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I don't understand how a pair of headphones can be $549 meanwhile the Macbook Neo is $599 The pricing on these always seemed a bit crazy to me, like the value
by ex-aws-dude 7mo ago
I don't understand how a pair of headphones can be $549 meanwhile the Macbook Neo is $599
The pricing on these always seemed a bit crazy to me, like the value is way off compared to other Apple products
- throwaway290 7mo agoa lot of non apple headphones cost more... and many don't even sound better...
- steve1977 7mo agoWell, in the market segment of Bluetooth ANC headphones, there's not that much. Bowers & Wilkins and Focal come to mind, both audiophile luxury brands and similarily overpriced. On the other hand, the flagship Sony is quite a bit less than AirPods Max.
- ruszki 7mo agoDoesn’t Sony have the best codec on Bluetooth? It definitely has worse noise cancellation than my AirPod, but afaik it should have better audio quality on paper.
- barchar 7mo agoThere are many. QCY makes a pair for ~$50, I think there are some other Chinese brands too. You really are paying for the brand.
- momoschili 7mo agoDifferent target markets. Audiophiles and wealth exhibitionists are much more willing to pay the large amount
- Paria_Stark 7mo agoDoubt audiophiles are really the target for the AirPods Max.
- bayindirh 7mo agoAs a (sane) audiophile, I happily use Apple devices for enjoyable listening. Their headphones have amazing clarity and soundstage for their size. If you keep in mind that AirPods are calibrated to your ears with your iPhone's FaceID camera, they provide nice, tailored sound. I also have nice, but not over the top equipment. Yes, some of them sound nicer and more detailed (you can't compare large, 100W/channel bookshelf speakers with headphones, can you?), but for getting 95% of what they provide without any effort is pretty worth it. Last, but not the least, Apple used Wolfson DACs in their iPods for most of their lifetime. Their replacement DACs are not worse than the Wolfsons, but probably even better.
- skeeter2020 7mo ago>> As a (sane) audiophile this is something you believe about yourself, but an oxymoron for everyone else.
- bayindirh 7mo agoI love this “oxymoron” label slapped on me, without knowing what audiophile actually means. Its meaning has distorted as much as how the word hacker is distorted. Yes, I love listening to music and quality audio, but don’t have a soundtrack to benchmark systems. My bar is simple: Do I enjoy what I hear? It doesn’t have to fit into a recipe. It should be enjoyable, period. A pair of Apple AirPods can be as enjoyable as two $10K speakers powered by a separate stack costing $20K. It’s akin to loving that hole in the wall restaurant as well as that Michelin rated one. Both are enjoyable in its own sense. Well, I use the same amp, turntable and tuner for the last 30 years, and the same CD player and speakers for the last 10 years. Changed the speakers since I had no space for the older Akai set, and replaced the CD player since the older one was acting up. Replaced the Logitech Bluetooth receiver for a Fiio DAC last week since I found one for a bargain. Everything is connected with high quality yet 30 year old cables. I believe that’s a pretty sane evolution for someone who grown up with music, and performed some.
- bayindirh 7mo agoAs said, different markets. If you look from the same perspective, the last iPhone I ordered is 3x the price of a last generation MacBook Air. $549 is pretty reasonable if the headphone has the sound detail it's advertising. Given how AirPods Gen 3 sounds, I'm sure that thing sounds pretty amazing.
- porphyra 7mo agoIsn'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)
- kakacik 7mo agoOr 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.
- arccy 7mo agoSony actually listened and made the cups foldable again though
- margalabargala 7mo ago> Sennheiser momentum 4, 150 bucks Where do you see these at 150? Lowest I see is 250.
- elicash 7mo agoAmazon price history: ranges between $187 and $430, with average $277. $250 now. (So I agree with your take.) https://camelcamelcamel.com/product/B0B6GHW1SX https://camelcamelcamel.com/product/B0B6GHW1SX
- aram99 7mo agoa link?
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- mwelpa 7mo agoYeah, but anc is trash in the Sennheisers.
- bombcar 7mo agoSennheiser HD 800 S is $1700 and has been around for years. Or the Meze Elite Tungsten at $4,000 - if Apple can get 80/90% of the way there at $549, they'd be a steal for the right customer.
- Shebanator 7mo agoThe quality x price curve is not linear. Expensive materials and engineering often produce only incremental quality improvements, if any. Sometimes the improvements are only cosmetic. So Apple's headphones would need to be a lot closer to the best of the best than 80-90% in order to justify their price.
- Kon5ole 7mo agoThe feature that applies a hearing test as an equalizer setting make the APM sound pretty damn good, so much so it ended my 20 year long headphone-collecting hobby. Before hearing-tuned EQ became a thing, trying headphones was like trying food. No matter what someone else said it was no guarantee you'd like the sound. Conversely, you might find a cheap pair that sounded spectacular to you. The APM will sound very good to just about anyone, with the hearing test EQ applied. I think every headphone maker (or better yet, DAC maker) should have this feature. Audiophiles are often old, a hearing test EQ can make them hear music like they're 20 again, and they'll pay for it.
- hackingonempty 7mo agoJust buy the good ol' HD-600, or some sealed cans, or whatever fits your head the best and use an eq profile from AutoEq.
- Foobar8568 7mo agoYou can't compare wired and open back design with Bluetooth headphones. Anyway, I own a Meze 109 pro, and cheap iems with 3M hearing protection that I use when my commute is too noisy. Replace nicely my old ANC headphones.
- mft_ 7mo ago
- j3k3 7mo agoPrice and quantity go in pairs. As long as a pair exists on the demand curve, Apple can charge that price.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- Computer0 7mo agoSame could be said about the Vision Pro, much pricier than their mass market alternatives, while being in-line with high end professional gear.
- butlike 7mo agoAnd _STILL_ the Sony MDR's are still ~$100.
- asdff 7mo agoPeripheral tech must have absurdly lucrative margins. I see it in my niche interests too. Cycling or golf gps are like hundreds of dollars. They are the same products they were 15 years ago: cheap lcd screen with a cheap gps radio and some severely underpowered cpu with noticable input lag. Designed to fall apart in a few years. Still same prices they always were, maybe they get away adding another $50 a year to the price on occasion. It is like they hit their price point and margin number and are perfectly happy making probably >60% markup on us who have no option otherwise. Yes we could potentially order prototypes trivially for cents a unit from same places in china the first party manufacturers go to, but minimum order is probably 1000 units. That is literally the sole moat of these companies: minimum orders from china and the fact we can't spend the ad money they can to move that volume quickly. Not tech or offering a good deal. Just being there already with money and doing the inevitable. Being the more productive drug dealer quicker to move the kilo to the captured audience and bankrolled to get the next several and scale.
- mixmastamyk 7mo agoInflation calculator site says 45% inflation since 2011, USD.
- asdff 7mo agoHow about moores law?
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- mixmastamyk 7mo agoWhat about it? You said that performance has not increased, so its unlikely they moved to newer parts. Parts do get cheaper until they get rare, and then they get expensive again.
- philjohn 7mo agoFor cycling tech, if you're outside the US, check out Chinese manufacturers like iGPSport and Magene. Picked up a spider-based power meter for around £290 and a big computer for £150. Both are great, and work just as well as their western counterparts costing significantly more.
- interludead 7mo agoIt does look strange when you compare it directly to a MacBook, but headphones are a weird category
- ActorNightly 7mo agoYou do, you just don't want to admit it because you think it may make you look ridiculous, but your intuition is correct - Apple sells tech jewelry. Every single one of their products is overpriced to appear premium.
- vrosas 7mo agoI've struggled to understand how Loop earplugs cost $25+ when you can get actual music-playing earphones for less than $10.
- gehsty 7mo agoOne is a fashion item, another is an education focussed laptop. People will pay a lot of money for how things look.
- tjmc 7mo agoYou should see the price of noise cancelling aviation headsets. Bose are killing it.
- Aurornis 7mo agoYou’re comparing their top-end luxury product from one category to their entry-level basic product from another category. Premium products usually have higher margins.
- dmazzoni 7mo agoExactly. If you want Apple-quality headphones to go with your MacBook Neo, the USB-C Earpods are $19: https://www.apple.com/shop/product/myqy3am/a/earpods-usb-c https://www.apple.com/shop/product/myqy3am/a/earpods-usb-c
- officerk 7mo agoDidn't they sell wheels at $699 and a monitor stand at over a $1000?
- davidhunter 7mo agoIf you don’t understand then you should invest some time learning microeconomics, marketing, and moats. Principles from (at least) those 3 areas are involved here. To give 3 examples: 1. The marginal value of these products is in the mind of the individual buyer. No individual is buying both the AirPods Max 2 AND the MacBook Neo for personal use. You can’t compare marginal value across two different individuals. 2. The MacBook Neo has a different set of substitutable goods vs the AirPods Max 2. This affects margin. AirPods Max 2 buyers are likely heavily bought into the Apple ecosystem already. 3. With the Neo, Apple are in some sense subsidising entry into the Apple Ecosystem and ‘getting them young’. Wouldn’t surprise me if there’s zero or negative margin. With the AirPods Max 2 they are exploiting people who are already bought into the ecosystem. Margins will be high.
- ubermonkey 7mo agoThey're priced vs. peer closed-ear headphones, not the rest of the Mac line. They perform accordingly, at least once you factor in a mild Apple premium (say, 15-20%). I say this because I was able to compare them to my own $400 Sennheisers (which are somewhat awkward because they're wired, and really require a headphone amp to shine), and found the Max to be just as good. There are also a number of online reviewers who've said the same thing, among them developer, Tumblr millionaire, and headphone addict Marco Arment. He famously described the Max as his favorite closed-back headphone.