Yeah, TBH I've encountered so many claims of being the finest this or that, I just sort of mentally filter it out these days. That's marketing for you.
Rather it's their attitude as a whole that gets me.
First off, you have to have some pretty big cojones to make your first entry into the world of headphones something for summit-fi. Even bigger cojones still to make it a $5,600 headphone. That's right: the price has gone up even more apparently. You're a newcomer, and you're basically situating your flagship right in the path of the Stax SR-009 which has only gone down in price in recent months due to the yen. Sure, you need a specialized amp with the SR-009 as well, but given recent prices you could also factor in the cost of a fairly decent amp too.
A smaller company like JPS Labs needs to appeal directly to their customers, and they need to reach out to communities like head-fi which will basically make or break them. It's absolutely paramount to let customers audition your products at this level. So far JPS has only had one or two public demonstrations of their early wooden Spider-Man prototypes at noisy audio shows, and one or two more of their finished product at even noisier shopping malls. That doesn't really cut it. Honestly, I can understand the reservations of offering a listening tour for a product this expensive, but even a small well-controlled tour would suffice. Allow people time to adjust to your headphones, especially when it supposedly takes an entire day just to "dial in the fit."
Fang knows better with his HiFiMan brand. Even Audez'e for as opaque as they seem at times knows better. The categorical refusal by JPS to introduce the Abyss to the community ahead of its launch comes across as just the least bit haughty, and people may very well assume they're trying to hide something or do damage control. I'm not saying this is the case obviously, but it does seem as though they're trying to offer as little a preview as possible while stile reaping the benefits of appearing outwardly transparent about it all. After all, any less-than-optimal impressions can now be pinned on meet conditions (since "it's still a prototype" is now out of the running).
Stax doesn't offer listening tours. But then Stax has been around for decades and is an extremely well-established and well-respected manufacturer. They don't need to advertise anymore. They're proven that they know what they're doing time and time again.
Curiously, JPS isn't selling the Abyss directly as far as I'm aware. The entire production run seems to be going to third party vendors, and they've emphasized pre-ordering with these vendors (who, specifically, I still don't know). Ideally one could audition the Abyss through the third-party retailer before buying it, but again this isn't the same as a true preview. By that point the official launch will have commenced and pre-orders will have been filled. It just strikes me as a little bit odd, because I'm thinking they could have lowered the cost of the Abyss quite a bit had they sold direct. Vendors want a cut: sometimes up to fifty percent! Then again it's not that odd I guess, because most of the sales of the Abyss will probably be overseas to folks in Asia where there's a more of a market for expensive flagship headphones these days. This way JPS doesn't have to deal with overseas sales themselves.
Of course I can't help but feel as though the price of the Abyss--- breaching that $5000 barrier---was decided in advance. It's almost as if they decided on this price and then tried to do various things to justify it after the fact: throwing in a headphone stand, a leather travel bag, a wooden display box, high-end audiophile cables (they are primarily a cable company after all), and so on and so forth.
The Abyss has some really interesting research behind it, and I'm firmly of the believe that more orthodynamic flagships is definitely a good thing. It's the attitude of the company however that irks me. I mean, they seem to be under the impression that their almost $6k headphones are going to fly off the shelves and be the next big thing. They're doing the usual marketing thing by claiming it's the world's finest transducer, yet they're also acting like it's going to be a summit-fi legend when they mention the laser engraving for collectors.
