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There is something "obscene" about +500 USD headphones. I assume they are very nice, but seeing this kind of news and seeing the heavy suffering in the world ri

There is something "obscene" about +500 USD headphones. I assume they are very nice, but seeing this kind of news and seeing the heavy suffering in the world right now leaves me with a bad after-taste. Like reading Glamour magazine in a public kitchen.

silentsea90 6y ago
Interesting point! Tech has traditionally had the wonderful property of empowering the rich and the poor similarly - the president of the USA uses the same (technologically) TV, phone etc. as most others in the country. The gap in non tech aspects are widely different between the ultra rich and commoners. Apple's obscenely expensive tech adds a weird wedge in tech between the haves and have nots. I expect the rest of the industry to copy Apple to make affordable versions of this product as has been the case with other products, so it should be a net positive for humanity.
aggie 6y ago
Is it obscene to buy a thousand dollar laptop when 500 dollar laptops are fine for most users? $500 for headphones seems like a very arbitrary standard for what is excessive. A billion people live on a dollar a day. They would consider spending $50 -- or even $15 -- on a restaurant meal to be obscene. It's all relative.
- cambalache 6y ago
  > Is it obscene to buy a thousand dollar laptop when 500 dollar laptops are fine for most users? It probably is. > $500 for headphones seems like a very arbitrary standard for what is excessive. You could say that about any number. "Raise the minimum wage to 100 USD/h" "That's excessive" "100 for an hourly minimum wage seems like a very arbitrary standard for what is excessive" There is 0 insight there. > They would consider spending $50 -- or even $15 -- on a restaurant meal to be obscene. Yes those dumb poor people cannot see the difference between a 15 USD meal satisfying a human unavoidable necessity and a +500 luxury item. > It's all relative. So Einstenian of you.
Tagbert 6y ago
Not that I think that the price is right for these Apple headphones, but at $550 they are not on the high end. Just a quick search turns up these Sennheisers that are $1400 on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Sennheiser-HD-800-Reference-Headphone/dp/B00PXLX2TC https://www.amazon.com/Sennheiser-HD-800-Reference-Headphone...
hombre_fatal 6y ago
I don't get this reaction. You and the average HNer have all sorts of spending excesses in your life from rent to UberEats to your phone to your vehicle to your grocery lists to your hobbies to the things you buy your children to all the crap in your house that dwarf the price of some nice headphones. Scraping together $500 is not a lot for something you will use daily for years. I think it's a better investment than a TV. The only difference is that you apparently don't want them. For some reason people will scrutinize the price of something they don't want while being blind to how much they spend on all the things they do want. e.g. we don't have to go very far back in time to have tallied up $500 you've spent in your life on unneeded food that gave you seconds of pleasure only to be shat out hours later, yet you're disgusted how someone else might choose to spend their $500, and on something like a tech gadget. It's a very weird judgemental reflex and quite a bit obnoxious to see.
- cambalache 6y ago
  Be careful who you talk to. The average salary in my country is 1 USD/month. I am currently below that average.
  - sdfhbdf 6y ago
    Would you be so kind and say what kind of country that is? Looking through many reports online i see the lowest in the world being reported as $520 anually in central african countries. I don't mean to accuse you just genuinely curious. Also interesting because in a comment some time ago you mentioned. [0] > I worked for a top-20 Fortune company So I assume you might be trying to be sarcastic with this 1 USD Yeah I agree parent is making a lot of assumptions about the average commenter of HN but they might not be far off seeing many of us are connected somehow to the Tech Sector which well paid around the world. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25172551 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25172551
    - cambalache 6y ago
      Sorry, I made a mistake, it's 0.92 USD/month https://www.dw.com/es/salario-m%C3%ADnimo-en-venezuela-092-d%C3%B3lares/a-55127544 https://www.dw.com/es/salario-m%C3%ADnimo-en-venezuela-092-d... > Also interesting because in a comment some time ago you mentioned. Nice work there Sherlock. I assume your sharp mind realized that I used the past tense.Life is complicated, not everybody is a 20 something yo working for a FAANG. Anything else that I can be useful to you sir?
lagadu 6y ago
For a consumer oriented product? Maybe. But if you ever look into high-end headphones you'll find that there's a stupidly large amount of models in the $1000-5000 range. $500 is a midrange price bracket.
- nr2x 6y ago
  Yes, but without a wire you can't achieve ultra-high sample rates or do studio mastering, so these are pointless for the high-end. Source: currently own six pairs of professional headphones.
  - lagadu 6y ago
    I'm not questioning that these headphones are a pretty bad deal, just mentioning that $500 is nothing special for headphones. Also the high end is a lot more than just pro headphones, in fact I'll go ahead and claim that most mastering-oriented headphones (not that many, I'll give you that) I heard tend to have a tonality that I dislike.
nr2x 6y ago
I think if a device is a professional tool, as in a studio monitoring headphone one would wear while doing music production or mastering, it's not obscene. That said, these have no such use case, the lack of a wire means: a) latency that isn't acceptable, and b) inability to master with high sample rates. These definitely are in the "gadget" rather than "tool" category, and while there may be worse things to spend money on, or better ways to distribute wealth, I won't disagree that these headphones belong in the same category as Gucci handbags.
- ritchiea 6y ago
  But you can get good studio monitoring headphones for less than half $550.
  - nr2x 6y ago
    Exactly, you can get several, and have money left over for a decent DAC.

silentsea90 6y ago

Interesting point! Tech has traditionally had the wonderful property of empowering the rich and the poor similarly - the president of the USA uses the same (technologically) TV, phone etc. as most others in the country. The gap in non tech aspects are widely different between the ultra rich and commoners. Apple's obscenely expensive tech adds a weird wedge in tech between the haves and have nots. I expect the rest of the industry to copy Apple to make affordable versions of this product as has been the case with other products, so it should be a net positive for humanity.

aggie 6y ago

Is it obscene to buy a thousand dollar laptop when 500 dollar laptops are fine for most users? $500 for headphones seems like a very arbitrary standard for what is excessive. A billion people live on a dollar a day. They would consider spending $50 -- or even $15 -- on a restaurant meal to be obscene. It's all relative.

cambalache 6y ago
> Is it obscene to buy a thousand dollar laptop when 500 dollar laptops are fine for most users? It probably is. > $500 for headphones seems like a very arbitrary standard for what is excessive. You could say that about any number. "Raise the minimum wage to 100 USD/h" "That's excessive" "100 for an hourly minimum wage seems like a very arbitrary standard for what is excessive" There is 0 insight there. > They would consider spending $50 -- or even $15 -- on a restaurant meal to be obscene. Yes those dumb poor people cannot see the difference between a 15 USD meal satisfying a human unavoidable necessity and a +500 luxury item. > It's all relative. So Einstenian of you.

Tagbert 6y ago

Not that I think that the price is right for these Apple headphones, but at $550 they are not on the high end. Just a quick search turns up these Sennheisers that are $1400 on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Sennheiser-HD-800-Reference-Headphone/dp/B00PXLX2TC https://www.amazon.com/Sennheiser-HD-800-Reference-Headphone...

hombre_fatal 6y ago

I don't get this reaction. You and the average HNer have all sorts of spending excesses in your life from rent to UberEats to your phone to your vehicle to your grocery lists to your hobbies to the things you buy your children to all the crap in your house that dwarf the price of some nice headphones. Scraping together $500 is not a lot for something you will use daily for years. I think it's a better investment than a TV. The only difference is that you apparently don't want them. For some reason people will scrutinize the price of something they don't want while being blind to how much they spend on all the things they do want. e.g. we don't have to go very far back in time to have tallied up $500 you've spent in your life on unneeded food that gave you seconds of pleasure only to be shat out hours later, yet you're disgusted how someone else might choose to spend their $500, and on something like a tech gadget. It's a very weird judgemental reflex and quite a bit obnoxious to see.

cambalache 6y ago
Be careful who you talk to. The average salary in my country is 1 USD/month. I am currently below that average.
- sdfhbdf 6y ago
  Would you be so kind and say what kind of country that is? Looking through many reports online i see the lowest in the world being reported as $520 anually in central african countries. I don't mean to accuse you just genuinely curious. Also interesting because in a comment some time ago you mentioned. [0] > I worked for a top-20 Fortune company So I assume you might be trying to be sarcastic with this 1 USD Yeah I agree parent is making a lot of assumptions about the average commenter of HN but they might not be far off seeing many of us are connected somehow to the Tech Sector which well paid around the world. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25172551 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25172551
  - cambalache 6y ago
    Sorry, I made a mistake, it's 0.92 USD/month https://www.dw.com/es/salario-m%C3%ADnimo-en-venezuela-092-d%C3%B3lares/a-55127544 https://www.dw.com/es/salario-m%C3%ADnimo-en-venezuela-092-d... > Also interesting because in a comment some time ago you mentioned. Nice work there Sherlock. I assume your sharp mind realized that I used the past tense.Life is complicated, not everybody is a 20 something yo working for a FAANG. Anything else that I can be useful to you sir?

lagadu 6y ago

For a consumer oriented product? Maybe. But if you ever look into high-end headphones you'll find that there's a stupidly large amount of models in the $1000-5000 range. $500 is a midrange price bracket.

nr2x 6y ago
Yes, but without a wire you can't achieve ultra-high sample rates or do studio mastering, so these are pointless for the high-end. Source: currently own six pairs of professional headphones.
- lagadu 6y ago
  I'm not questioning that these headphones are a pretty bad deal, just mentioning that $500 is nothing special for headphones. Also the high end is a lot more than just pro headphones, in fact I'll go ahead and claim that most mastering-oriented headphones (not that many, I'll give you that) I heard tend to have a tonality that I dislike.

nr2x 6y ago

I think if a device is a professional tool, as in a studio monitoring headphone one would wear while doing music production or mastering, it's not obscene. That said, these have no such use case, the lack of a wire means: a) latency that isn't acceptable, and b) inability to master with high sample rates. These definitely are in the "gadget" rather than "tool" category, and while there may be worse things to spend money on, or better ways to distribute wealth, I won't disagree that these headphones belong in the same category as Gucci handbags.

ritchiea 6y ago
But you can get good studio monitoring headphones for less than half $550.
- nr2x 6y ago
  Exactly, you can get several, and have money left over for a decent DAC.