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.
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.
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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!
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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.
