[Dillan]

Am I the only one around here that is fed up with the evolution of headphone pricing and marketing? We are shooting ourselves in the feet by being blind, ignorant buyers and thinkers. We aren't looking at the technical, tangible aspects of these products anymore and instead just looking at the price tag and letting our wallets and bias control us. I have personally just recently come to the conclusion that if a company obviously and irrationally overcharges for their products (at any point in their product line, but usually this is done at the very flagship level) then I am not going to buy any of their products whatsoever anymore. Companies like Schiit create excellent gear at an understandable price, because they don't hire marketers that whisper in their ear to charge to the extreme because it makes the company and the product look like "the best". Ever notice how when Jude on head-fi or even sites like CNET - when reviewing a product its always "the best" when it costs the most. Also every review video is very positive of the product if they sponsor the site or an event.
 
Obviously people in this thread are less guilty, but its like everyone just wants the cost of things to go up. A/B testing, double blind testing and the mention of pricing is highly discouraged in every thread and even banned in most cases. How laughable is that? We should instead be encouraged to promote price for performance and blind testing. Audio is very subjective and it makes me sick that its universally accepted that the most expensive things are the best - the new Orpheus cost what, $60,000? The new MSB system at Canjam London is $144,000? Someone in that very thread said the markup just for vendors was 50% and then take into account the build cost is about roughly a few hundred dollars and you get a product that everyone's going crazy with joy about that has one of the largest markups ever seen in the headphone industry and nobody is allowed to talk about it. If their R&D upsale of each individual product is well over a hundred thousand dollars then I need to get into audio engineering, because their time is statistically worth more than the most sought after jobs in the world. Its been mentioned that Sennheiser spent more time developing the HD800 than they did with the new $60,000 orpheus. However Sennheiser has well funded marketing that knows in this hobby, people use money as a means of comparing whats good and bad, because our brains aren't developed enough to think beyond the bias, pricing and marketing that goes on as well as one of the major portals of discussion and research (head-fi) which discourages blind testing and price discussion. Every time I have seen it being brought up in fact.. a mod steps in to warn, ban or delete it.
 
Sorry for the rant, but its very disheartening and we are literally hurting ourselves by this type of behavior. People are amazed and starry eyed when seeing these products with incredibly high price tags and automatically assume its the best thing ever. So when you put them on you have this assumption that its amazing so guess what, people think it is. Would they be that amazed if they were told it cost a few hundred dollars, or even just simply blind tested it first?
 
No. They wouldnt.
 
Anyway here is the post and the message that lead me here. Thanks for letting me rant.
 

  wow  $145K buying your headphones after that would seem like pennies.

Im afraid it will only get worse. It's not as much about sound quality anymore as it is about money and marketing. Ever notice how it's always an "upgrade" when spending more money? These guys noticed

Have you heard it? Like I said in my post (and as @musicman59 said in his), it's an amazing system to listen to. Would I spend that kind of money on a headphone system, in any circumstance (certainly not in my reality, and likely not even in fantasy)? Probably not.

I hope companies keep making hypercars, too, even though my current reality is a Honda Fit. It's not like if I choose to upgrade my car, the only place to go from my Fit is a Porsche 918.

Very soon, we'll be returning this system to MSB. The next time I'll get to hear it will be for a limited time at CanJam London, and I'll make sure to take that opportunity to do so. After that, I'll likely never hear it again outside of shows--and I'll still thrill to my favorite systems here, including another Stax rig that can't match the MSB setup for resolution, but remains the best system we have here (and was the best Stax rig I'd heard up until now).

Many go to auto shows to see the stuff they'll never buy, or be able to afford to buy. I drive a Fit every day, but even I won't go to the North American International Auto Show (which takes place just 25 minutes away every year) just to see the latest version of the Fit.

That this system and the Sennheiser HE-1 Orpheus will be in the same building at the same time...that's cool. I don't need to be able to afford them to appreciate how groovy this is.

 
Then below is my reply in the thread that was deleted almost instantly by Jude and I was sent a PM by him as well.
 
------------------------------------------------------------

Quote:

I definitely appreciate the fact that both the Orpheus and the MSB are priced really high. Their marketing is extremely respectable for sure. Going out on a limb here and guessing if people blind listened without knowing the price then they probably would have different (and less impressive) reactions. Do you think if you told people it cost $3000 they would say it was a bargain? Probably not.. And I guarantee the general consensus would be that it wasn't as good as combos that cost more than it. Instead it has an unheard of price tag so it's automatically "the best".

Just my two cents but audiophiles and religion have much in common. I'm sure the system is cool, I'd buy one if I thought it was worth it. Not to derail the thread, I look forward to more impressions!

 
--------------------------------------------------------------
 
Followed by his PM and deletion, a quote from Jude: "The moment you start getting into blind testing and/or the religion analogy, the appropriate place is in the Sound Science forum. You can start a thread in there, and (if you'd like) quote my post that you responded to."
 
So that is what I did.
 
I love the community and I love the hobby, but we are slowly buying our way out of sanity and reason and it's turned us into a joke. The fact that we openly have the theme of "Welcome to Head-Fi, sorry about your wallet" - kind of explains it all. Our sound science forum is dead and people on the outside view audiophiles as brainless snake-oil buying jokes and audio manufacturers see us as dollar signs.
 
Am I just going crazy here? I never hear anyone talking about blind testing anymore and things that used to be discouraged such as expensive cable upgrades, overpriced items etc are now highly encouraged. I have literally watched the community slowly decline in promoting technology and reason over the last 5 to 10 years and prices are jumping up and outsiders respect of us is almost non existent at this point.
 
I have been just as guilty in the past, but I have always been aware of my bias and overpaying for items and part of it was just for the appeal of exclusivity and viewing some of the products as more "art" than real audio enjoyment. My HD800's were less enjoyable than my $60 Grado, but guess which one I felt most proud to tell people about?
 
Perhaps its time for me to move on, its a pity.

 

[krismusic]

Hi Dillan. I hear you brother! However, I think you are conflating several different things that do not necessarily belong together.
I am slightly sceptical about the MSB system. I'm looking forward to hearing it but it may well be an attempt to break a price point for marketing purposes. I don't know.
When I first read of the original Sennheiser Orpheus,it was presented as a cost no object attempt to achieve the absolute pinnacle of audio perfection as an excersise rather than a serious attempt to sell to customers with deep pockets. I like that approach.
Eventually I was lucky enough to hear the Orpheus a couple of years ago. It had an air of reverence about it and I enjoyed hearing it. However, I much preferred the HD800 system and figured that showed how much things had moved on on 20 years.
This year I hope to hear the HE1 and I hope that will up the game once again.
Regarding mark up. Almost everything you buy goes through the same process. 100% mark up. It's the way retail works. So yes. It's sobering to realise that something you pay £1000 is in reality worth £500 and the value of the components or materials is even less. Hey ho!
As for people on here. It exasperates me how many people do not allow for new toy syndrome. Expectation bias and placebo.
The claim of "night and day" differences is enough to put me on my guard.
Apart from headphones. The differences between electronics is small IME
I am sick to death of products that promise the moon on a stick and don't even deliver the stick!
For me however, this does not ruin the hobby for me but I would never buy anything without hearing it and I approach purchase as cynically as possible.
I remain interested to hear products that create excitement on here but I make my own mind up.
One last thing. I think blind testing is a very useful tool but not the be all and end all. Some attributes may take time for the listener to become aware of?
With all "improvements" the acid test for me is if they enhance my enjoyment of music over a period of time.

 

[Dillan]

krismusic thanks for the reply, certainly some great points. I definitely look forward to your impressions. I know some people have said they enjoy their Stax setup more than the HE1 so it will be interesting to hear the impressions from can jam. A very smart thing you said about auditioning before you buy and if that's possible then I HIGHLY recommend it to everyone. I've noticed that my hearing preference and opinion differs greatly than most people's so I have came to rely on myself and only myself.

Thanks again for the reply, have a great event, wish I could make it!

 

[U-3C]

Welp, I've spent enough money to learn to be on guard when I hear "night and day," especially when about products that should not sound different (as in, products like the O2 that should not sound different by design no matter who makes it).

Going from a pair of Skullcandy iems to a pair is apple iems was the only "night and day" difference I have ever experienced. Going from apple to Audio Technica AD900X, as well as the Q701 with a CEntrance dacport slim really wasn't that much of an improvement for me. I was so underwhelmed I went to test my friends with my system. Some claim to be reluctant to even pay 20 dollars for the setup. One person, who also has a headphone hobby and recognized the setup, however, was super excited and claimed to hear much more details with higher resolution files. She couldn't prove any difference in the 5 blind tests she volunteered to do, which really surprised her.

Go audiophilia~

\( ^_^)/

 

[reginalb]

EDIT: Missed the part that earned the deletion from @jude, so I'll take out my original criticism. You can see in cel's post below where my reading ability seemed to fail me for a few minutes. Sorry about that. 
 

Companies like Schiit create excellent gear at an understandable price, because they don't hire marketers that whisper in their ear to charge to the extreme because it makes the company and the product look like "the best".

 
Have to disagree here. The Fulla is a dec little guy at a great price, but Jason Stoddard is a marketer. A skilled one, too. Having a big marketing thread that people love and just view it as him telling it like it is, when it's just a very long advertisement. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, to be honest, it's better than the marketing that a lot of these places run, and some of my best friends are marketers! But marketing is what he does on here. I love that he even once said something to the effect that there is evidence that amps sound different, but not DAC's. He also has a whole post on how overpriced a lot of audio gear is. This is also a guy that sells a $2300 DAC, not even a DAC/Amp, just a DAC. 

 

[cel4145]

The fact that
your thread gets deleted is just infuriating. @jude  has no problem, clearly, allowing the post on the site, you just better make sure it's in a backwater thread. There is no reason that post should have been deleted. Pretty shameful to be honest. I do blame this site for my having spent money on things that were a complete waste in my past. 

I think Head-Fi mods and Jude tend to also be more tolerant when posts that mention blind testing aren't intolerant of others and say things like

Instead it has an unheard of price tag so it's automatically "the best".
Just my two cents but audiophiles and religion have much in common.

Some members would find that insulting.

 

[reginalb]

I think Head-Fi mods and Jude tend to also be more tolerant when posts that mention blind testing aren't intolerant of others and say things like
Some members would find that insulting.

 
Ah, thanks, I managed to breeze over that in my first read through. That would be insulting (accuracy notwithstanding) to a lot of people here. 

 

[cel4145]

Ah, thanks, I managed to breeze over that in my first read through. That would be insulting (accuracy notwithstanding) to a lot of people here. 

Yep. And then someone else will go off on that. And then the website has a flame war with no one listening to each other any more. It's like what is the point anyway then of even bringing it up.

 

[Dillan]

  The fact that
 
 
your thread gets deleted is just infuriating. @jude has no problem, clearly, allowing the post on the site, you just better make sure it's in a backwater thread. There is no reason that post should have been deleted. Pretty shameful to be honest. I do blame this site for my having spent money on things that were a complete waste in my past. 
 
 
Have to disagree here. The Fulla is a dec little guy at a great price, but Jason Stoddard is a marketer. A skilled one, too. Having a big marketing thread that people love and just view it as him telling it like it is, when it's just a very long advertisement. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, to be honest, it's better than the marketing that a lot of these places run, and some of my best friends are marketers! But marketing is what he does on here. I love that he even once said something to the effect that there is evidence that amps sound different, but not DAC's. He also has a whole post on how overpriced a lot of audio gear is. This is also a guy that sells a $2300 DAC, not even a DAC/Amp, just a DAC. 

I can't argue with your post at all. Thank you for the reply and your mindset is most welcome here. I feel like it would be a great thing to discourage product makers from creating snake oil or overpriced nonsense or at the very least I wish we were allowed to voice our criticisms more openly and hopefully inform newcomers to the hobby that "price doesn't always equal performance" (this saying being super extra extra true in the audiophile world). My posts have been deleted quite a few times for being blunt and honest instead of just blindly believing the hype. To their defense I do go off topic and have a tendency to rant, so I don't really blame them for that - but I do blame them when they specifically point out the things I spoke about such as encouraging technology and science, blind testing and price breakdown/criticism and banning that specifically.
 
I have always wanted to break down the technical aspects and build materials/quality of these unimaginably priced devices, but nobody is ever open to comparing the $2000 dac to the $100,000 dac.. other than to say how much better the higher priced is, because it just has to be better right? I can understand a supercar with much much higher build cost AND tangible real evidence of its performance in horsepower, track times, features etc costing over six figures.. but a little aluminum box with a circuit board inside or a pair of headphones that some pretentious company builds and charges the same price as the supercar with no available technical or scientific reason as to why the cost is so high is honestly ridiculous and they should be ashamed and anyone who pretends to hear the "incredible night and day difference" should be laughed at. People like that ruin the hobby and are the reason our motto is "sorry about your wallet". Well if we weren't completely bias inspired and discouraged from science, technology and double blind testing then that motto wouldn't exist.
 
It literally all boils down to sound being subjective and hard to prove/measure. So companies take advantage of that and of the people they sell their products to. But if you're blind (or deaf) enough to buy it, then we should only pity you and try to inform the next victim and then just move along.

 

[Dillan]

Yep. And then someone else will go off on that. And then the website has a flame war with no one listening to each other any more. It's like what is the point anyway then of even bringing it up.

I agree the religion bit was crossing the line - but many other times my posts have been deleted because I chose to bring up or challenge the reasons behind pricing of a certain item as well as asking the technical comparisons versus other devices and especially when I bring up double blind or A/B testing. That sort of speak is apparently banned outside of our dead sound science section which is actually extremely harmful to the community. Literally it drags us down as a whole to not only discourage it, but ban it.

 

[RRod]

Some members would find that insulting.

 
[rant not directed at you, cel, you cool]
 
:stephenfry_offended.jpg:
 
There is so much stuff that IS basically religion on this site that the comparison is apt. Did you know that a headphone that is actually not that hard to drive and is low in distortion needs a really expensive amp/DAC that is specifically chosen for the user because synergy? If you look up the HD800 on this site, that's the stuff you'll get, rather than "just use a bit of EQ to get the sound you want." It's funny that a single off-hand snark remark gets a whole missive from the admins, but encouraging people to spend past their budgets is just cool because, hey, "sorry about your wallet." Well some of us find THAT insulting, and we get sent here to Molokai.

 

[Dillan]

   
[rant not directed at you, cel, you cool]
 
:stephenfry_offended.jpg:
 
There is so much stuff that IS basically religion on this site that the comparison is apt. Did you know that a headphone that is actually not that hard to drive and is low in distortion needs a really expensive amp/DAC that is specifically chosen for the user because synergy? If you look up the HD800 on this site, that's the stuff you'll get, rather than "just use a bit of EQ to get the sound you want." It's funny that a single off-hand snark remark gets a whole missive from the admins, but encouraging people to spend past their budgets is just cool because, hey, "sorry about your wallet." Well some of us find THAT insulting, and we get sent here to Molokai.

Literally couldn't agree with this anymore. I should put that in my signature or something.

 

[cel4145]

I agree the religion bit was crossing the line - but many other times my posts have been deleted because I chose to bring up or challenge the reasons behind pricing of a certain item as well as asking the technical comparisons versus other devices and especially when I bring up double blind or A/B testing. That sort of speak is apparently banned outside of our dead sound science section which is actually extremely harmful to the community. Literally it drags us down as a whole to not only discourage it, but ban it.

Well, it could be the approach or tone of what you said in other circumstances as well. After all, you did miss that the "religion" bit as reasonably something mods might remove to discourage flame wars. Missed it enough not only to write it to being with, but to quote it again here and tag Jude on it. (lol)

So as an "objectivist" I'd want to see the actual examples and situations before I could agree with you.

 

[cel4145]

[rant not directed at you, cel, you cool]

:stephenfry_offended.jpg:

There is so much stuff that IS basically religion on this site that the comparison is apt. Did you know that a headphone that is actually not that hard to drive and is low in distortion needs a really expensive amp/DAC that is specifically chosen for the user because synergy? If you look up the HD800 on this site, that's the stuff you'll get, rather than "just use a bit of EQ to get the sound you want." It's funny that a single off-hand snark remark gets a whole missive from the admins, but encouraging people to spend past their budgets is just cool because, hey, "sorry about your wallet." Well some of us find THAT insulting, and we get sent here to Molokai.

The whole synergy thing can be questioned even from a subjectivist perspective. Most people on Head-Fi would probably agree that it can be difficult to get agreement on how different headphones sound in comparison to each other because of how subjective that is. Then the idea that there is shared agreement about the minute difference in amps and dacs (if one accepts that difference exists) can make with a headphone is fairly illogical.

 

[RRod]

The whole synergy thing can be questioned even from a subjectivist perspective. Most people on Head-Fi would probably agree that it can be difficult to get agreement on how different headphones sound in comparison to each other because of how subjective that is. Then the idea that there is shared agreement about the minute difference in amps and dacs (if one accepts that difference exists) can make with a headphone is fairly illogical.

 
The thing is that agreement can happen simply by bandwagon effects, but that is another thing that if brought up would get you outcast. As far as the flame-war element brought up previously, my feeling is that 1000+ page threads can deal with the occasional 2-4 page reminder of the existence of other ways to handle this "good sound" business. That being said, people would do better to help out the newbie posts rather than hop into the Schiit thread.