What do you believe to be the price where value it’s no longer a question on headphones?
For diminishing returns that point exists, but I wonder where.
Form personal experience, there’s two breaking value points. One at 50 dollars, the other one at 300. More than that and i believe there could be a limit. Maybe 500? Maybe 1000?
What do you think?
No breakpoint. Smooth curve. Lots of huge exceptions though.
Also, gotta say, price to performance opinions are wholly dependent on that person’s audio preferences. I happen to think I got 3x or more performance out of the Berkeley Alpha DAC Series 1 ($5k new) compared to my Denafrips Ares II ($700-800 new) (did not buy my Berkeley new). Then again, I like precision, speed, and detail. Someone who’s looking for a more romantic or super-engaging sound would definitely not agree with me.
TLDR : Price to performance / value / amount of improvement to sound is highly subjective and entirely dependent on the chain the device was designed around and the intended purpose of the device, as well as the end-user’s personal preferences and perceptions.
If we’re gonna really really over generalize the curve might look something like a log curve…
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It is highly subjective. What the uber expensive gears offer is that last 5 percent of perfection that someone is looking for. Whether that last percent is worth 10K or not is up to you, but what we know for sure is that the last 5 percent is not offered in the low end product. Personally, if I’ve reached my retirement and lived my life, I would spend that amount of money.
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Value is an intangible and will be different for everyone. You can’t put a price on sentimental value and I know most people have kept an item solely because of that intangible. (ask anybody who’s built and customized their own BHC.
So to answer you question if you’re going to talk value you are then not able to associate a $ amount to it since it will be different for everyone.
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Sidenote, I would just like to say, testing gear with inappropriate chains and then making claims like “DACs don’t matter” or “You never need to spend more than $500 on an amp cause everything above is just snake oil”, is really stupid.
Some people listen for fine details, some want full immersion, some just wanna hear the music sound good, some want butt jiggling bass, and some just want a good balance. If you’re of any persuasion, self-awareness of your biases / needs is key. Even if you don’t quite like a sound or don’t quite understand why someone would want a specific improvement in a certain area of sound quality, it doesn’t mean the gear is bad or the other people are deaf.
A lot of people make fairly baseless claims about value based on mistaken ideas and a lack of self-awareness and critical thought.
I’m speaking about a certain someone here lol…
For instance I ended up fucking despising my Eikons after a while. At the same time, they’re definitely good headphones. Does that mean that, because the Eikon doesn’t fit my personal preferences, that the headphone is trash and ZMF is bad? Not at all. Great cans, 110% not my speed. Will still recommend them whole-heartedly.
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It’s a pointless question, value is entirely personal.
I will say IME I have yet to own anything where there isn’t a siginificant to me step up out there.
Everytime I’ve stepped up in price ranges for DAC’s, Amps, and Headphones, there have been big enough changes that the value was there to me, and in some cases those changes were revelatory.
But I’m not you, and no one else is me.
There is a practical limit to what you can spend on a headphone, so I guess there is that ceiling.
I’ll give you an example on the perception of value, how it is skewed by perception and how it changes, It took me a long time to decide to step up to expensive DAC’s, it was just hard to see the value having never owned one. In the end the amount I spent was less than I would happily decide to spend on a computer, or even a turntable (if I were going that way again).
The value was there once I decided to buy, and having owned and heard several DAC’s in that price bracket now, I have to wonder what do better DAC’s bring, and if there weren’t a pandemic going on, I’d go out and find out.
I had less resistance to how amps improved with cost, because I already owned expensive stereo gear, and I got over that years ago.
Headphones it took the Elex to open my eyes to what could be out there , but it was as start of a journey, not an end.
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As an aside people value things differently, for a huge number of reasons, but I read this article a couple of days ago, and while I’d assumed the concept of a physical reaction to music was universal. Apparently it isn’t, only about 50% of people show a physical response to music.
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Value is as personal/subjective as anything in this hobby. Whether a product would offer good value for the money entirely depends on what your max budget is, and how much you care. A $200 entry-level stack is only ever a great value if you actually care about what it offers for you.