is this not absurd?

[SouthSIDE Glen]

I don't care if that headphone amp is used to pick out alien signals from ten billion light years away, it's not worth two grand.

I base that argument, and yes it's just a subjective argument, on a couple of different practical, down to earth scales.

First, does it actually perfom and sound a full twice as good as a $1000 amp? Does it actually perform and sound a full 10 times better than a $200 headphone amp? The law of diminishing returns is thumbing it's nose and blowing raspberries at any fool who blows two grand on that thing.

Second, that is one of those 80% profit margin devices designed to take advantage of a limited audience of snobs with way too much money on their hands who feel that no price is too high for "the best". That is the $500 phono cartridge of the headphone world. Even including R&D costs, extra cost for higher quality components, any cost you can think of, the total production cost on that device is likely along the lines of no more than twice what the production cost is for a $200 amp. Find a dealer or distributor willing to sell it to you at 20% above his cost and you could buy that thing for probably around $250-$300, at most. The rest is all pure profit margin that you might as well just put in a pile and burn rather than pay full price for that thing.

As for those who reply, "If the customer is happy and feels it's worth the price, then what's the problem?", I can only say, "No problem. Just proof of the old saying 'A fool and his money are soon parted.'"

G.

 

[RAK]

I don't care if that headphone amp is used to pick out alien signals from ten billion light years away, it's not worth two grand.

I base that argument, and yes it's just a subjective argument, on a couple of different practical, down to earth scales.

First, does it actually perfom and sound a full twice as good as a $1000 amp? Does it actually perform and sound a full 10 times better than a $200 headphone amp? The law of diminishing returns is thumbing it's nose and blowing raspberries at any fool who blows two grand on that thing.

Second, that is one of those 80% profit margin devices designed to take advantage of a limited audience of snobs with way too much money on their hands who feel that no price is too high for "the best". That is the $500 phono cartridge of the headphone world. Even including R&D costs, extra cost for higher quality components, any cost you can think of, the total production cost on that device is likely along the lines of no more than twice what the production cost is for a $200 amp. Find a dealer or distributor willing to sell it to you at 20% above his cost and you could buy that thing for probably around $250-$300, at most. The rest is all pure profit margin that you might as well just put in a pile and burn rather than pay full price for that thing.

As for those who reply, "If the customer is happy and feels it's worth the price, then what's the problem?", I can only say, "No problem. Just proof of the old saying 'A fool and his money are soon parted.'"

G.

If you want answers to those questions (and many more) about super hi-end audio gear for those who consider themselves audiofiles (this is a niche market) I definetly suggest you do some browsing around Head-Fi. You may discover a world you never knew existed. It's not a recording forum, but deals exactly what we're talking about here. Some might find it interesting though.

 

[RAK]

IMHO if they genuinely felt strongly about the above, they wouldn't list earbuds on their product section.

http://www.newsfactor.com/news/IPod-Earbuds-Damage-Hearing/story.xhtml?story_id=103003BB4BT7

That's a good point. The only earbuds that headroom seems to list are Sennheiser, so maybe they have a deal going or something.

Not to be confused with In-Ear-Monitors/earphones/canalphones which allow you to listen to your music at much lower volumes.

 

[bblackwood]

B, do you subscribe to the idea that headphones are a better way to listen to music than a full system even those costing an equal amount?

No, I don't care for them other than for QC or llistening to tunes on the plane. I don't care for cassettes either, but that doesn't mean a killer Nakamichi deck wasn't great for cassette lovers...

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

If you want answers to those questions (and many more) about super hi-end audio gear for those who consider themselves audiofiles (this is a niche market) I definetly suggest you do some browsing around Head-Fi. You may discover a world you never knew existed. It's not a recording forum, but deals exactly what we're talking about here. Some might find it interesting though.

I spent five years selling audiophile gear early in my career (SAE, McIntosh, Carver, etc.), and debating with my associates of such marginal esoterica as high-mass vs. low-mass tonearms, eliptical vs. shibata stylii, IM vs. THD distortion measurements, QS vs. SQ vs. CD-4 discrete encoding, 4-gang vs. 5-gang vs. digital PLL tuning, blah blah blah blah blah. I understand audiophilia quite well; I used to have it.

We sold phono cartriges at retail for anywhere between $19.95 and $350. You know what the range in our store cost was? The $19.95 cartriges cost us $9.95. That's about a 50% markup. High, but not all that high for an "accessory." The $350 cartridges had a store cost of $39.95. That's right, the "audiophile series" cartridges had a profit margin of a whopping 88.5%, and only cost $30 more at distibutor cost than the crappiest ten buck cartirdges we sold! On a $350 cartridge, $310 was pure gross profit into our register. And that's not counting the fact that the distributor had to be making at least 20-30% profit themselves at the $39.95 price. Even if they made only 20%, that meant that the manufacturer was making a healthy profit by selling cartridges for $32 to the wholesale level that sold as $350 cartridges on the retail level.

And as just a lowly salesperson, do you know how much I made on the sale of a single "audiophile" phono cartridge? I got my standard 10% of GP ($31) pluss a SPIFF of $25 out of the daily register. That's $56 I personally pocketed just for selling a $32 cartridge by using words like "air", and "warmth" in just the right spot. Not bad, eh? (You can imagine how much we made on an entire $5000 system. Can you say "Extended Warranty"? )

So you can know that every time some guy in a tweed jacket and Platinum card walked in carrying a Telarc DTD pressing or DDD glass in his hand, we'd be climbing over each other to kiss his unsuspecting audiophile ass. And that a $2000 headphone amp is almost as surely nowhere near what it's hyped up to be, value wise at least.

And you'll also know why I got out of that insane racket. Unfortunately now I am in this insane racket and working harder for less money . Oh well, at least I know that even if I jumped out of that frying pan and into this fire, that at least I won't burn in hell for doing it.

G.

 

[bblackwood]

Define "worth it".

To a headphone lover who hears an improvement, that amp would be worth it.

First, does it actually perfom and sound a full twice as good as a $1000 amp? Does it actually perform and sound a full 10 times better than a $200 headphone amp? The law of diminishing returns is thumbing it's nose and blowing raspberries at any fool who blows two grand on that thing.

By your logic, my Pass Labs amp, which retailed at $6500, isn't worth it - I disagree. The law of diminishing returns doesn't value the worth of the object, it just means for the ultimate in performance, you have to pay a lot more than what you pay for 'very good'...

Second, that is one of those 80% profit margin devices designed to take advantage of a limited audience of snobs with way too much money on their hands who feel that no price is too high for "the best". That is the $500 phono cartridge of the headphone world. Even including R&D costs, extra cost for higher quality components, any cost you can think of, the total production cost on that device is likely along the lines of no more than twice what the production cost is for a $200 amp. Find a dealer or distributor willing to sell it to you at 20% above his cost and you could buy that thing for probably around $250-$300, at most. The rest is all pure profit margin that you might as well just put in a pile and burn rather than pay full price for that thing.

While we can disagree on the numbers here (a typical boutique audio product sells at about 5x parts cost - a great power transformer for that little amp will cost you at least a hundred bucks), the fact remains you are passing judgement on the product based entirely on the price. That's depressing.

As for those who reply, "If the customer is happy and feels it's worth the price, then what's the problem?", I can only say, "No problem. Just proof of the old saying 'A fool and his money are soon parted.'"

So someone's a fool for spending more than you think is appropriate for something? Harsh.

You guys are acting like they're selling green CD pens or something. I'm more than a little surprised at how judgemental people are about high end audio equipment they haven't even heard...

 

[RAK]

I spent five years selling audiophile gear early in my career (SAE, Macintosh, Carver, etc.), and debating with my associates of such marginal esoterica as high-mass vs. low-mass tonearms, eliptical vs. shibata stylii, IM vs. THD distortion measurements, QS vs. SQ vs. CD-4 discrete encoding, 4-gang vs. 5-gang vs. digital PLL tuning, blah blah blah blah blah. I understand audiophilia quite well; I used to have it.

We sold phono cartriges at retail for anywhere between $19.95 and $350. You know what the range in our store cost was? The $19.95 cartriges cost us $9.95. That's about a 50% markup. High, but not all that high for an "accessory." The $350 cartridges had a store cost of $39.95. That's right, the "audiophile series" cartridges had a profit margin of a whopping 88.5%, and only cost $30 more at distibutor cost than the crappiest twenty buck cartirdges we sold! On a $350 cartridge, $310 was pure gross profit into our register. And that's not counting the fact that the distributor had to be making at least 20-30% profit themselves at the $39.95 price. Even if they made only 20%, that meant that the manufacturer was making a healthy profit by selling cartridges for $32 to the wholesale level that sold as $350 cartridges on the retail level.

And as just a lowly salesperson, do you know how much I made on the sale of a single "audiophile" phono cartridge? I got my standard 10% of GP ($31) pluss a SPIFF of $25 out of the daily register. That's $56 I personally pocketed just for selling a $32 cartridge by using words like "air", and "warmth" in just the right spot. Not bad, eh? (You can imagine how much we made on an entire $5000 system. Can you say "Extended Warranty"? )

So you can know that every time some guy in a tweed jacket and Platinum card walked in carrying a Telarc DTD pressing or DDD glass in his hand, we'd be climbing over each other to kiss his unsuspecting audiophile ass. And that a $2000 headphone amp is almost as surely nowhere near what it's hyped up to be, value wise at least.

And you'll also know why I got out of that insane racket. Unfortunately now I am in this insane racket and working harder for less money . Oh well, at least I know that even if I jumped out of that frying pan and into this fire, that at least I won't burn in hell for doing it.

G.

Did you sell a lot of Shure cartridges?

And I'm not saying it is or it isn't, I was just suggesting a forum where people are talking about it.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Did you sell a lot of Shure cartridges?

Boy, to the best of my recollection, there was one model only of Shure that we carried - that I can remember for sure, (no pun ) anyway. I remember it was a well-known model at the time, and I believe I remember it came in a silver and dark blue case, possibly of clamshell design. I think - and again, I'm not sure if I'm confusing models or not - it maybe had the number 55 or 55D in the model number, or am I thinking of something else? This would have been back around 1982-1984.

Most of the catridges we sold were the Audio Technica (mostly for the lower end, though there was a $250 one that was pure profit), Ortofon and Stanton. There was another even more esoteric brand that we had that concentrated on the moving coil design, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was called off-hand. I don't think I sold many of those.

And the more I think of it, I think I am mixing up that Shure with the Stanton in my mind. I think maybe the Stanton was the 55D (or close to it.) I know we sold Shure replacement stylii, but the new cartridge we had I can't remember off-hand.

G.

P.S. And before someone reminds me of this, yes I know that I originally mis-spelled McIntosh.

 

[dementedchord]

$.02

hey glen we used to push the GRADO carts .... woohoo... we can eat today...lol.. had the shure V15's... AT's... cartridges were always far the best margin pieces.... one mid-fi place i worked for awhile had a spiff for "systems" one particular brand of speakers i could give you a reciever to go with them and made more money... back to the phones... a computer tech i use sometimes tried to sell me surround headphones recently.....

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

had the shure V15's

OOooo, now that rings a dim, dusty bell somhere in the crawlspace of my brain. Hmmm.....was there such a thing as a roman numeral III or IV after that to indicate model quality or something? Like there was a V15 mark III that was average, a mark IV that was better, and a mark V that was pretty good or something like that? Yeah, that's starting to sound familiar I think...or am I still mixing different brands and models up?

I remember the Grados, but we didn't have them at my place, I don't think.

But yeah, spiffs were the absolute best. You get the right combo and you could easily get a $35 spiff for a certain combo component system, $50 for the extended warranty, anywhere from $5 to $25 for the cartridge, another $25 if the tape deck you sold was a discontinued display model and $5 for the Discwasher cleaning system. That was $140 cash tax free out of the register that night just for that one single sale. Two systems like that in one day and that's walking home with almost $300 cash in pocket, tax free, above and beyond what shows up in the commission check the next week. All for smoking a couple of joints and talking a few people into buying a bunch of crap that they didn't need.

Better than a bartender or waitress working tips because you got to choose your own music to listen to and didn't have to deal with as many drunks.

But I have since atoned. I think maybe this board is part of my karmic pennance

G.

 

[masteringhouse]

No, I don't care for them other than for QC or llistening to tunes on the plane. I don't care for cassettes either, but that doesn't mean a killer Nakamichi deck wasn't great for cassette lovers...

Exactly. The problem I would have is if a cassette lover started telling me that cassettes are more "audiophile" than vinyl, CDs, or 1/2 and 1/4" tape.

If you're really crazy about headphone audiophile listening, check out this system, only $15,000 when it was available:

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/ces200211.htm

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

What I'd find refreshing would be an audiophile that decided that "Level X" in quality was plenty good enough. I know that's 90° against the grain of the definition of audiophile, but that's IMHO the important point here.

Brad (and other audiophiles), I don't pooh-pooh your Pass amp or your desire for or belief in it or it's worth. I understand where you're coming from. But I'd like to honestly ask something:

When that amp is no longer "the ultimate" - not by age or wear and tear, but by design performance because Pass or someone else comes out with a new "ultimate" design (and you can't deny that this will happen sooner than later, it always does) - does this mean that your level of happiness with your current model will then decrease?

G.

 

[bblackwood]

What I'd find refreshing would be an audiophile that decided that "Level X" in quality was plenty good enough. I know that's 90° against the grain of the definition of audiophile, but that's IMHO the important point here.

Well, audiophiles are typically a foolish lot.

Brad (and other audiophiles),

AAAAAAAAAAAH - please don't lump me in with those!

Seriously, I wouldn't drop $2k on that headphone amp as I don't see the value - I'm not a headphone lover. But it may very well sound better than anything that costs less, so to a headphone geek, it might be worth every penny...

When that amp is no longer "the ultimate" - not by age or wear and tear, but by design performance because Pass or someone else comes out with a new "ultimate" design (and you can't deny that this will happen sooner than later, it always does) - does this mean that your level of happiness with your current model will then decrease?

No way! I bought it because it was the best sounding amp I could find for my monitors. In fact, my amp has been discontinued for a couple of years now yet I have no desire to change - it sounds great to me.

That's why I'm not an audiophile - I bought it because it sounded better, not due to some inane hobby. It was a practical decision based on what my ears told me, not because of the chassis it's in or because it's the latest-greatest.

 

[masteringhouse]

Well, audiophiles are typically a foolish lot.

AAAAAAAAAAAH - please don't lump me in with those!

I think that's exactly what Glen, others, and I were trying to convey. Audiophilia is just another "status hobby" similar to collecting expensive guitars that you don't play, or cars you don't drive. Sometimes I wonder how often they actually listen to music versus talking about their systems.

 

[bblackwood]

I think that's exactly what Glen, others, and I were trying to convey. Audiophilia is just another "status hobby" similar to collecting expensive guitars that you don't play, or cars you don't drive. Sometimes I wonder how often they actually listen to music versus talking about their systems.

Agreed - but why automatically lump this headphone amp in with that lot when no one here has even heard it?

 

[masteringhouse]

Agreed - but why automatically lump this headphone amp in with that lot when no one here has even heard it?

For the same reason I would bother spending $300 for a cable for earbuds (in fact I try not to stick those things in my ears at all). Maybe it sounds better, but do I really care? It's like drinking Boones farm wine in a $1,000 crystal wine glass. Why bother spending this much cash listening to music on an inferior medium?

As we said neither you nor I listen to music this way. I feel audiophile headphones are an oxymoron. But it wouldn't be the first time I've been wrong ...

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

What we have here is failure to communicate

Well, audiophiles are typically a foolish lot.
...
AAAAAAAAAAAH - please don't lump me in with those!

D'OH! My sincere apologies, Brad; I misunderstood what you were trying to say. I thought you were taking the audiophile position. My mistake (he says as he backs away backwards slowly with his head bowed.)

And you are right, I have not heard that headphone amp. But I don't see that (in this case anyway) as being entirely relevant. Even if that amp caught lightning itself in a bottle and delivered Mother Nature herself to my cans, it's still just a headphone amp. We're not talking about a cold fusion reactor or a device that will bring world peace. It's a freakin' headphone amp, for God's sake. That's soooo Calligula.

It's my position that

(a) if one needs to spend two grand to be happy with the performance of a headphone amp that they might want to consider what is making them such unhappy people to begin with. (God knows what they spent for the headphones themselves, BTW.)

(b) if they honestly can't get far more happiness out of buying a $500 headphone amp and spending the remaining $1500 elsewhere, that they might want to consider why the headphone amp is so much more important to them than anything else.

(c) there are a lot of companies out there that take advantage of the drug addiction that is indicated by (a) and (b) and charge crack dealer pricing for such devices.

G.

 

[bblackwood]

D'OH! My sincere apologies, Brad; I misunderstood what you were trying to say. I thought you were taking the audiophile position. My mistake (he says as he backs away backwards slowly with his head bowed.)

Haha, no worries.

It's my position that

(a) if one needs to spend two grand to be happy with the performance of a headphone amp that they might want to consider what is making them such unhappy people to begin with. (God knows what they spent for the headphones themselves, BTW.)

(b) if they honestly can't get far more happiness out of buying a $500 headphone amp and spending the remaining $1500 elsewhere, that they might want to consider why the headphone amp is so much more important to them than anything else.

What if the person can only listen to headphones (noisy neighborhood, wife hates what he listens to, whatever) and cost is no object?

Again, my point is that this is not necessarily snake oil - it may simply be the best headphone amp in the world.

(c) there are a lot of companies out there that take advantage of the drug addiction that is indicated by (a) and (b) and charge crack dealer pricing for such devices.

Here we completely agree - I just don't rush to lump this into that pile when I haven't even heard it.

 

[bblackwood]

For the same reason I would bother spending $300 for a cable for earbuds (in fact I try not to stick those things in my ears at all). Maybe it sounds better, but do I really care? It's like drinking Boones farm wine in a $1,000 crystal wine glass. Why bother spending this much cash listening to music on an inferior medium?

That's the sticking point here, isn't it - the cost? Headphones are cool to some folks, just like car stereos are cool to some folks. I don't have a problem with Joe Blow dropping $20k for his car stereo if it makes him happy - even though the car is a far more compromised listening place than headphones.

I dunno, you guys are lumping this in with power cords and mpingo discs and such and I'm not sure that's fair...

 

[RAK]

That's the sticking point here, isn't it - the cost? Headphones are cool to some folks, just like car stereos are cool to some folks. I don't have a problem with Joe Blow dropping $20k for his car stereo if it makes him happy - even though the car is a far more compromised listening place than headphones.

I dunno, you guys are lumping this in with power cords and mpingo discs and such and I'm not sure that's fair...

I totally agree, particularly with the last statement above.

Even though you may be listening to MP3s on an iPod that doesn't have the greatest built-in headphone amp (and many audiofiles use portable headphone amps with their ipods), there is still a big difference between the stock buds and a pair of $500 earphones (such as the Shure E500 for example ). In fact, the higher end earphones/headphones often showcase the problems with low-bit rate audio.