Atrium Open (if existing) looks like a later 2023 release if not to step on Caldera's date. Not necessarily a planar dude, but will get a shot at listening to this at some point. Should work well enough with the Widow.
despite owning Susv, I'm sick of the $3+k headphone market trend like everything is "worth" $3k just because it's Neu and maybe fantastic and in this case play-nar.
@jexby I don't price any of our headphones based on SQ or what I think they're worth, I price them based on the cost of business/parts. If we had a typical dealer network like any classic mfr, the Caldera would cost 5K. This isn't an argument for it costing any specific amount of money. I just want sustainability/ease of life (stable price) since we literally don't have a sales/marketing/finance dept.
@zach915m my comment shouldn’t have come off directed at ZMF, rather the industry as a whole with the overhead depts you mention and different scale. if more audio companies were like ZMF we’d be in a better place.
not being market savvy myself - does a new really great headphone under $1000 require “massive scale” to produce profit margins? hope not as ETA is showing. obviously a hard nut to crack.
With respect to pricing, I think ZMF is different... Zach's headphones are hand made from exotic hardwood which is not cheap to produce. A lot of labor is involved. It is like getting a custom hardwood table made from a local woodworker vs buying a table from Ikea. If you love the ZMF sound you are paying for the aesthetics/labor/parts, not necessarily the sound quality.
ETA is doing fantastic things, I love their work. I have been where they are - no overhead because no scale/employees/401K/dealers etc. If you like their work now is a great time! Our costs are not wood, it's the cost of running a business that caters successfully to a specific audience, and making all the parts in house. I respectfully disagree @jaker782 Any business if successful will have our costs.
Further - cost of filing a Patent, the R/D, trying numerous substrates, magnet configuration etc to get the Caldera made took over 6 years, and over 250K worth of investment. Again, this isn't an argument that the headphone should "hold" any specific value to anyone, but that making this sh*t isn't cheap, easy, or fast. Even if people don't like it, I had a great time doing it and am still excited to share.
One reason why I feel safe buying high value item from ZMF is support we get. be it lifetime driver support or support of any kind and it makes one feel comfortable that the headphone can be owned for a very long time. I guess those support overhead is also factored in.
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