SpringsNSFWdude t1_je73ap5 wrote on March 29, 2023 at 9:49 PM

Reply to comment by ZhanMing057 in Why do people buy more than thousand dollar headphones instead of speakers? by BC_LOFASZ

They are though, that's the point. Speakers scale linear with money invested. A $500 pair will absolutely shit on a $100 pair. A $1000 pair will shit on a $500 pair. A $10000 pair will dump on a $8000 set, and so on.

The sky is the literal limit. You could drop $100k on a audio setup and that isn't even scratching the surface of what the tech is capable of.

Headphones? Is there really anything worth 3x the MSRP of a HD800s? Does anything really sound 4x better than a LCD-X? Plenty of options in that range though. Headphones top out immediately in comparison to speakers, like it's not even close. There's a reason you can spend around $1000 for a headphone and you get pretty close to "max performance". Above that you're paying for build quality and creature comforts usually. You don't need a Orpheus to experience high end, there's not a world of difference between a $500 headphones and a $1000, nor a $1000 and a $2000. Plenty of people unironically prefer a 6xx over a $4000 Abyss. Nobody does that with speakers because every penny spent is put towards superior performance. Know how many options we have in the headphone and iem market under say, $300? I would compare a similar amount of options and performance gain on the table for speakers in the maybe 1-$2000 range.

You could drop $10k on a speaker setup and you're still not even close to high end equipment. In terms of "ability" my $200 JBL 530s blow my old LCD-X out the fucking water, so much more capable

ZhanMing057 t1_je793pl wrote on March 29, 2023 at 10:31 PM

A $2,000 barely running junk car is still many times faster than any human can achieve on a bike.

You need space, room treatment, and a fixed listening area for high-level room audio solutions. I can bring a pair of cans to anywhere I visit. Even with my desktop setup, I can listen at my desk, sofa, or armchair with an extension cable.

FWIW, I think there's plenty of differentiation at the high end if you know what you are looking for, and willing to build an appropriate system around a pair of high end headphones. You can also make $500 speakers sound really good with treatment, so the cost point isn't clear either way.