[Deolum]

There is this one thing i never understood about this hobby: old headphones and especially old headphone versions seem to be preferred the vast majority of times over the new ones.

Some examples:

AKG K1000 bass heavy (early version) > AKG K1000 bass light (later version)

Sennheiser HD 540 600 ohm (early) >
Sennheiser HD 540 300 ohm (later)

Sennheiser HD 250 600 ohm (early) >
Sennheiser HD 250 300 ohm (later)

Stax SR 007 Mk.1 > Stax SR. 007 Mk. 2

Stax Omega > all other Staxes

Audeze non Fazor > Audeze Fazor

all headphones > AKG K812, K872

all headphones > Sennheiser HD820

Now i know there are also some people that for example prefer a Fazor to a non Fazor or a SR 007 Mk.2 to a Mk. 1 but these people always seem to be in the minority. That's also reflected in the prices.

An early K1000 costs usually more than a late K1000

An 600 ohm HD250 costs usually more than a 300 ohm HD250

Pre Fazores Audeze tend to cost slightly more than fazored ones despite their terrible longevity.

Stax Omega is one of the most expensive headphones ever on used market.

So why don't those companies just resell the old models?

Why doesn't Sennheiser instead of publishing a crappy HD820 just sell the HD250 again that's still competitive at 1.999€?

Why doesn't Sennheiser sell the first version of the 540 again?

Why doesn't AKG sell the first version of the K1000 again instead of publishing the totally failed K812 and K872?

Why does Stax try to make worse and worse Mks of 007's or sidegrades of the 009 instead of selling the Mk.1 or the Omega again?

The only company that seems to improve actually with their new models is Hifiman.

Even from a totally rationalized economic point of view i can't understand this as rebuilding an already existing headphone and increase it's price should be more valuable than building a totally new product.

So why is that?

Edit: totally forgot about the MDR-R10 and the HE60.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

Time moves on. When I was a kid we bought stuff and it lasted forever. As I got older, things improved so they don't last very long and you wish they would die even sooner than they do.

In the old days we didn't make much money so we had to buy something reliable that would last forever and never require upgrading. Now that the world is richer and everybody has good jobs and phones get thrown away every 2 years we all have money to burn. Not only that but we don't need wood or metal or leather any more, plastic is cheaper for the guys who make stuff. So we just keep buying the latest crap.

My grandparents had a refrigerator that sat in the utility room near the clothes dryer. It was made of steel and lasted for at least 50 years, probably longer. It never had any problems. The room was about 50 degrees when the dryer was running and 40 or more most of the rest of the time. When you took out a can of soda it was cold enough to burn your hands.

You don't make a sustainable business by making something so well made that nobody ever buys another one. At least not since I was a kid.

Also, I heard some grey haired salesmen in my company say we have to keep pushing out updates or the customers think the products are dead. This is wrong, and it was surprising to hear a grey haired guy say it. But this is what most of the world thinks now. You have to keep putting out updates, you have to come out with new products.

I totally disagree with this. I want the best stuff and that is usually not something new.

 

[kyotousa]

I disagree with the fridge example. First of all most of the modern stuff are chip controlled.
The more advanced product line has more chips, hence more variables of failure.
How does being steel last longer than say plastic? You are not jumping on your fridge.
If you buy dumb down stuff it would just last as long, being full steel model just makes it heavy that no one want to buy.
It's actually a worse product, probably accumulate frost too.

I think the trend has more to do with the margin or the demographic audience.
For example Orpheus probably cost much more to make, hence company would charge more.
However, does it make more money than say HD650? I highly doubt it, so you have to adjust your product line to make more profit.
To the consumer that has the money to spend it's a great product, but it's not a money maker for the company.

 

[descloud]

Even from a totally rationalized economic point of view i can't understand this as rebuilding an already existing headphone and increase it's price should be more valuable than building a totally new product.

It seems Campfire Audio is already ahead in that mentality

But, I would like to contribute some thoughts into a couple of questions you've raised:

old headphones and especially old headphone versions seem to be preferred the vast majority of times over the new ones

This I feel stems from a type of mentality that "older is better", where the ones who started earlier in the hobby have the loudest voices in the community to instill this idea. Not always the case, but I have seen some form of this perspective in comments in different threads/communities.

The only company that seems to improve actually with their new models is Hifiman

Kind of hard to gauge as I've also seen a good number of members who prefer the older rounded Hifimans to the newer ones. Also, not a lot of companies produce/release as many models and revisions as Hifiman does, so this metric of "improves with their newer models" is a little difficult to place. The only latest model I've really heard from Hifiman is the HE-400i 2016 - and I'm not sure if I find it better than the HE-400 OG model. Their driver structure is different - contributing to the difference in acoustics, and tonal preference for that matter.

 

[539465]

because getting your product in front of peoples eyes is much more important than just making the best sounding product full stop
Apple, Bose, Sony - those are name brands if they drop something that is 80th percentile for the price people will trample each other to blow smoke up their you know whats
AKG, Audeze, Focal, Hifiman, Sennheiser, Beyerdynamic - missing a few but if these companies deliver something 80th percentile for the price audiophiles do the same
Anker, Taotronics, Hifiman, Monoprice - again missing a few but chi-fi OR budget buyers if they drop something 80th percentile for the price people yadda yadda

If you are outside the known circle you need to be dropping legit 95th percentile for the price to register on the many forums, toplists, youtuber channels and even then you won't scratch their total sales without name recognition, and even then old products can't be hyped up 10 years after the fact. People want pesky things like discounts or improvements that cost money to the manufacturing process for old goods, besides the fact they are generally unappealing, I mean surely something better has come out it's not like we are still using the wheel X thousand years later, oh wait..... We in America literally had a president who sold his name to major companies for millions, then leveraged that recognition into a show and kept leveraging it until he was freaking president... That is the power of getting your "Whatever" in front of peoples eyes and into their minds, did you know if you look at a persons face more often you will eventually see them as more attractive? Same for all of these companies, that is how Beats by Dre one of the most successful and recognized at it's peak made so much profit with so little to back it. Truth is at this point while you complain there are probably amazing headphones that would revolutionize the industry and break the price mold made by companies you will never hear of that have gone or will go out of business stifled out like a small fire next to a roaring blaze stealing all it's oxygen. The large companies who sell you 80th percentile and say you better be happy have ganged up on the entire world and beaten us to submission until we thank them whenever they throw us scraps. They aren't competing for consumers or competing against those with all talent and no business skills who are their own end, the only thing that registers is upstars who gain attention think companies like Sivga or Goldplanar, even then they don't register as threats, just spend more on adverts and release a product they have kept hidden at a discount or even steal the upstarts designs and sounds.... They don't truly consider focusing solely on releasing better headphone, a great deal is simply making more money by whatever means, an audio business is still a business after all...

You know that old saying it's not what you know it's who you know, well the truth is it's not what you know it's who knows you.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

I disagree with the fridge example. First of all most of the modern stuff are chip controlled.
The more advanced product line has more chips, hence more variables of failure.

So what's the benefit again?

How does being steel last longer than say plastic? You are not jumping on your fridge.

People move their residences. Not so much in my grandparents time but they also moved a few times. Stuff made of steel takes the bangs of being moved, of kids, of things happening. It's just better. You can clean it better too.

If you buy dumb down stuff it would just last as long, being full steel model just makes it heavy that no one want to buy.

Nobody born after 1995 maybe. But even that probably will solved eventually.

It's actually a worse product, probably accumulate frost too.

I don't remember that it did but the best freezers do have to be defrosted. The auto defrost seems like a good idea but that's what causes freezer burn, along with food that isn't packed well enough. The cycling temperatures allow the surface of the food to melt and refreeze many times. That's why commercial freezers don't do this...

There are endless examples of improvements that aren't. So I agree with the point @Deolum made.

 

[Sefelt103]

Well most people in this hobby will have come across (experienced) the OP‘s statement. What some people perhaps a minority of purist type audiophiles might want (me for instance) is for excellent old designs to be improved upon delivering a little more sound quality (objective) and stamping out any minor flaws these excellent designs may have. Headphone companies will have a different set of objectives. Consumers may associate new with better, expensive with better or pretty with better. In some ways old products like old operating systems are something business doesn’t want. So it constantly produces products aimed at audiophiles but not the dyed in the wool ones, to cast their net wider. Initial impressions might be valued more than integrity of balance or purity. Enhanced attack, thicker sounding, bass elevated, large soundscapes with low impedance easy to drive headphones are the fashion today.

 

[Redcarmoose]

They always have to have new models coming out. Yet it’s safe to say there has actually been progress too. The market equals out as it’s supply and demand. Note Drop comes out with many of Sennheiser’s old models. If they are better than the original, it’s debatable. But as far as IEMs many keep coming out better than before. So it is a level of excitement which fuels industry.

Still I do wonder if older models could be refined. The whole HD820 thing was that it IS marketable to have a closed version of the HD800 for various obvious reasons. I feel the K1000 was in a way made improvement with the AKG k701? I did spend time with the AKG K1000 and have mixed feeling about it. Is the newer AKGs better? You have to realize that things change too. Designs seem in some ways to be fashionable to an extent. Even the sound created by these headphones seems to be fashionably in and out of style.

So as is always the case. The old is forgotten and new stuff....is new. Also it truly is questionable if stuff is always better. It is different for sure but better actually way better? I’m not always sure?

Recently I took out a 9 year old DACmagic Plus and hooked it to an Asgard One. The DAC doesn’t do DSD but 16bit/44.1 was sounding great! It really makes you wonder how much stuff has advanced? Also I too have a collection of old, old headphones and it makes you wonder how much better new stuff is in a way? No one talks this way. It is like they make it seem like their are dramatic changes in technology every couple of months, when no way is that true. Obviously some stuff gets better but still much is a question of personal taste what is best.

 

[Guidostrunk]

I disagree with the fridge example. First of all most of the modern stuff are chip controlled.
The more advanced product line has more chips, hence more variables of failure.
How does being steel last longer than say plastic? You are not jumping on your fridge.
If you buy dumb down stuff it would just last as long, being full steel model just makes it heavy that no one want to buy.
It's actually a worse product, probably accumulate frost too.

I think the trend has more to do with the margin or the demographic audience.
For example Orpheus probably cost much more to make, hence company would charge more.
However, does it make more money than say HD650? I highly doubt it, so you have to adjust your product line to make more profit.
To the consumer that has the money to spend it's a great product, but it's not a money maker for the company.

I get his fridge reference. I still have a old 60's Philco refrigerator that was my wife's grandparents. I turned it into a kegerator. I've been through a half a dozen refrigerators over the past 15/20 years and the Philco keeps trucking and my beer is ice cold lol. His point was that they don't make things like they used to. It's a throwaway world we live in now.
Try building a fridge out of plastic and accidentally dropping off a dolly moving it. You will need a new fridge. An old Philco will survive being dropped off the back of a box truck with a few dents and scrapes and will work like new because they're built like tanks.

Take a Pioneer SX- 1980 or 1250 from the 70's and compare the build quality to the stuff made today. It's not even close.

 

[kyotousa]

So what's the benefit again?

Benefit of having chip controlled fridge? All the new feature requires chips, so you can just go to the new Samsung website and see the list of feature.
Apparently you like stuff that has no features and surprisingly not everyone is like you. Apparently most people like new features.

People move their residences. Not so much in my grandparents time but they also moved a few times. Stuff made of steel takes the bangs of being moved, of kids, of things happening. It's just better. You can clean it better too.

How is steel better than plastic again? You do know the outside is still metal right? Only the interior is plastic

Nobody born after 1995 maybe. But even that probably will solved eventually.


I don't remember that it did but the best freezers do have to be defrosted. The auto defrost seems like a good idea but that's what causes freezer burn, along with food that isn't packed well enough. The cycling temperatures allow the surface of the food to melt and refreeze many times. That's why commercial freezers don't do this...

There are endless examples of improvements that aren't. So I agree with the point @Deolum made.

So your point is that you want the things that are made like old time, yet what most people want in a product are those improvements that you don't like.
I guess, you are the lone ranger.

 

[HipHopScribe]

Simply put, companies are making business decisions to improve profits, not catering to the whims of a handful of audiophiles. Just because a headphone develops a cult following doesn't mean it makes the most economic sense for a company to continue producing. In the case of long out of production headphones, it might not even be feasible to bring them back into production. Materials, production methods and tooling might have changed too much.

Also, I suspect there are some examples here that wouldn't be as well regarded if they weren't rare commodities. There's surely a certain amount of "rare = good" mentality that goes on that would no longer bolster the reputations of certain sought after discontinued headphones if they were readily available again.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

Ok but until very late in their history Sennheiser was not putting out mass market crap for gamers and iPhonethusiasts. They were doing pro audio and that spilled over into some of the best and most loved headphones.

When audio is your business it does make sense to preserve the cult following that happened around your headphones. The best proof of that is that Sennheiser didn't do it, and they failed.

 

[HipHopScribe]

Ok but until very late in their history Sennheiser was not putting out mass market crap for gamers and iPhonethusiasts. They were doing pro audio and that spilled over into some of the best and most loved headphones.

When audio is your business it does make sense to preserve the cult following that happened around your headphones. The best proof of that is that Sennheiser didn't do it, and they failed.

By all accounts Sennheiser's pro audio business is still doing well. They're looking for a partnership for their consumer audio business (their "mass market crap" as you put it).

 

[gimmeheadroom]

By all accounts Sennheiser's pro audio business is still doing well. They're looking for a partnership for their consumer audio business (their "mass market crap" as you put it).

Their pro audio business is not what it used to be. Now pro audio seems to mean conferencing. In the old days of Sennheiser it meant studio and PA/sound reinforcement (for music, rather than speech) plus broadcast and aeronautics. And yeah, the mass market crap didn't work out and they should have dumped it. The only problem is where the line is drawn. In the old days, the good headphones would have remained in the pro line and the bluetooth, IEMs, gaming headsets would have been considered consumer.

Now it looks like they're throwing out the baby with the bathwater. If so, if they jettison the hifi headphone products with the consumer junk, I predict Sennheiser as a brand will be gone from the world within 5 years.

 

[kman1211]

Their pro audio business is not what it used to be. Now pro audio seems to mean conferencing. In the old days of Sennheiser it meant studio and PA/sound reinforcement (for music, rather than speech) plus broadcast and aeronautics. And yeah, the mass market crap didn't work out and they should have dumped it. The only problem is where the line is drawn. In the old days, the good headphones would have remained in the pro line and the bluetooth, IEMs, gaming headsets would have been considered consumer.

Now it looks like they're throwing out the baby with the bathwater. If so, if they jettison the hifi headphone products with the consumer junk, I predict Sennheiser as a brand will be gone from the world within 5 years.

I am worried about that too. Sadly it’s a wait and see situation. It’s sad because Sennheiser is one of my favorite headphone manufacturers. If that happens they’ll probably be making the HD 6xx series for a while after but I worry if we’ll see anything truly new on the high end side from them. We already essentially lost AKG outside the name, losing Sennheiser will be a big blow to this hobby. The market has grown and changed and they seem to be a victim of it.

Time moves on. When I was a kid we bought stuff and it lasted forever. As I got older, things improved so they don't last very long and you wish they would die even sooner than they do.

In the old days we didn't make much money so we had to buy something reliable that would last forever and never require upgrading. Now that the world is richer and everybody has good jobs and phones get thrown away every 2 years we all have money to burn. Not only that but we don't need wood or metal or leather any more, plastic is cheaper for the guys who make stuff. So we just keep buying the latest crap.

My grandparents had a refrigerator that sat in the utility room near the clothes dryer. It was made of steel and lasted for at least 50 years, probably longer. It never had any problems. The room was about 50 degrees when the dryer was running and 40 or more most of the rest of the time. When you took out a can of soda it was cold enough to burn your hands.

You don't make a sustainable business by making something so well made that nobody ever buys another one. At least not since I was a kid.

Also, I heard some grey haired salesmen in my company say we have to keep pushing out updates or the customers think the products are dead. This is wrong, and it was surprising to hear a grey haired guy say it. But this is what most of the world thinks now. You have to keep putting out updates, you have to come out with new products.

I totally disagree with this. I want the best stuff and that is usually not something new.

Yep that’s modern consumerism and planned obsolescence. It’s also things are more complicated and not always to the real benefit of the product. Many products were made sturdier in the past and more reliable, some of the worst offenders would have to be appliances, the new stuff breaks so often and the old stuff just seems to last forever. Things were also easier to repair; even if the old product isn’t as reliable it’s still often easier/cheaper to fix. Now they sometimes purposely make it more difficult to repair and/or it’s so tech laden it’s hard to repair. Definitely also a materials difference a lot of times, newer materials are often lighter, more brittle, and also cheaper feeling. Part of inflation is cheapening of materials.

I have found some of the old headphone drivers are just as good as modern ones, sometimes better. A little bit of tweaking of the housing, pads, replacing old cables, etc. can make them sound more like a modern headphone.