I like to look on high end headphones as I would any other luxury item - I'm willing to pay for nice materials of a higher quality or a better experience, if th

I like to look on high end headphones as I would any other luxury item - I'm willing to pay for nice materials of a higher quality or a better experience, if the item is right. That could perhaps explain some of the price - plus I think we're at the point where many of the headphone companies have discovered that there is an ultra-high end market for some of these products. You can see this in the prices of many top brand flagship headphones - the majority of the well regarded brands have been gradually putting out exceedingly expensive flagships in the past 2-3 years. 10 years ago - then the Sennheiser HD650 was seen as a flagship at $400, now look at the Sennheiser HD820 released earlier this year at $2200. You aren't going to find too many people who will say that the sound improvements between the two justify an $1800 increase in MSRP. However if you reframe the perspective to that of a luxury good, given the perception of headphones (regardless of use case) has changed somewhat in the interim and are seen as a fashion accessory and there's a larger enthusiast pool - you can see that manufacturers would be willing to push new boundaries when it comes to price. However I think it's only the lunatics, or the conspicuous consumers who are ignorant to the law of diminishing returns when it comes to headphones and audio in general.