a great headphone at a reasonable price. Mind you, just not buying anything anyway is a form of boycotting and nobody is forcing anyone to buy anything. Still....

This has nothing to do with Sony or the thread topic, I just thought I'd throw it in.

Unfortunately head-fi is a fairly small market.
There are about 5-8 local audiophiles that are really active on headfi yet a lot of the high end audiophile headphones from the local stores (there aren't many stores but there are a couple that carry them) seem to fly off the shelves. Everytime I go in they're out of stock or have 1-2 left.

 

[audionewbi]

15 hours!

 

[customcoco]

snip ! Long post ahead !

I can’t comment on the Canadian situation with Sennheiser, but here, the prices are completely fixed.
 
About a year and a half ago, I considered going for the HD800.
 
At the time it retailed for 999€.
 
When the salesman’s boss got out of the room he came to me and told me « If you want to commit, do it now ».
« Why » I asked, and he replied that Sennheiser decided to revise the HD800’s MSRP.
 
3 months later, they retailed for 1200€ in every shop across the country.
 
That’s a 20% increase, right there.
 
I don’t mind paying a mark up for the B&M store, not at all.
 
What I don’t really like though is paying 1K for a pair of cans that cost 250 bucks to make and ship to its final retailer.
 
 
I get your viewpoint. When you swim in such a small pool, the group’s « realities » tend to become yours.
 
That’s why it’s nice to have a reality check sometimes. A good walk out, a week without Head-Fi...
 
I had the very same thought about the smyth Realiser.
After all, 2K doesn’t sound like a lot when you can have the illusion of a 10M room around you.
 
Yet it’s still extremely expensive when you consider how poor some people are, just under our windows.
 
That sum could change somebody’s life, if you think about it.
 
If I had to sum it up, I’d say that the 2M Pagani doesn’t make the 400K Ferrari any cheaper.
Yet, in a way, it does ! ;D
 
I also get your point about exclusivity.
 
But you have to consider that, again; in such a small market, products like the AK120 can’t create their own little markets and re-adjust what we believed were our « realities ».
 
I started to lurk around HF quite a few years before I registered, and back then 600$ was a lot (stats’ aside) for a pair of cans.
 
These days, nobody gets excited when a new kid at that price gets on the block.
It has become « mid-fi ».
 
5K Cans were not common. They were super-duper limited editions that quickly achieved an almost legendary status.
 
These days, when I lurk around the Summit-fi, I almost feel like everybody out there has a 10K rig in his/her man/woman-cave.
 
It’s sad, really.

 

[GL1TCH3D]

snip ! Long post ahead !

I can’t comment on the Canadian situation with Sennheiser, but here, the prices are completely fixed.

About a year and a half ago, I considered going for the HD800.

At the time it retailed for 999€.

When the salesman’s boss got out of the room he came to me and told me « If you want to commit, do it now ».
« Why » I asked, and he replied that Sennheiser decided to revise the HD800’s MSRP.

3 months later, they retailed for 1200€ in every shop across the country.

That’s a 20% increase, right there.

I don’t mind paying a mark up for the B&M store, not at all.

What I don’t really like though is paying 1K for a pair of cans that cost 250 bucks to make and ship to its final retailer.


I get your viewpoint. When you swim in such a small pool, the group’s « realities » tend to become yours.

That’s why it’s nice to have a reality check sometimes. A good walk out, a week without Head-Fi...

I had the very same thought about the smyth Realiser.
After all, 2K doesn’t sound like a lot when you can have the illusion of a 10M room around you.

Yet it’s still extremely expensive when you consider how poor some people are, just under our windows.

That sum could change somebody’s life, if you think about it.

If I had to sum it up, I’d say that the 2M Pagani doesn’t make the 400K Ferrari any cheaper.
Yet, in a way, it does ! ;D

I also get your point about exclusivity.

But you have to consider that, again; in such a small market, products like the AK120 can’t create their own little markets and re-adjust what we believed were our « realities ».

I started to lurk around HF quite a few years before I registered, and back then 600$ was a lot (stats’ aside) for a pair of cans.

These days, nobody gets excited when a new kid at that price gets on the block.
It has become « mid-fi ».

5K Cans were not common. They were super-duper limited editions that quickly achieved an almost legendary status.

These days, when I lurk around the Summit-fi, I almost feel like everybody out there has a 10K rig in his/her man/woman-cave.

It’s sad, really.

Yea, Sennheiser price fixed all their cans here in Canada at the MSRP and then retailers add on extra. HD700 is $1200. Absolutely insane for the quality.
But the problem is partially people buying them with little prior research. They walk into these HiFi stores and demand to spend their entire budget on the spot.

 

[customcoco]

But the problem is partially people buying them with little prior research. They walk into these HiFi stores and demand to spend their entire budget on the spot.

I don't get that kind of buying behavior...
 
You don't have to completely get yourself immersed on the hobby, it might in fact be the best way to enjoy it, but, especially since it involves a lot of dough, I can't imagine buying something important without at least knowing what I'm getting into.

 

[GL1TCH3D]

Originally Posted by GL1TCH3D

But the problem is partially people buying them with little prior research. They walk into these HiFi stores and demand to spend their entire budget on the spot.

I don't get that kind of buying behavior...

You don't have to completely get yourself immersed on the hobby, it might in fact be the best way to enjoy it, but, especially since it involves, I can't imagine buying something important without at least knowing what I'm getting into.

I've discussed on multiple occassions off-site the problems involved with this buying behaviour.
I've always argued that if you research and think before you buy you'll make choices based more on primary factors than secondary factors.
This buying behaviour ends up being based primarily on price, popularity and brand rather than on quality of the product.
This leads them to either convince themselves they made the right purchase (post-purchase rationalizaton) or they're severely disappointed in the product and bash it when research would have shown it wasn't for them or that it had clear faults in quality.

People who end up in the post-purchase rationalization group end up trying to convince others a lot of the time to buy the same product.
At a head-fi meet 2 years ago someone came in and spent the entire 4 hours claiming the HE400 was the best set of headphones ever made. We had the HE500, He6, LCD2r1, LCD2r2, HD800s and lots more at the meet. Nobody argued with him because we don't want to start a fight at a friendly meet but when I talked to the others after they were all shaking their heads about the whole thing.
I can't discount that maybe to his preference it truly was beter to his ears, but it was a bit odd that he kind of ignored everything else and just went on about the HE400.

This type of behaviour ends up causing a lot of misinformation to be passed around simply based on such little research, experience and knowledge on a product.

It's a shame but it skews the vision of manufacturers of the average consumer. If consumers are willing to walk into a store and purchase $1200 headphones that cost them $200 to make with little to no previous research or experience with them.
Why should manufacturers end up serving the small group of audiophiles that actually research their products beforehand? If beats were selling even at twice their cost price they'd be like $100 and I think audiophiles would think $100 is fair for a beats studio. But for each audiophile there are 100 consumers that don't even think about what a fair price for the quality would be and purchase it anyway.

 

[Beagle]

  I don't get that kind of buying behavior...
 
You don't have to completely get yourself immersed on the hobby, it might in fact be the best way to enjoy it, but, especially since it involves, I can't imagine buying something important without at least knowing what I'm getting into.

 
It's called "addiction"....no different from crack addiction or people who can't stop eating even when they are full.

 

[GL1TCH3D]

 
I don't get that kind of buying behavior...

You don't have to completely get yourself immersed on the hobby, it might in fact be the best way to enjoy it, but, especially since it involves, I can't imagine buying something important without at least knowing what I'm getting into.

It's called "addiction"....no different from crack addiction or people who can't stop eating even when they are full.

I'd disagree with that and say it's a culture of impulse buying where higher and higher value impulse buying is socially acceptable.

At the local pharmacy I work at they started placing various low value electronics at about the $50-150 range at the counter for people along with the regular tidbits like chocolate bars and gum.

Society is progressing to a state where high value impulse purchases are normal (When I say high valuye I mean like 5k+. Of ouyrse high value is still very relative to your income. Someone earning $15k after taxes might consider a $200 purchase extremely high value).

 

[pp312]

 
It's called "addiction"....no different from crack addiction or people who can't stop eating even when they are full.

 
Actually people always stop eating when they're full. Some people keep eating because they're never full.
 
Which may give us a clue about compulsive buying habits. Some people are satisfied at a certain level, some are never satisfied and just become habitual consumers endlessly playing with their toys. These are probably the people who buy the most carelessly, with the least forethought. I've seen posts from people who list a half dozen headphones in their inventory saying, "I'm expecting the Bruer T32 next week. That should tell me where my Alien ATH16 stands in the scheme of things and whether I should get rid of the Aztec HD19. I'm really excited to hear it." This obviously is not a quest where music is the most important factor; it's more likely the same piece gets played over and over again.
 
Of course there's nothing wrong with collecting and comparing headphones. I just want to know where they get the money.   

 

[customcoco]

   
Of course there's nothing wrong with collecting and comparing headphones. I just want to know where they get the money.   

Sure, but then those people aren't buying for the music.
 
There's nothing wrong with that, and one can be both a music lover and a hardcore audiophile.
 
What I don't understand though, is people spending all their money in there, then arguing about how important music is. Just like those photographers who really only enjoy unboxing. 
 
On another topic :
 
     Believe it or not, but I've talked to a bloke once who told me that, his Leica X1's box all made up for the poor experience the camera gave him.
 
     That's Box > Product here.
 
I might be very controversial in saying this, but IMHO Head-Fi is not a hobby worthy of long time savings.
 
I'm talking out of first-hand experience there.
 
Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy my set-up and I still look forward to what I might be buying next.
 
Yet I can't help thinking that I could have spent 80% less and still be just as happy as I am right now, perhaps even more since the rest could have been spent for more music or even perhaps some of my other hobbies...

 

[Beagle]

 
Of course there's nothing wrong with collecting and comparing headphones. I just want to know where they get the money.  

 
From gambling...

 

[customcoco]

   
From gambling...

Hehe...

 

[leylandi]

NWZ-A15 , MDR-1A . MDR-1ADAC , MDR-Z7