[superlowfi]

Honestly I'm not really sure I would be interested in any of the trickle down here. 
 
What are the main features? A marble tube amp with motorized tubes going up and down and buttons that go in and out? Not really interested. I have my own tube amp that I'm perfectly happy with already.
 
An energized amp in the earcups? That's not a new idea and personally I've never heard a set up like that which sounded any good. It also kind of takes away the ability to use equipment that you personally enjoy, especially as it relates to tube/solid state amps.
 
Call me old fashion, but if Sennheiser could just release their version of an electrostatic headphone that competes more with Stax than it does with Mercedes I would probably buy one. I suppose I could live with all that distortion from my non-marble AMP and all that distortion caused by actually carrying an AMP signal over my plebeian cables. Poor me.

 

[VandyMan]

I live in NYC where one bedroom apartments can cost well over a million. Cars/SUVs that sell for over 50K are very common, even in what locals consider middle class areas. The idea that the HE1060 is only for millionaires might be sensible, but it is not reality. I know many audiophiles with 50K+ two channel systems who are not millionaires. If you are making payments on a 50K SUV, you can probably afford to be making payments on the HE1060. It is a question of your priorities and your budget. 

Secondly, I think these posts asking if it is X times better are just silly. No one should expect a 50K headphone to be 25 times better than a 2K headphone. When you buy cookies, do you say I'm getting the store brand because the good ones cost twice as much but are not two times better? The is just not how most consumer goods are valued because we don't have metrics to know what twice as good even means.

 

[kurochin]

Cheap as chips. My nephew's gonna be potty training soon. That amp looks like a good bowl to start with once the tubes get removed. Should be good enough for a couple of years, by which time I'll be taking him for lessons in peasant exploitation.

 

[potkettleblack]

   
These numbers are all wild estimates only, and certain simplifications made, just to illustrate the point.
 
If they retailed for $5000, then let's say the ex factory price is $3500. The marginal cost of production is probably very high, as this is a small production run of a complex item, mostly assembled by hand, and the components are not cheap. Let's assume the marginal cost is $3200, but the R&D, setup and marketing costs might easily run to $4 million. So just to break even, Sennheiser would have to sell 13,333 units. Can you see 13,333 people queuing up to pay $5,000 for headphones? To make things even worse, with such small margins, even if Sennheiser made and sold 100,000 units, they would still make only 8% on their investment. Not a good proposition. More likely they would sell 2,500 units and make a a loss of $3.25m.
 
Alternatively, if the ex factory price is $35K, then they need to sell only 126 units to break even, and 137 to make an 8% return (or 154 units to make a 20% return).
 
Do you still think they went "full retard"?
 
Even if 2 price points were equally profitable, Sennheiser might be smart to keep the product more exclusive and the production more manageable.
 
Why not make your own Excel spreadsheet and play with the numbers, and to think about how many customers might be willing to pay at a given price point, and the returns for Sennheiser.

How much do you think a single unit would cost them to make?
 
Just have a guess.

 

[pila405]

Why would they use tubes in a modern and a very expensive amp? It makes no sense what so ever. And price is absolutely ridiculous.

 

[madwolfa]

  Why would they use tubes in a modern and a very expensive amp? It makes no sense what so ever. And price is absolutely ridiculous.

 

 

[penmarker]

Well I guess we should charge $2000 for them and not pay the engineers and technicians then. I'm pretty sure the materials are cheap anyway and there's no engineering involved in the 20+ years of development. Who wants to see their pinnacle of audio engineering and them trying to outdo themselves with something that nothing ever in the whole world could beat? I sure don't want to. Hah, such stupid company, doing it just because they want to, or maybe just because they CAN! Like climbing the Everest, or breaking the land speed record, or going to the Moon. Who wants to go to the freezing top of a mountain or go to that barren desolated moon?

I'd rather sit here in my comfy chair and not do anything because if I do, people could criticize my achievements too. Yessiirr.

Also Beats rule!!!!!111!!1

:/\)

 

[madwolfa]

I'm pretty sure the materials are cheap anyway and there's no engineering involved in the 20+ years of development. 

 
One would think they could use something better than crummy delta-sigma DAC after 20 years of development.

 

[BobG55]

 

​

NOTE:  If you can't see the embedded video above, please CLICK HERE to see the video.​

 
In this episode of Head-Fi TV, we take a first look at Sennheiser's successor to the legendary Orpheus: The new Sennheiser HE1060/HEV1060. Be sure to watch to hear my first impressions of this new system, and learn why Sennheiser calls this system the "Monument To Sound."
 

---

 
Products mentioned in the video:

 

1. Sennheiser HE1060 Electrostatic Headphone
2. Sennheiser HEV1060 Tube Amplifier and DAC
3. Sennheiser HE90 Electrostatic Headphone
4. Sennheiser HEV90 Tube Amplifier and DAC
5. Chord Electronics Hugo TT DAC/headphone amp

 ​

​

 

---

 

First look at the HE1060/HEV1060: Sennheiser's Orpheus Successor - Head-Fi TV produced by Joseph Cwik and Jude Mansilla
 

---

 

We will occasionally post Q&A episodes of Head-Fi TV.  If you want to submit any questions (or comments), you can do so via email to tv@head-fi.org.

If you go back any time soon Jude please contact me first.  I'll carry your bags for you, shine your shoes, do your errands, polish the rented car, etc. all that for a mere 5 minutes with the HE1060/HEV1060.  Just let me know, good ol' buddy, pal of mine 

 

[adamaley]

Why is this in the High-End forum? I expect the creation of a new forum sub-set. Perhaps 'Tip-of-the-pinnacle', 'Peak-End', 'End-of-your-wallet'? I think we need to separate it so that I don't keep seeing it yet know I dare not click on the link. Why taunt me?

 

[mscott58]

  Why would they use tubes in a modern and a very expensive amp? It makes no sense what so ever. And price is absolutely ridiculous.

Because tubes, when implemented properly, can sound amazing. Just because they are "old" technology doesn't mean they aren't great in certain applications. Many, many high-end 2-channel amps use tubes, and whether you like tubes more or less than solid-state really is a matter or personal taste. 
 
Cheers 

 

[superlowfi]

  Why would they use tubes in a modern and a very expensive amp? It makes no sense what so ever. And price is absolutely ridiculous.

 
Nothing about this makes a lot of sense. It seems they made a lot of engineering decisions that fly in the face of common sense just to be able to say they could. Non detachable cables coming from the headphone box and amplifiers made of marble which house motorized moving tubes are clues about that.
 
Sonically, I think they used tubes for the same reason they used tubes for the original Orpheus. It was probably the only way to make their electrostatic driver sound decent.

 

[superlowfi]

I'd rather sit here in my comfy chair and not do anything because if I do, people could criticize my achievements too. Yessiirr.
 

 
The entire purpose of this forum is to critically evaluate and share headphone experiences. A company releases a product, it's fair game to be open to criticism. The more outrageous suggestion here is that we should somehow not be criticizing this for any reason, because somebody somewhere put effort into it.
 
Putting effort into something is not a sufficient condition to make a worthwhile product, and by building something you open yourself to criticism one way or another. It's a healthy part of the ecosystem.

 

[madwolfa]

  Sonically, I think they used tubes for the same reason they used tubes for the original Orpheus. It was probably the only way to make their electrostatic driver sound decent.

 
It's much easier to get high voltages out of tubes. However, I doubt it's a huge challenge with modern solid-state devices as well.

 

[pila405]

  Because tubes, when implemented properly, can sound amazing. Just because they are "old" technology doesn't mean they aren't great in certain applications. Many, many high-end 2-channel amps use tubes, and whether you like tubes more or less than solid-state really is a matter or personal taste. 
 
Cheers 

Nope, it is a matter of accurately reproducing the sound, and tubes can't rival SS, it's that simple. SS amplifier can reproduce a much cleaner and a much more accurate signal.