I'm definitely not happy with the ridiculous prices of gear nowadays, makes me happy to stay mid-fi indefinitely, but if it's genuinely good and not hype (check back in a year and a half), then I'm just as excited to see what this does for the headphone industry moving forward. As far as I can tell the tech is still novel, and there's room to trickle down so even more mortal mortals can afford head ribbons.
Also I apparently have a TMJ disorder, which might explain the occasional ear stuffiness and the fact that I snore like a dead bear (shush the analogy makes sense to me). Guess it's back to plastic mouth.
I’ve accepted that pricing in audio is a joke, and a bad one at that. But moaning about it just creates noise. The only thing that’ll ever effect change is people voting with their wallets.
Which isn’t going to happen anytime soon. That’s life, so be pragamtic, and deal with it.
I’ll make a exception for that line of Abyss headphones! On top of being the most egregious in performance per dollar, it’s those ever changing minor updates. Not-for-me, I got rid of that thing in a hurry.
It goes back to the argument that the market will pay what it will for X product, and it's up to consumers to learn not to get used to companies having freedom to abuse niche hobbies like this one, or abuse the fact that some people genuinely have no good sense.
Trying to see if I can track down the SR1A locally, but even then no guarantee I can find upstream gear to do it justice.
I mean considering how much I've paid for other stuff, and luckily being able to afford it, I could get it if I wanted to. But I can't stand bass-light headphones no matter how good the technicalities are, so my wallet is safe until I find some other stupid shit to buy instead. Yay I guess?
I'm with you there, after figuring out I actually like good bass (just really hate the muddy kind most consumer grade gear used to all have) I'd be hard pressed to go back to lean headphones. I do also value textures though, and I've not heard of ribbons being used in headphones before besides, so it's just a lot of cool stuff I wanna demo for the sake of learning about it.
But it's definitely about a decade above my pay grade just now, haha. Ah well, all things in good time and the important bit is enjoying music to begin with. I'm just hoping it catches on so more affordable versions might make the market. Just no more poorly crafted Monoprice ripoffs please.
I think there might be a hard lower bound in that good ribbons are expensive to make, but if has success good old economies of scale might allow for a slightly cheaper version.
It seems to be truly groundbreaking tech (well at least how the tech is utilized) and I'd love to hear it. I also don't begrudge anyone spending (responsibly) however much they want. I'll save up for what I really want within reason, but these are not for me either.
What I've seen is comments showing that this pricing gives the opportunity to look at very capable speakers as an alternative, which, given the Raal's need for a speaker amp and its open baffle design (i.e. huge sound leak) makes a lot of sense. Sensible advice instead of hype train ? Yeah I'll go with that any day of the week.
Haha, as someone who errs on the side of cheap bastard but has a taste for shmancy things I'll say that I'm hoping ribbon production improves to the point where it can trade blows with mainstream electrostats price wise.
And yup, it all seems like excellent advice to me (i.e. someone with no real interest in speakers), but I feel compelled to point out headphone people aren't necessarily 2ch people.
A new pair of replacement drivers sells for 350$ on Raal's website. At rmaf they were quoting an even cheaper price. Doesn't sound like the production cost is any issue. Ask yourself the question : where is the money really going ?
The speaker amplifier requirements made me laugh (f'ing Vidar[s], hah!) but that doesn't necessarily mean they have no point. Loads already jump through hoops to improve headphone rigs as-is, and *relatively* affordable upstream gear might make these easier to get into for most.
All it really boils down to IMO is whether this kills other TOTL headphones (which cost about as much nowadays) to justify the spend.
Goes to all the usual places I'm guessing. @E_Schaaf once pointed out that loads of traditional hi-fi have ballsy dealer mark-ups built into the MSRP, cynical side assumes it's the same here. I'm sure it was a difficult process designing the headphones and that the work deserves fair recompense, but this is a gen1 thing, I expect cheaper down the line.
@frenchbat in large part to recoup their R&D costs, I expect, which is a large value in such low-run products. Likewise the moulds for any injected components, which generally cost tens of thousands.
It's likely a reused tweeter like focal did. Not like focal actually did anything worthy with it, mind you. And in any case, even factoring the R&D, retail price does factor in the manufacturer's importer's, and dealer's profit at the very minimum.
For once we might actually have something that indeed beats the old guard, which is a welcome change though.
@frenchbat You can check the cost breakdown including the speakers by looking at the various part pricings over the margin. The ribbons are $350 each, the box is $700, the customized Pelican $200, the replacement cable is $400, and the carbon fiber enclosures are another $400-500 each if you happen to crush one. All of the above is individually replaceable.
@Taverius Few parts are injected in most high end headphones because of the low volume and the cheapness associated with plastic. The important thing IMO is that in the worst conceivable accident short of deliberate damage or modification, you're out $700 plus shipping for the SR1a's. How much does it cost to fix a pair of broken speaker drivers?
Retail price isn't production price. Far from it. I'm not gonna quote the price the raal guys were quoting for the driver at rmaf, but it is waaaaaayyyyyyy lower than 350$. So yeah, they definitely factored in some profit in there for everyone involved.
For those prices i want a few more drivers and a pair of boxes. Interesting tech atleast but to me anything more then 1k goes into speaker money territory.
I wonder if they require SN verification to purchase replacement ribbons. If not I'd be tempted to just buy the ribbons at 350, build a jank headband/enclosure, slap some actual pads on there and go down the DIY rabbit hole. OB headphones aren't my thing as someone who can't stand anything with bass rolloff before like 25 hz
@E_Schaaf I sometimes forget music genres where there is meaningful information in the 20Hz region exist, haha. What I was tempted to do was get all buddy buddy with the local audio shop and ask if I could use their demo TH900 unit's S/N and try Frankenstein-ing the drivers into my HP-3. Never got around to that.
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