[nonsupremous]

Can't totally disagree with this thread though. 1 - 2 k for headphones is really getting to be carried away. I, for good or bad...my wallet says mostly bad, am part of this club. I think the bigger complaint would be that the cost of the headphones might be 1k yes....but you can't run those headphones out of any ordinary low to medium range system. So not only have you spent over a thousand dollars on 1 pair of headphones...now you have to venture out and spend another thousand or more on a system that's going to make them shine.

AND it's hard to stop. It's like Eddie Van Halen always says. "I'm always chasing tone." so that thousand dollar headphone is only going to keep your attention for so long before you venture off to find a new and better "tone" Sheesh. Damn the person that created all this stuff!! lol.

 

[nonsupremous]

Quote:

Originally Posted by hawat /img/forum/go_quote.gif They will probably sound like regular headphones but they will surely look like this but with true diamonds instead.

LOL. Great find.

 

[oqvist]

Gone up? What about K1000, R10, HE90 and other unobtanium headphones

Seriously I don´t expect even the HE90 or something to beat my 200$ speaker system in anything so yes of course headphones are overpriced if you look at it that way. I suspect the line is at 150$ somewhere where you can get headphones to beat speakers.

accoustics etc are all issues but even in my crappy room I got control on my speakers to the extent they are several tiers above any headphone I ever heard. Kind of booring for modern music though but oh so natural timbre, soundstage, voices everything

 

[stokitw]

As for what happened...
It's just the ripple effect of the success of Grado's bold bid on GS-1000.
GS-1000s are not the first $1,000 headphones, but they are not the limit edition like ED9 or ED8 or some other vintage phones now collector's items which are not successful in terms of business back then. If a small workshop like Grado can enjoy true business success from a mass-produced (of course, mass in Grado's scale) $1,000ish headphones, why not Sennheiser or other big names. There is one who successfully open the market, others will follow. It is just business.

Unfortunately for me, I still need to stick with headphones until I have a house with delicated listening room..... Oh yeah, I wonder how many thousands that will cost me......

Quote:

Originally Posted by wali /img/forum/go_quote.gif What happened? When I got into this hobby the argument was that headphones were the cheap way of experiencing high quality audio--listening to a very expensive set of speakers for a lot less. And this argument was and still is true but it only applies to older headphones who seem to have been suddenly trounced with all these $1000+ flood of headphones by every manufacturer. Has the tables turned back in favor of speakers? I say that because for $1000 one could buy an exceptionally good set of monitor speakers. Its not so much about the money but cost-performance ratio, and some of us are more frugal by principal in our spending (not forget current economic situation). The whole idea of headphone hobby was not to be an audiofool and spend a lot for what could be had for less, but it seems that has changed... I think the next refuge for price conscious audio enthusiast are monitor speakers.

 

[vhbaske]

How much would we save if we leave reading Head-Fi org for a year? Make your calculations ! !

 

[catscratch]

Since when are today's headphones suddenly so much more expensive than they've ever been? The HE90 came out in '91 and was $11k at first, going up to $16k in a few years. The Omega 1 was $10k with the SRM-T2, the R10 was a few grand too (don't remember exactly), and when you take inflation into account, a lot of old-school Stax headphones were seriously expensive as well.

There are more high-end options now, this is true, and they may not necessarily be better than the vintage classics, but headphones didn't all of a sudden become more expensive overnight. The performance of the new top-tier headphones also doesn't invalidate the quality that you'd get from an HD600 even if it can't quite keep up with the big dogs.

If your ego is bruised because you don't own the top tier headphone that a company makes anymore, well, that's not the headphone's problem. Give it a few years, save up, and in time you'll be able to afford anything you want, at least in headphones anyway.

The value proposition is questionable at the top tier level, but then again a lot of headphone use is due to circumstance, not finances. You're not going to drop $10k on a top-tier headphone rig because you want maximum bang for the buck, you'll do it because you want headphones specifically that are as good as it gets. If you want bang for the buck, an HD600 with a DIY Millett Hybrid and a good cheap DAC is what you'd be after, not an O2/BHSE rig.

Having said that, I think that IEMs, at least the good ones anyway, are quickly becoming an amazing performance bargain, which is interesting since 5 years ago it was pretty much the other way around.

 

[glitch39]

As long as you have reviewers proclaiming these new breed of cans as the best and **worth** every penny, then there will be buyers and the price won't go down. Supply and demand, really.

Whether it's worth every penny is always relative. Bang for buck should really be the better term.

 

[Uncle Erik]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MacedonianHero /img/forum/go_quote.gif To clarify, I've got a pretty good home theater setup that is less than $3000 and it's pretty darn good, but I mentioned TOP HEADPHONE $$$ vs. TOP LOUDSPEAKER $$$. And here there is a huge difference. By the way, my home theater speakers cost 2x that of my T1s, but sounds pretty crappy next to the T1s! So bang for your buck, you're still better off with the headphones.

I disagree and you're forcing a false dichotomy.

You do not have to buy the most expensive new speakers to better headphones. Sometimes, older, used speakers can whup headphones for less money.

In my collection, the HD-800 was $1,400. The Quad ESL-63s were $650.

No contest between the two, really. The Quads are better in pretty much every way. I like my ProAc clones and AMTs better, too, and they were all cheaper than the HD-800.

Associated equipment wasn't bad, either. The Conrad-Johnson MV52 power amp (push-pull EL34) I use with my speakers was $700.

So the MV52 and ESL-63s cost less than a HD-800 by itself.

I did not have to go spend $60,000 or more to beat the HD-800, I did i for less than half the cost and got a terrific amp, too.

This is just one way to surpass headphones with speakers. DIY is a strong contender with speakers, too.

I don't worry much about the room. I've put speakers in all sorts of rooms and gotten good to excellent sound without buying a bunch of treatments. Similarly, I can't find a single shred of evidence supporting the "difference" between cables, so I use cheapies and get great sound.

 

[DefectiveAudioComponent]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wali /img/forum/go_quote.gif What happened? When I got into this hobby the argument was that headphones were the cheap way of experiencing high quality audio--listening to a very expensive set of speakers for a lot less. And this argument was and still is true but it only applies to older headphones who seem to have been suddenly trounced with all these $1000+ flood of headphones by every manufacturer.

What happened was that a lof of people have for some time paid over $1000 for vintage gear (that sometimes sold for a lot less when they were in producton). New gear around and over that range that would (were intended to) outperform the old gear was therefore inevitable, imho.

But you can still enjoy high quality audio for a lot less. The Audeze LCD-1 cost less than half than what my speakers cost, and are better sounding, IMHO.

 

[Bullseye]

Well, with speakers unlike headphones it is pretty easy to know what makes a speaker setup good (can be measured + EQd) and a pair of speakers in a room correctly treated + EQd can beat up any HP system out there.

And if your speaker system sounds crappy it is because you haven't set it up correctly you have bad acoustics, ... You might want to read something about DRC + room EQ.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MacedonianHero /img/forum/go_quote.gif To clarify, I've got a pretty good home theater setup that is less than $3000 and it's pretty darn good, but I mentioned TOP HEADPHONE $$$ vs. TOP LOUDSPEAKER $$$. And here there is a huge difference. By the way, my home theater speakers cost 2x that of my T1s, but sounds pretty crappy next to the T1s! So bang for your buck, you're still better off with the headphones.

An example here mentioned by loopfreak, with a bit of irony there.

Quote:

Originally Posted by loopfreak /img/forum/go_quote.gif For 1000 $ adam a7 with room treatment but they haven't got that exclusive factor which is crucial in this case !

 

[hurryup]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wnmnkh /img/forum/go_quote.gif + inflation of currency + supply and demand + increase of the market

Most sensible reply in this whole thread.

 

[wali]

Sorry that I cannot reply to each post directed at me but some quick points.

My focus was mainly dynamic headphones, not electrostatic ones.

T1 has a new driver which is supposedly very cutting edge in magnet technology and its drivers are angled. other than that everything else about it is pretty standard... I have not read a single genuine review of it which describes "how" its sound, what makes it "great", what are its characteristics and what makes them better than DT880.

Heck, I have not even read a true comparison of HD800 with HD600... hi-fi magazines, not to mention online review sites never publish negative reviews, their job is to push products, get advertisement and stay in business. there is no such thing as honesty and truth in hi-fi journalism, its all part of 'the business'... have you ever read a negative review from stereophile? enough said...

buyer reviews are almost always suspect because no one likes to say they made a mistake, especially when the product is premium and so is the price... so, someone who has bought a T1 goes around convincing everyone that its the best headphone ever and then combine that with reviews which are more like sales pitch from sleazy hi-fi review sites and magazines and flavor of the month comes to being, stays for sometime until someone raises his hand and says wait a minute, my $1500 headphone is peeling away and the sound is not really as good as i thought at first... this is the circle and i'm amazed people still fall for it.

my experience in this hobby has thought me one thing, stick to products made for professionals. Pros buy as an investment and they want return for every penny spent. When Sennheiser was focused on pros, they made HD580 pushed it to near perfection with HD600. This was before ipod boom but with ipod other mp3 players the market changed and suddenly headphones became mainstream, the headphone companies rushed in and realized they could push a lot of products, in short product cycles and make a lot of money. the pro's still used their HD600 and other similar headphones but the public bought three or four headphones in the mean time, because that what consumers do and in the process headphone companies got rich and complacent.

A company like Sennheiser, a German company which means quality and functionality are their main priority, they're supposed to think of everything, with great reputation to maintain, how could they miss a simple paint finish flaw? (We're going to ignore the fact why they had to chose plastic and then paint it). The point I'm making is if HD800 was made for pros would Sennheiser be so careless?

Anyway, right now active monitors are hot and the reason is simple, they're marketed to pros and once they become mainstream the same race to the bottom when it comes to quality and higher prices would ensue. the cycle never stops...

 

[nonsupremous]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wali /img/forum/go_quote.gif Sorry that I cannot reply to each post directed at me but some quick points. ...

Shoot don't be sorry. This is a good thread. Debate over something other than a review is refreshing sometimes. Everyone here has an opinion and valid points and they're all worth reading....IMO. Cost is certainly subjective. There are people in Headfi that throw away 1000 dollar bills and think nothing of getting a 1k can. Others have to save for months and months to achieve that level. in the end it's really about your personal budget and taste. I personally have headphones that reach the outer limits of todays market values and I also have the Koss PortaPro. I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt, the PortaPros get the most headtime of my entire collection. But I'm with EVH, I'm always chasing tone!! That's the sickness of it all!!

 

[haloxt]

Are you here to break the vicious cycle of history?

 

[MacedonianHero]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Uncle Erik /img/forum/go_quote.gif I disagree and you're forcing a false dichotomy. You do not have to buy the most expensive new speakers to better headphones. Sometimes, older, used speakers can whup headphones for less money. In my collection, the HD-800 was $1,400. The Quad ESL-63s were $650. No contest between the two, really. The Quads are better in pretty much every way. I like my ProAc clones and AMTs better, too, and they were all cheaper than the HD-800. Associated equipment wasn't bad, either. The Conrad-Johnson MV52 power amp (push-pull EL34) I use with my speakers was $700. So the MV52 and ESL-63s cost less than a HD-800 by itself. I did not have to go spend $60,000 or more to beat the HD-800, I did i for less than half the cost and got a terrific amp, too. This is just one way to surpass headphones with speakers. DIY is a strong contender with speakers, too. I don't worry much about the room. I've put speakers in all sorts of rooms and gotten good to excellent sound without buying a bunch of treatments. Similarly, I can't find a single shred of evidence supporting the "difference" between cables, so I use cheapies and get great sound.

I think Wmcmanus said it best when he compared headphones and loud speakers to cars and motorcycles.

I've recently heard $30 000 Wilson floor speakers that made me think that there was a live jazz band right in front of me. Of course the amp to properly power them was several thousand dollars and the interconnects (I know you don't believe in them), cost over $1000. Total cost was $50 000+, and honestly the micro detail retrieval was amazing with incredible everything, but I have to say that the T1s and HD800s were not left in the dust. The cost of a great T1 or HD800 rig would be about $3K.

Typically, headphones (now I'm saying typically) would give better sound than loud speakers in the same price range.