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Comment by porphyra

16 hours ago

Isn't this pricing pretty in line with other high end ANC headphones?

e.g. Bowers & Wilkins PX8 ($699), Focal Bathys ($849), Sony WH-1000XM6 ($399), Kef Mu7 ($399), Bose QC Ultra ($449)

19 comments

porphyra

Reply
NoPicklez  10 hours ago

That's not what they were saying and the same can be said for those listed. But that they can cost the same as a Macbook Neo which arguably has significantly more technology in it.

  • porphyra  6 hours ago

    A Moto G also has more technology than a Nakajima WPT-160 typewriter (which is still in production) but the latter costs more. Comparing "technology for the buck" across totally different kinds of products and markets sometimes just doesn't make any sense.

neya  6 hours ago

First off, $150 more isn't a small amount to be considered "in-line" with the others. That's roughly 40% more.

The difference is also Apple neither has the audio legacy of those companies nor the quality of those products to warrant that kind of premium. To Apple, it is just another market they can go after, but a lot of those companies built their entire foundations on audio. You are not going to convince me Apple is in the same category as the company that invented the Walkman and CDs.

Also, if you look into the teardown videos, it's really a cheap driver from China - all plastic, not even using aluminium for the basket, just literally hard-glued onto the body. It's not repairable nor eco-friendly. It's anti-consumer. Sony uses Aluminium housing for their drivers and they are the cheapest in the lot.

mvdtnz  12 hours ago

Weird response. He said "I don't understand how a pair of headphones can be $549" and you responded "here are some headphones that are priced at $549".

Yeah. We know. It's just hard to understand how anyone can value headphones at this price. It's lunacy.

  • porphyra  11 hours ago

    It costs that much because people are willing to pay more for better sound, better noise cancelling, etc, even if the returns are diminishing. Perhaps a $500 pair of headphones only sounds 3% better than a $200 pair. But people will still shell out for better headphones. Sometimes they just think it is better even if it isn't actually measurably better. The existence of numerous successful products on the market is evidence that this is a niche where people are willing to pay for such products.

    It's kinda like, who decided that TVs and phones should cost the same? Or who decided that a khinkali should cost 3 times as much as a xiaolongbao?

    • neya  6 hours ago

      > better sound, better noise cancelling

      You just casually threw in these claims without backing them up, when it has been proven that the Sony model (and even the others) you listed outperformed the Airpods pro in those exact departments at the time of its launch.

      2 replies →

    • halayli  10 hours ago

      Reading your parent comment and the responses, I feel be missing the point others are trying to make. There's much less technology, components, and material in a headphone compared to laptops. The circuitry in the headphones is closer in complexity to a charger than a laptop.

      2 replies →

  • drob518  10 hours ago

    How much is your house worth? Whatever someone is willing to pay for it today. That's it. There's no right price. If they can cover costs and make a profit (or better yet a huge profit), then they're pricing it right. Sure, it doesn't work for you. It doesn't work for me either, which is why I don't have a pair. But they seem to be profitable, so there are enough people out there that want them. I just got off a plane a couple days ago and three people within one row around me each had AirPods Max on. Go figure. They're the new status symbol, I guess.

  • dzhiurgis  11 hours ago

    My Sony XM3's still going something like 8 years now. Incredible value.

    I have a lot of Apple gear, these would be obvious next choice because of integration, but I struggle to justify why otherwise. They heavy, going to pain to repair and cost much more.

  • Wowfunhappy  9 hours ago

    I mean, if we're talking any pair of headphones... a good Television certainly costs more than that, why should good sound be less worthy if investment?

kakacik  14 hours ago

Or Sennheiser momentum 4, 150 bucks and sound at least as good if not better, have absolutely huge battery compared to tiny apple one, more comfortable and generally work much better with non-apple ecosystem (also apparently they support multi-device pairing but I haven't used that one).

Don't pay the novelty price shortly after release, these go down quite a bit after introduction, ie last year Sony are basically the same device.