New Chifiman Playnar Flagship Unveiled!

Discussion in 'Headphones' started by OJneg, Jan 5, 2017.

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  1. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    The other possibility is that Jude understands the limits of his obi-wan power. Seriously, it looking more and more like a Louis XIV situation there. Him going out and going full swing for a $6k flagship when the $3k flagship looked no better than @nerdling's DIY stat could trigger the end of his reign.
     
    Last edited: Jan 17, 2017
  2. TonyNewman

    TonyNewman Validated by Tyll removing Utopia from WOF

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    HFM are still listed as a Premium Insider on the sponsor's page, so this is odd. Maybe the HEadFi Thought Police and Sponsor Protection Hit Squad are taking a day off?
     
  3. SSL

    SSL Friend

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    Does Jude usually do videos on as yet unreleased products?
     
  4. FallingObjects

    FallingObjects Pay It Forward

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    Given his habit of skipping press embargoes... Technically, many.
     
  5. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

    Pyrate Slaytanic Cliff Clavin
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    Premium aluminum construction, premium sound, and premium brewed with triple hops for six thousand dollars. Unlike Miller Lite, you can't even chug this to rehydrate.

    The problem with these new thousand dollar plus planar and electrostat "flagships" is you're not even paying extra for that one to five percent more performance as you are in buying the top of line Intel CPU for three times as much as the next one down when the one four places down is one-sixth the price and gets the job done. No, you are paying just for audio jewelry that's not actually better at all than something that costs 200-700 bucks; these flagships usually are worse and break with the exception of the Focal Utopia which is a real 3% upgrade or so for someone that loves the current HD 600, not the 650. I didn't think the HE-1000 was in anyway really better than the Sony MA-900. If someone really wants the planar experience, they could just get Magnepan speakers with better tonality and the same wall of sound for much cheaper.

    Electrostats are similarly specal and for special people but with that special market it's more of a case of everything below the Koss ESP950 in MSRP sounding like total ass for whatever reason.
     
  6. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Playnar is mostly used by our Audio Ayatollah friend @OJneg. Of course the Ayatollah moniker is ironic because he's Persian and his family escaped Iran to avoid being executed by the Ayatollah's goons. Chi-Fi is probably more iffy. I believe we've established that "Ching Chong" is not cool, and that perhaps "City Chicken" is better.

    Chi-Fi isn't used across the board for all Chinese products. The Holo DAC was very solid and in the minds of many who have heard it, the last that thing comes to mind is "Chi-Fi". Same thing with Auralic. They have their house sound with Vega DAC and Taurus amps, but one does not think "Chi-Fi". Audio-GD is bordering on Chi-Fi, mainly because Kingwa has kept crying wolf that his PCM1704 DACs are going to be discontinued every year for the past six or seven years.

    Besides, lots and lots of Chinese people here. I'm ethnically Chinese myself. Chinese people don't worry about shit like that. Chinese call foreigners lao wai which has super complex connotations given the root words and their homonyms, but ultimately the meaning is derived from context (but you never know, hahaha.) Heck, even Hakka (sort of like Chinese Jews) are colloquially referred to as "Guest People". Can't get worse than that if using Western mindset and standards.

    So yeah, it's context.

    At least Chi-Fi shows prejudice rather than trying to pretend it isn't there. This is a lot better than Hollywood trying to be all politically correct and all, but then coming out with a movie where Xerxes is portrayed as a flaming homosexual with ring piercings all over his face.
     
    Last edited: Jan 17, 2017
  7. Wfojas

    Wfojas Friend

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    Or Oppo. Chi Fi is more chintzy fi, than Chinese fi, in my mind. We can say Chi Fi cause we're asian? Like niggah among blacks. Its true.

    And lao wai in Filipino is saliva, phonetically.
     
  8. Armaegis

    Armaegis Friend

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    A buncha gwai lo honkees is what y'all are...
     
  9. TonyNewman

    TonyNewman Validated by Tyll removing Utopia from WOF

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    My Cantonese speaking buddies sometimes refer to Europeans as 'Gweilo' or 'Roundeye'...etc. It's in fun and amongst friends. It's all about the context, not the words.

    EDIT - beat me to it with the Gwai Lo reference.
     
  10. zerodeefex

    zerodeefex SBAF's Imelda Marcos

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    I know a few people who know Fang and they have all said the pricing is due to insecurity. He saw focal price their Flagship at $4,000 and he thought no one will think my headphones are any good unless I price them at $6,000. He literally does not have a rule of thumb for bill of materials to MSRP ratio.
     
  11. aufmerksam

    aufmerksam Friend

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    That rings true, except he has to be aware of every product release and the correlation between price increases and criticism about shitty materials. I would love to know sales numbers and whether targeting the GUTB market segment actually yields significant success compared to the strategy they had with HE-500, HE-400, and HE-6.
     
    Last edited: Jan 7, 2017
  12. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

    Pyrate Slaytanic Cliff Clavin
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    Play-NAR isn't even from OJ. It's from @Bagged Milk saying "planar" in his Northern Midwestern, Fargo the movie, Dakota/Minnesota/Wisconsin accent.

    Chi-fi refers to more deliberate lo-fi please the masses with bread and circuses design philosophy of FiiO, AGD, Hifiman and the Matrix M-Stage products rather than trying to make something sound as accurate as possible like Schiit. Usually these Chinese products are bassy with a similar smoothed over tone that imparts itself on other gear and recordings similar to American "Chinese" restaurants drenching everything in high-fructose corn syrup based sauces thickened with cornstarch.
     
  13. GettingBuckets

    GettingBuckets Almost "Made"

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    Little bit late to the party but what the damn hell? 6000 friggin dollars?

    [​IMG]

    Well, like anything, I guess companies will keep shoving higher priced stuff in our faces if people keep buying it.
     
  14. OJneg

    OJneg The Most Insufferable

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    You've been reported to the ACLU and Southern Poverty Law Center.
     
  15. Armaegis

    Armaegis Friend

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    I could switch to Canadian and just call you guys hosers :p
     
  16. thegunner100

    thegunner100 Hentai Master Chief

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    I don't blame him. That's how a lot of Chinese people think: More expensive is better. Same with buying cognac, as I've been told by my uncle. Buying someone a cheap V.S cognac is a sign of disrespect apparently.
     
  17. pippenainteasy

    pippenainteasy Acquaintance

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    Focal definitely innovated by introducing beryllium into the headphone space. The next step is a diamond driver. I think the highest end loudspeaker drivers (ribbons) will never actually be employed in headphones because the top ribbons (from RAAL or Raidho) have ginormous magnets, so it'll be simultaneously too heavy and possibly a health hazard to wear long term.
     
  18. pippenainteasy

    pippenainteasy Acquaintance

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    Seems kinda pointless since you can just ship the product disassembled, call it raw materials, and just pay someone to reassemble it in the U.S. to avoid the tariff.
     
  19. FallingObjects

    FallingObjects Pay It Forward

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    Drivers? Everybody knows the next step is to skip straight to magnets powerful enough to mess with the electronic signals in your brain to just synthesize the sounds directly into your consciousness.
     
  20. Riotvan

    Riotvan Snoofer in the Woofer

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    Maybe i've been playing too much Deus ex but i can just imagine people upgrading their hearing by making neural upgrade modules that hook up straight into your brain. Hearing loss? Not a problem! Just make sure you don't replace the fuse with an audiophool version or you might get a seizure, this includes using tin foil to bypass it.
     
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