What is overpriced.

Good points. But I think makers of headphones popular with audio forum junkies (Sennheiser, Audeze, HiFiMan) produce "statement" pieces with seemingly insane prices in no small part to generate the marketing buzz that allows exposure in lifestyle-ish venues, potentially expanding their customer base beyond us hobbyists. (Although Sennheiser already has quite an established and broad customer base in professional/broadcasting/personal segments.)

 

Yeah that's got to be a tough nut to crack in audio sales. It's not like @wnmnkh mentioned with the example of luxury watches, where those same people probably wouldn't mind shelling out the money for the more prestigious and/or aesthetically pleasing time pieces. (I'm no stranger to that - the emotional gratification overpowers logic and rationale. Of course a good argument could be made that watches and jewelry are better investments anyway, in the heirloom and/or resale sense.)

Of course, everyone's perception of overpriced will vary, depending on the audience, priorities, context, etc. To me mostly everything in this hobby is overpriced, but it doesn't stop me from still exploring now and then.

 

Yes, that's why I mentioned about under-competitiveness of audio equipment as luxury products. Jewels and watches do not degrade like audio products do, they last a lot longer (for several human generations) and take far less space (less bulky.)

I mean, if one think logically, there is literally no reason to buy an expensive audio equipment if the performance is similar to far less cheaper products, because as luxury products they are quite terrible (degradation, relatively high maintenance in terms of money and time, large footprint.) It'd better to buy a large painting if one were to decorate his/her house with an large object. With crappy music these days, only appealing reason left for audiophile makers is "high-performance."

Several decades ago when people were actually listening to music -that is, listening music as their main entertainment rather than background addition- and classical music was still popular, that was not the case. As I said in previous post, decline of classical music at the same time placebo of hi-fi audio makers got worsen was not a coincidence.

Let's be honest.... people these days, rich or poor, young or old, music has become secondary additive for other entertainments. What people want these days are bigger screens and better gaming video cards (despite the fact that people still unconsciously tend to choose TVs with better sound) Most people are happy with convenient bluetooth speakers because that's what the music worth nowadays. If this is to be fixed, the music has to be worth more than what a 30 dollar bluetooth speaker can provide.

But it seems music label industry has completely lost its ability to make such good music while too busy suing people left and right.

 

Fully reliant on availability. A few years back I was running vintage STAX SR-5s and after a fair bit of time passed I wanted to return to the modern world of audio(I was doubting that I'd made the right choice with vintage components.) My house practically turned into a gauntlet for the next few months, every so often a fresh challenger would appear.. and then find its way back to the marketplace I found it as it couldn't dethrone the old champion. I don't fully understand my own perceptions but here's what they are: The STAX with their adapter box were $350. First headphone they squared off with was the Beyerdynamic T90. Beyer lost, I call them overpriced. Next came the HD700s. Senn lost, I call them overpriced. I saw that I'd need to up my game and bought the HE-6. Hifiman lost, I call them overpriced. Out of desperation and because I really wanted new headphones having broken the headband of the STAX making them into a primitive torture device.. I went into HD800 territory, I bought an Ultrasone ED12. I remembered the PRO2900s I used to own as being resolving albiet highly flawed, the ED12 was advertised as NOT having the Ultrasone treble so I gave it a go. Now we are talking headphones that are equals in sound. Because they met my first need I started looking further into them and the material quality(senseless luxury really) is very high, I can't call them overpriced even though I could easily have gone back to the old STAX comfort issues notwithstanding.

All the modern headphones fit along a scale that roughly matched up with their price-point(compared to each other, not vs <$500 headphones which I don't have much experience with.) The presence of the outlier threw the entire value equation off and raises what I feel is an interesting question: Has the internet changed the value of items now that the market can sustain discontinued/vintage equipment? Should manufactures account for the fact they compete against old engineering and second-hand markets? Do 'new' and 'warranty' differentiate products enough that the 'current generation' market which has always existed can consider itself isolated from the new 'everything & anything' market online? Are they intermingled and by how much? Am I purposely writing this paragraph to sound like the essay question at the end of someones final exam?

 

To OP:
Anything weighing brick's weight and sounding as good or worse than Sansa Clip.

@wnmnkh
Before I got internet in my countryside home (early 2000-s) I made music with my friends for ourselves to listen, because what comes from radio and what is readily available in stores has always sucked. A person either has drive for music or he/she doesn't, means to reproduce or create music never stops anyone.
Once that drive is in existence means become more and more important.

Those who don't have that drive can listen to their Scullcandys and BT speakers. For them anything mentioned here above Clip or Koss PortaPro AND ugly is grossly overpriced.

 

I've read this paragraph a few times now and I still feel what you're saying is that the ED12 is comparable to the HD800(?).
What did you base that on? Did you actually listen to something like the HD6X0 or HD800?

 

That hasn't stopped the headphone market from exploding into a mega-billion dollar industry. Ultimately market forces dictate what's considered overpriced, and enough people have proven they're willing to spend hundreds of dollars to enjoy music with increasingly shitty production values.

We as hobbyists may consider these overpriced, but most consumers don't (yet). I'm talking specifically about the headphones competing in the Beats space, which is the segment that has blown up. And it encourages manufacturers to pump out even more expensive and more profitable products.

(I'm not arguing, just have too much free time since yesterday)

 

I've been thinking about this topic quite a bit the last couple days since Jason's headfi blog post, even more so after yesterday when a 56 bucks iem slammed most if not all of my cherished and in retrospect very very expensive iem's. 1.7k -2.5k for some small thing you put in your ear? Really?

Does this mean, i should throw and sell of all my Fitears? Does this mean, i should never buy a custom from Fitear or Rhines Audio? Does this mean i should throw away my plans for a DIY T2 and 009/007 setup, as well as a EC studio? What about the VPI's? Should i forget about it and start trawling Chinese sites for turntables?

I don't think so.

For many people whose audio chain have not matured, i think the sole driver for the choice of your purchase should be audio gain. That's it, "Does it sound better?", "Whats the secondhand value like?" and/or "Can i find a secondhand unit".

As for the rest of us, or those with thick wallets, lets live by @sfoclt words

"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."

And go forth for all the Studio's ,Solaris's and whatever expensive audio gear you can buy!

 

I consider two types of overpriced products.

One comes down to build. If something is made up of $50 in parts and labor and sells for the same price as a $1700 amp it is overpriced, no matter how good the $50 amp sounds. The most obvious example would be the Grado headphone amp which is basically a CMoy.

The other is if build and labor is justified but performance is crap. Someone can make an R2R DAC populated by boutique capacitors and point-to-point wiring with a milled faceplate, but if the jitter numbers are worse then $30 DACs with a 20% THD then it is overpriced.

To see if something is in the first situation I do the "clone test". Which is I estimate how much it would cost me to buy the individual parts and how much time it would take me to build. A lot of tube amps fail this. Schiit is one of the companies that I have determined that is NEVER worth cloning. Just buy whatever they make.

The second you just have to listen or measure. No blind comparisons, it should be obvious if it's crap immeadiately. Note that I give some leeway to some figures. Tube amps with 1% THD are ok, but 40% is not.

 

Yggdrasil and rag, don't hit me. but chord thingy is more overpriced. but dcs is another level overpriced. and all hifi-market speakers are you-don't-wanna-hear-that-priced compared to diy.

 

This is the first time I've heard anyone accuse Schitt of overpricing. So tell us, what do you think is a fair price for these products?

 

3 dollar fiddy cents.

Im not a fan of the Ragnarok, but i wont call them overpriced.

 

I think he's confusing 'overpriced" with "I can't afford it."

 

Are you sure you did not get a burnt cappuccino at Starbucks? Just asking...

 

I also see a difference in whether something is 'overpriced' or 'worth it'. Based purely on performance a $40 quartz watch will run circles around a $20,000 Rolex. Does this mean a Rolex should be valued lower then a $40? NO! You buy the Rolex for many other reasons besides just being able to tell time. Similarly for an amp or DAC you might derive a lot of satisfaction in knowing the sort of internal engineering it has or how sexy the front plate looks. While certain things do drive up the price, it isn't necessarily price inflation.

 

I didn't know what to think of Rolex, I have never owned one, but after seeing inside last thing I dare say is it's overpriced:

 

i feel lot of stuff is over-priced and so forth when it comes to speakers and headphones. i don't care how unusual the materials used, it's nothing new at all and been done before over and over and over since the 50's. no reason a speaker should cost over 10k a piece or 100k a pair. no reason for headphones to be 1k+ in my opinion. but, the problem though people buy them still so there will always be a market for them and like always it's up to the individual to feel if the value is worth it or not to them. dacs too are the most over-priced pieces of dookie and same with most amps. a decent source and amp shouldn't cost that much at all especially these 1k 100w monoblocks around that use nothing but cheaper plastic t03 transistors and a basic toridial transformer which are cheaper to manufacturer than iron cores....not everything but, lot of things is over-priced in my opinion but, there is some things that do hold value.

 

With a Rolex, you're paying for reputation, reliability, and refinement. There's a reason they have a higher resale value than almost all other watch brands. I have been unhappy about their past several price increases, but it obviously hasn't stopped people from buying them up.

 

Damn! They speeded up the interesting bit: putting the watch back together!

 

I posted this video over on Head-Fi in the Jotunheim announcement thread as a counter to all the price snobs immediately dismissing the Jot as "entry level" based on price without having even heard it yet. (And also as a feeble attempt to possibly educate some impressionable noobs there who haven't yet been consumed by the darkness. What can I say, I'm an optimist...)

Anyway, probably nothing new philosophically to most here, but nevertheless it seems to fit the theme of this thread and it never hurts to step back and check your perspective once in a while.