Klipsch Heritage HP-3 Headphones Preview

I don't know who can make them, but if you find a place who will let you send them the wood and CNC it for you, I know plenty of good spots to get the wood.

http://www.bellforestproducts.com/bowl-blanks/
http://www.bellforestproducts.com/hand-pick/view/39244/?b=
https://www.cookwoods.com/wood-by-shape/turning/bowl-blanks?limit=24
https://www.tehwoods.com/wood-shop/wood-turning/bowl-turning-blanks
Keim lumber, Clarks hardwood, and so on.

I'd probably ensure the CNC crew knew a few things about wood before I sent them a couple hundred dollars worth of blanks. Some wood is high in silica, so it dulls the crap out of bits quickly. You have to use a carbide bit on those to avoid tearout. Other woods are brittle when you go against the grain... you get the picture.

Some woods I just wouldn't use. If all I were interested in was the sound, I'd stick with typical luthier tonewoods - mahogany, maple, rosewoods, and the like.

 

Thanks for the links @Elnrik. This might be an interesting project for me to pursue. Maybe we could get a wood machinist to do a group buy of rough cups and then do the sanding, staining and sealing ourselves.

Edit: Custom wood machining is less expensive than I thought it would be. @musiqlovr ... Any way we could get the dimensions or 3D model of the HP3 cups to do our own? It just seems like it would fit with the whole craft made vibe you are going for. I'm imagining the possibilities.

 

I'd be down for that. I enjoy finishing wood. Not sure it's in my budget at the moment though. =(

Shaping the wood can be nerve wracking. One slip of the chisel... although I do enjoy the attention to detail.

 

Or the price...

 

I've owned 2 Lawton Cans both second hand and I was very impressed with both. I had a cocobolo on my D2k and some kind of African wood on my LA D5k, looks good in person and in pictures, but they were from his "most expensive" museum grade collection. Still at around $500 a pop for a second hand modded LA DX00 I still want another in my collection

 

Forget Lawton, we could build these cups for much cheaper I'm sure.

 

That sucks... I never got a hold of his Modded TH X900, either way though with the Atticus and D7200 on the Market, outside of collectors like my self I don't see a huge market for the Modded Legacy Denons, so that said hopefully Lawton will continue to improve his wood work! Though he has to compete with @zach915m customer service

Honestly though, I'd love to have a FLO Collections, so long as it's built well I can reStain it! I don't mind ugly wood [and apparently neither does the wife ]

 

The Headfi thread for these totally went to shit. Sorry you had to deal with that @musiqlovr.

 

Can you summarize? I don't like going to that site to read things.

 

Some guy was claiming that the HP-3 cost $200 to make and that he didn't want to support a headphone manufacture who had their headphones made in China. Pretty stupid considering nearly everything has some piece or mold made in China.

This went on and on and got old really fast. Even Jude came in and culled a bunch of posts.

 

Edit: @cskippy summed it up.

The best part was when this nut claimed it was all put together with off the shelf parts and that Fostex would sell an identical model in a few months for $250. This crap went on for 3 pages almost before Jude rolled in and deleted a good chunk of it.

Also, I'm definitely on some kind of watch list over at Headfi. You don't even need to link to or explicitly mention SBAF to get your posts deleted. When the shit was hitting the fan in the Klipsch thread, I told this prick that he could find a glowing review of the beta HP3 on another site if he googled for it. Sure enough, a minute later, I got the usual PM about not mentioning SBAF and a warning that I would be banned if I did it again. They did the same thing when I mentioned "the other site" in a separate thread the other day. You can't even hint at SBAF existing now. Totally nuts.

 

So, a troll said dumb things on HF and it spiraled out of control until Jude waved his censorship wand and made it all not happen. This is my shocked face.

: |

 

So, when is the hp-3 coming to market? Is there a set date yet? I don't really like the name, but I guess it doesn't matter much if the headphone is great.

 

Based on the posts I am sure it will sound great on that Kenzie of yours. I think it is a smart move to make the price 1k as well. I hope it's ready before Christmas and the US doesn't get the short end of the pre-order stick. Where is Klipsch based out of?

 

US.

That material cost estimate is about appropriate for a 1k commercially brick and mortar available earphone. Not wrong, but I'd be surprised if most (reasonably priced) headphones out don't have a similar ratio. Those that don't probably cost even smaller fractions of the retail (something something 6000). Strange thing to get mad about.

 

Agreed on the Kenzie match. Should be a great pairing.

 

I think what got @musiqlovr upset was the fact that the poster called Klipsch the quintessential "greedy American company," clobbering together a headphone from standard OEM parts with little to no R&D required, minimizing costs by manufacturing in China, and charging high prices just to make a huge profit, ignoring the cost of R&D, employee salaries, and economies of scale (the poster was trying to apply car manufacturing principles and profit margins to headphones, completely missing the differing orders of magnitude difference between the production quantities of these two products). As @musiqlovr has shown that this is a product he is very proud of and has devoted a lot of time and passion to, I can definitely see how he would be quite upset with someone accusing him and his company of making a quick cash grab.

 

Thanks. I’m not standing down.

I do not get how people who have never seen, heard or touched something can say such nonesense.