[FullCircle]

Economies of scale are rarely reached with boutique manufacturers, in any industry
 

 

[Dohyun]

Flagship headphones tend to be very expensive because they are the top of their respective lines. Also, price is not directly related to sound quality, and sound quality is probably not quantifiable. Instead, as the price goes up, the increase in quality starts to level off. So if you have a $1000 headphones and need that 10% more of music to be heard, you would probably have to pay an extra $3000. 

 

[Smithington]

In a busy market (as in, we're spoilt for choice) price is also driven by a calculated projection of number of sales. Totl headphones don't typically sell as many units, so have to cost more to recoup the r&d and manufacturing / marketing / distribution costs. Honestly, the cost of making something, something better or different to another product is more than most people give credit for. It's not just the cost of materials, and yes,you do expect better materials when you spend more (which helps drive that cost...).

 

[flargosa]

So essentially you guys are saying the cost of research and development is raising higher and higher with each successive flagship iteration thus the 2X to 4X increase in price?  Also if economies of scale is the reason, why not sell at a lower profit but higher volumes? 

 

[Dohyun]

Yee

 

[Dohyun]

Well, all I'm saying is that the amount of money spent increases exponentially as sound quality increases linearly.

X is price while Y is sound quality
Of course, there are also other factors such as number of units produced and material used.

 

[ubs28]

I guess people want flagships costing the same as the HD 650 which was never really a flagship headphone in the first place (that was the orginal Orpheus and now the Orpheus 2).

Would be nice ofcourse if it was possible to buy an Orpheus 2 for $500 but that is not realistic.

 

[Dohyun]

Good point and I'm sure there is a way to make a cheaper headphone sound like the orpheus. The reason the orpheus is expensive is because of the history behind it and the material used.

 

[jeff7742]

Yeah, I'd like a porsche turbo too, but the damn things just cost too much. It's almost like I'm not making enough money or something.

 

[ruhenheiM]

it's called free market. people will buy that product if they thought the value is right. and since we're talking technology or electronic product, the flagship always at highest price because it's never been intended to be mass produce or it can't be mass produce

 

[a44100Hz]

  So essentially you guys are saying the cost of research and development is raising higher and higher with each successive flagship iteration thus the 2X to 4X increase in price?  Also if economies of scale is the reason, why not sell at a lower profit but higher volumes? 

 
There's more people and therefore more money in the market now. You could argue that Beats achieved what was previously impossible -- people who wouldn't label themselves as audiophiles saw spending $200 or $300 on headphones as normal, and also brought more people into the fold of "wonder what sounds better than these". If $300 headphones are mainstream, it raises the ceiling of what is "sane" to spend on luxury headphones... and here we are.

 

[Mr Rick]

How are we to know it is a TOTL headphone without an exorbitant price tag?

 

[ubs28]

How are we to know it is a TOTL headphone without an exorbitant price tag?

If it's headphone that is set out to explore the limits of what is possible.

For example, my Access Virus TI is still the best synthesizer in the world despite a billion plugins available on the market nowadays because it was designed to explore the limits of what was possible with a hardware synthesizer, rather than just slapping on a big price tag. It was a hardware synthesizer that was way ahead of it's time and thus a flagship product.

An other example is the legendary Mclaren F1 which was the fastest car in the world for over 20 years untill the Bugatti Veyron came (which is an other flagship product).

I don't think the HD 650 was such a product in the headphone scene, which is why it costed only $500.

 

[flargosa]

10 years ago I thought $279 for an audiophile headphone was reasonable, then $500, now I think $1000 is reasonable.  Maybe in five years, everybody will think $4k is reasonable while the 2% have moved on to $10k headphones.  The 98% will then say “ for $4k you get 95% performance of a $10k headphone, buy reasonably and spend no more than $4k.”  

 

[Beagle]

  How are we to know it is a TOTL headphone without an exorbitant price tag?

 
I don't care about TOTL. It only means "most expensive". I care about the best natural sound (in that it makes music sound great), and preferably for the least amount of cash outlay, or at the very least, a reasonable cash outlay. Some prefer to spend as much money as possible so they can assume they have the best sound, even though it might FR measure like Mount Everest. To each their own. It's whatever sounds best to you. I always hope that someone can find happiness within their particular budget.