What is overpriced.

Looking at Jason's great blog post about overpriced gear in Hifi and to an extent headfi, what is your definition of overpriced gear? How do you determine if a piece of gear is overpriced or not?

 

Does it actually sound better than cheaper stuff? I recently heard the Moon Neo 430 and the thing sounded worse than Audio-GD NFB-27H and the Schiit M2U stack.

Most DACs outside of Schiit, the Emotiva DC-1, and the Matrix X-Sabre and Audio-GD Sabres (both slightly overpriced). I used to like the Apogee Mini-DAC years ago for what it was back when Apogee made real gear with purple knobs instead of Apple store crap. Meme gear is often meme gear as it's the best bang for buck. I guess those Chords have custom filters but the filters are whack compared to stock ones and the Burrito filter.

All of those underpowered, Class AB, cheap op-amp based amps that run for a thousand dollars.

 

When it is more attractive to pursue alternative for such a price, the gear is considered as overpriced respective to one's current audio setup.

For instance, if your setup is consisted of typical Schiit M/M stack + HD600 with normal cable...


1) Buying 500$ cables would be a waste since you can buy better headphones and/or amps to get a better result.

2) Buying a 1500$ HD800S may be waste since it gives you different sound flavor and upgrading amp/dac may give you better result with scalable HD600.

3) Buying a better amp/dac for 800$ is probably best option since HD600 scales well and there is no other viable alternative to spend your money to enhance setup.



This is why headphones over 2K+ are overpriced, period. It is not because they sound worse compared to cheaper ones (though unfortunately this is the case for a lot of them), but because at that price point, speakers are far better option (real bass, real imaging, etc)

 

I’d have to disagree with “headphones over 2K” being over priced because speakers at the same price sound better. While I subjectively agree with the later part, what if you live in an apartment or need something for desktop use?

To me over-priced means something that has the same traits (whatever a person values) or behaves the same as that which can be purchased for less elsewhere.

 

This entire hobby. xD

 

Get the Koss KSC75 and think again.

 

Well headphones are mostly overpriced:

Koss tier, cheap lower mid-fi -> HD 558/598 and other mid-fi shit like AKG K7XX/K712 and Sony MA900 -> HD 600/650 (the start and perhaps the end of headphone hi-fi land) -> HD 800 (and you might not even like this one modded)

The play-NARZ (thank you Bagged Milk's "Fargo" accent) sound weightless compressed like an awful mix and don't do distortion, the Haas effect, and pinch harmonics at all. Beethoven, Vivaldi, and uh Immolation on planars and electrostatics sound hilariously wrong. Instruments are weightless as playnars don't have sustain. Play Black Sabbath's "Sign of the Southern Cross" or something on speakers and then on planar headphones. Tony Iommi's ridiculous Gibson SG sustain is not really there.

 

Anything which is more expensive than what I own.

 

That will always scale up as you acquire something more expensive...

 

if (product_x_price >= product_y_price) AND
(product_x_performance < product_y_performance) THEN
product_x = overpriced;

 

Generally the case, but it requires either mass consensus or just individual opinion of relative "performance" comparison.

Here, HD6x0 is the performance benchmark, but for many people other headphones, cheaper or more expensive, provide more enjoyable musical listening even if technically not as performant. Then factor in the other equipment required (or not necessary) to optimize "performance" of each, not necessarily an easy thing to directly compare.

As compared to the "watch hobby", at least we don't need to debate the merits of movements, case, hand, dial, bezel material & design, etc. But I don't think anybody would deny luxury watches (f'ing Swiss conglomerates) have become way overpriced in the past several years.

Then again, it's all about market forces. Headphones are a hot market. Watch manufacturers are realizing pricing is insane and (I think) will be refocusing on their cheaper/entry-level offerings.

*Headphone-centric blabbering, nothing to say of amps or DACs...

 

10 points for you. Same principle as with cars. Anyone who drive faster than me is a maniac, anyone who drive slower is a loser.

 

I personally value the craft and creativity that goes into some manufactured product. If the product can be replicated without the effort but the cost remains high, I consider it over priced.

 

Behold my infinite wisdom:



(And awesome ms paint skillz)

 

Shouldn't the second graph level out or slightly fluctuate instead of going downward?

 

Nah, that's on purpose. Too much resolution, detail, faithfulness and accuracy can be a bad thing. It makes you listen to *how it sounds* rather than listen to *the music*. The HD800 is a prime example. Unmodded and un-EQ'ed it's far to the right and on the way down I would say. It may sound better technically than HD6X0 but the question is... are you enjoying it more?

 

The older one gets (nearing "how can they still be allowed to drive" old), everyone else on the road is a maniac. (As they putter along in their Corvette..)

 

I think the real question would be: Does that also hold true if the frequency response stays the same? Do better technicalities with the same tonal balance make listening to bad recordings worse?
The HD800 vs HD600 discussion really isn't a good example here as they differ so much tonally. Maybe HD800 vs HD700 or some other shitty mid-fi or low-fi bright phone would be a better example.

I guess it comes down to what you listen for. Certain things do get smoothed over by less resolving phones, but so does music information that makes music enjoyable and involving. Sometimes I take my HD600 over my HD800 for today's brickwalled recordings, but that's more a matter of inherent driver transient response.
If there was an HD850 with the tonal balance of HD650 and technicalities of HD800, which one would you prefer? HD850 or HD650?

 

HD 800 vs a DT 880 would be a better comparison. DT 880 is painfully bright. Guitar and violin harmonics are actually distorted on it.

 

I remember reading Head-Fi circa 2012 when the HE-500 and LCD-2 were large topics of discussion. Tons of threads were created asking for comparisons between the two, "Which should I buy?" etc etc. At the time, I believe the HE-500 was retailing for around $899, and the LCD-2 was still $999. The general consensus was split roughly 50/50 - and the overall sentiment was that they performed very closely to each other and it was a matter of sound signature preference.

HFM decided to reduce the price of the HE-500 down to $699 at first (I believe), while the LCD-2 stayed at $999. I noticed when this happened, people started talking for the first time about "upgrading" from the HE-500 to the LCD-2. The HE-500 was seen as still good, but slightly inferior.

Towards the end of the HE-500's production, HFM brought the price all the way down to $499, while LCD-2 stayed at $999. At that point, many posters no longer considered it equal to the LCD-2 - it was now "mid-fi" and there were only a minority of posters that thought they were comparable, performance wise. Since it cost about half of what the LCD-2 did, it's probably only half as good, right?

Now, my point has nothing to do with the relative merits of these particular headphones, but rather how f'ing stupid the average consumer is. Many people over at HF, even though they might deny it to their dying breath, equate cost with performance. There's no shortage of posts talking about "upgrading" from, say, HD650 -> Alpha Prime. Or LCD-2 -> LCD-X. Hey, if they are happy with their new headphones, that's great - but I suspect that oftentimes they just want "the best" and assume that spending more money will get them there. They often end up spending more for a worse product.

Manufacturers have obviously noticed this as well, which is why many new headphones are being released north of $1k that sound worse than cheaper offerings. But that doesn't matter - just keep the price high and people will assume it's high quality. Especially when you have industry "insiders" giving glowing reviews.

/rant