Fostex X Massdrop TH-X00

Prepare your wallets folks, drop's making landfall tomorrow. 1000 units, drop starts at 9am EST 6am PST Tuesday the 26th, shipping by May 8th

Yup, that's May 8th, four months from now.

Preemptive Q/A:

Q: Shipping by May 8th, WTF?! Massdrop had tons of time between now and the previous drop to plan, what gives, why aren't these ready to ship like last time?

Short Answer: Great question! It's a really hard time of year to have things produced, this is the soonest we can promise a delivery date with confidence.

Long Answer: After the success of the first drop, we immediately reached out to Fostex to see when we could schedule the next drop. Sadly, it turns out that December and January are impossible months to find manufacturing capacity. Factories manage their staff the same way retail stores do. They have a manufacturing schedule (months of orders, placed many months in advance) they need to hit, and they staff accordingly.

After the Christmas manufacturing rush (August through November) is over, factories staff down, people go on vacation, etc. When the first drop finished and we reached out... nobody had capacity, staffing was down and the factories were only producing enough to meet their pre-defined plans.

Then there's Chinese New Year, which is essentially a mandatory two week vacation for all Chinese manufacturing employees, which ends with sizable factory turn over (new year, new job, decent link: http://www.thesourcingblog.com/effects-of-the-chinese-new-year-on-manufacturing-part-1/) and additional delays to production plans.

Believe me when I say, if we could have these delivered sooner, we would, and I'd replace my office chair with a Fostex based version of the Iron Throne, but alas, May 8th is the soonest we can promise, and even that's a bit of a risk (boat could hit a typhoon, get pirated, w/e).

Q: Alright that's a reasonable explanation, but why 1000 instead of 2000 or 5000!? You guys know it's going to sell out, look at the last drop, how are we supposed to get any?

A: We've capped the drop at 1000 units because that's how many are available to be produced, once they sell out, we'll take all possible steps to increase the available quantities. As mentioned above, production capacity is hard to secure right now.

Glad to answer any other questions, I'll be around this thread tonight and tomorrow morning.

In the meantime, tend to your posts and man the harpoons, we sail at dawn.

 

After hearing so many good things about the first round, I'm going to give these a try.

 

@Will Is there any chance of there being TH-X00s with the new detachable cables? That would be a great upgrade to have on the second run.

 

If anyone is desperate for a pair they could buy mine for a small fee *wrings hands menacingly*

 

I just ordered a pair. I liked what I heard at the last meet from the little Schiit stack.

 

@Will I know that it's probably unlikely to disclose any insider information, but by your prospect, do you think we could be seeing more of these at least on a yearly basis ? Are the staff over at Fostex happy with these sales so far? Taking that aside thank you very much for sharing such information with the community beforehand !

 

Just under 750 "Fostex x Massdrop TH-X00 Headphones" purchased in the first 24 hours, out of a run of a thousand. I'm in for two (having missed finding out about the first drop by a few days).

 

anybody was able to compare these with the nad hp50?

cheers,

 

@Gray As cinephiles would say, "in the nick of time" ! Will mentioned this run will be limited to 1000 pieces iirc. And since I've already created a habit out of asking this, don't hesitate to leave us some impressions once you get your hands on them .

 

I got in on this one, too! I'll compare them to my Denon AH-D7000, which were some of the last ones before being discontinued. So they're supposedly as neutral as the D7000 got during its run.

I do love those headphones, but the mids are so smooth and liquid that I've always wished they were a little more prominent, with the treble reduced a bit.

 

I heard Jason's pair at the recent OC meet and loved them. To me they're a lot of fun to listen. As soon as I received notice that they were going to do another drop, I ordered mine immediately at 6am when the drop started to ensure I don't miss out. There was 38 orders already! Can wait to get them. I told several friends about them and they ordered too!

 

"Beats" for "audiophiles", just need to ramp up production and let everyone enjoy a "golden schlong".

 

Couldn't have said it any better.