Why the headphone market is getting cheaper and better, not more expensive.
I've seen a few comments lately about the headphone world going the way of 2-channel, with insanely priced products, especially in reaction to the MSB headphone amp and the Sennheiser H1 system. However, I reckon that, aside from those two things, the headphone world is going the
opposite direction, with high-quality tech getting
cheaper and more, but not necessarily more exceedingly expensive, headphones being developed. Here's what I wrote up about it.
Quote:
The audiophile headphone market is, sadly and perhaps inevitably, catching up with the long-established speaker market and prices of flagship products are following suit through the roof accordingly.
Actually, it's not. The Sony MDR-R10s cost $2500 in 1989 money, which is probably closer to $4000 today, and were selling second-hand for $6-7000 a pair on the second-hand market. Then there are the Qualia 010s which look to have been $3,300 10 years ago, and equally expensive second-hand.
The Orpheus was somewhere around $20,000, I forget, because I was in Australia when it was released.
If we consider that the $1500 HD800s have similar measured performance to the R10s, for the sake of this argument, I'm going to consider them comparable in performance. Then we have a bunch of high-end planar headphones from about the $1k mark (LCD-2) up to $5k (Abyss), with the median price between $1500 and $2000. So if we compare the price of the R10 and Qualia 010 to today's flagship price, they aren't really that different, but instead, the variety of options has increased. What is more, either side of the median, we have a variety of inexpensive planars (Oppo, HiFiman, Audeze) which bring much of that performance down lower. For people with deep pockets who want the best performance possible, the LCD-4s and Abyss are there, now joined by the Focal Utopia.
It's also worth noting that despite in increase in flagships, where a model has
not stood up to scrutiny, it has been quickly rubbished -- eg; Ultrasone's Edition 10. It's also worth noting that, possibly as a result of this, the Edition 5 hardly gets a mention here either. That's a big difference to how things were prior to the LCD-2s and HD800s, when the Edition 9 was THE flagship (Sony and Grado flagships having been discontinued for some time and also very expensive in the second-hand market). Now if you consider that the ED9 tech is available in the Signature series, between a $499 Audeze SINE and a Sig Pro or Sig DJ, which would anyone choose?
If you wanted resolution, you HAD to buy a Stax rig in the past, and often a vintage one if you didn't want to break the bank. A 717/02 rig used to cost $2k imported from Japan and a good, vintage R2R DAC didn't cost much at all. Good luck getting those kind of prices now! The cost of those rigs, second-hand, has shot up, where the quality of planar headphones has shot up and decreased in price instead.
The LCD-4s, and the HE1000s are both a bit of a head-scratcher when it comes to their respective prices in my opinion, for various reasons, but at least the HE1000s are about to become V2. I spent a couple of hours with the LCD-4s on an Audeze King and that was fantastic. The HE1000s were
almost there for me, until I modded them slightly, and now they nail it and are the incredible-sounding pair of headphone I had been wanting for a long time.
The Focal Utopias, at least with my initial impressions, perform so far above every other pair of dynamic headphones, and have had so many years of research put into them that I can't really criticise the price, they appear to be genuinely game-changing in what is possible from a pair of dynamic headphones. Every other pair of headphones I tried sounded veiled in a serious way after listening with the Utopias. It was rather like the first time, many years ago, that I tried a Stax rig, after which regular dynamic headphones sounded like a pretentious effort at sound reproduction.
The Elears too seem to be gaining a strong rep, and if they perform as good or better than $1k-$2k headphones they they'll cause a storm. In that price range, I cannot find any fault with the MrSpeakers Ether Flow I just reviewed, and they are in the median high-end headphone price range at $1799, not $2999.
Now if I was to start into IEMs, I could continue on in this vein, but demonstrate that the cost of good performance has become
vastly lower than before. That's not to say that there aren't expensive flagships, but I have $50 IEMs here that are excellent, and similar products are coming out constantly that well-and-truly balance out the expensive ones. Compared to when I used to go into the stores here and try all the top models, hating almost all of them, things have changed a LOT.
In electronics there simply is no comparison. What is available today is both measurably and audibly better. Again, there is expensive gear and always will be. If some rich people want to have their crazy expensive gear, I don't think it will affect the rest of the market as much as people fear.
Rather than use it's position as the highest profile headphone forum on the Internet as a force for good in the market - taking manufacturers to task on pricing, providing true critical analysis of products - Head-Fi is now simply a shop window for sponsors, neutered by it's unwillingness to offer any criticism whatsoever of the hand that feeds. Not only does it passively avoid rocking the sponsor boat, it also actively discourages dissent and that greatest of all enemies to the world of high end audiophilia...science. Yes, I'm typing this in a "Sound Science" forum, but it only exists so the remaining 99% of posts on the site can be free of any nasty scientific objectiveness.
I don't see why "Head-Fi" should take manufacturers to task for attempting to make the very best performing gear they can (both the Chord Dave and the MSB stack measure way better than anything else out there, though the latter's claims haven't been verified). I don't see any point in this. If there isn't a high standard to aim for, how is mass-market gear supposed to improve? We may as well abolish NASA, the Olympics and other industries and research groups that aim for the highest in numerous endeavours, that don't directly affect the majority. Where would the good be in that?
If anything, manufacturers, including those of very high-end gear, have been encouraged to make products for regular consumers who want to spend a reasonable amount of money. Numerous headphones from brand-name hi-fi manufacturers are now available, and we have high-end originating companies like Schiit Audio who want to bring high-end gear back under 4 figures; Chord making the Mojo at a quarter of the price of the previous Hugo with comparable performance; Audioquest making the Dragonfly; and iFi making a range of products below $1k, just to name a few.
Should we be so off-putting to high-end manufacturers that they don't even consider making products for "the rest of us"?
This approach has resulted in a certain culture on the forum...highly subjective, lacking in measurements and objective comparisons, and prone to manufacturer-lead circle jerking.
The basic list of measurements for products (partially excepting headphones) do NOT tell the whole story about performance. While I'm by far not the most knowledgeable person to be discussing it, as I understand it, manufacturers, where they have the equipment to do so, use a variety of other complex measurements when attempting to understand performance which are generally not discussed online. Maybe in the future that will change.
Of course, it boils down to the fact that HF is a business, plain and simple.
It has nothing to with HF as a business. Do you know how many posts Jude makes in a day? (Answer: Very few.) Do you realise how much content on the forums does NOT come from him or from sponsors? A considerable percentage of the most popular products on Head-Fi are NOT made by sponsors.
Funnily enough, things become popular because for people the product is GOOD and it gives people satisfaction. No sponsor would be capable of hyping up something that is genuinely bad. If anything, new products tend to get slammed hard before they are even released. I've seen numerous sponsors bail out after their efforts at gaining interest in their products completely failed, and businesses almost wreck themselves over a single mistake in a product design.
So overall, i completely disagree with this perspective about Head-Fi. I can completely understand not being excited at all about every new release, or being satisfied to be where you're at now, but the hobby is about enjoyment, even if that enjoyment is seemingly irrational. If we were to analyse everything in life to consider the rationality of it then I think we'd become pretty depressed!
DAPs I've tried. I don't use a DAP enough to consider buying one, but if I liked it enough and my entire system was to be based around it, I would seriously consider it.
