Just seeing "Focal" I knew I'd see a wacky freq response graph. Once I saw the tag >$1000 I knew the graph will be extra wacky like with all "premium" heapdhones.
I really didn't see any measurements of any headphones that would show clear advantage over good old HD600. May have missed on something.
Certain companies like Focal or Adam seem to rely on flashy marketing than precisely engineered products.
A lot of so called "high end" (studio monitors excluding) audio gear seems to be aimed at complete suckers as it seems like the higher priced they are, the closer they are to being complete junk.
ASR has been a real eye opener. I'm losing more and more respect to audio companies by the day.
Well, again, a
PREMIUM PRICE doesn't always result in
PREMIUM SOUND. There's $2000 turds, and yet, there's $20 marvels.
Price should not at all be a benchmark for better
sound quality. But it could be for better quality, besides the sound. Most of the times, yes.
The differences are as far and wide in the lower price ranges as in the higher ones.
Most of the time though, PREMIUM products have other features, which may or may not have to even DO with audio.
Leather. Titanium. Gold. Craftsmanship. Country of Origin. Scale of Production. Components reliability (Beryllium, Copper, Gold, Stainless Steel vs. Bronze, Zinc, Magnesium, Aluminum).
Sometimes an amp is expensive because it's a huge 10kg aluminum block CNC milled down to 2kg. Maybe even the damn heatsinks have articulately cutout designs of surgical precision. Maybe the there's a 100 strands in the cable. Maybe some special materials or substances have been used. Maybe the best capacitors in the world, maybe gold alloy of sorts in the soldering, gold plated or titanium knobs, connectors yada yada.
Most of the time, what I see is that expensive equipment DOES have a better quality of craftsmanship, materials and components. It also has emotional value, some branding push, some endorsements like no other, some uniqueness to the units (limited edition etc.).
All that - will NOT always translate to performance. However, it might just translate into longevity, reliability, usage safety, tighter tolerances for repeated use.
Maybe a premium amp measures meh - but it might just have the components that will make sure it performs AS IS even decades later with minimal change/depreciation in performance. So it might just have much more shelf life.
I know, most of us are trying to get the best for their dollar - I am. I'm like modding and DIYing my cans to my listening spec and preference rather than eyeing more expensive equipment, and a constant purchase/sale cycle. But there's people with real deep pockets, for whom cost is no object. Remember, a Bentley or a Rolls Royce is nobody's first or only car. Also, neither go faster than a tuned Nissan GT-R, which can be had for a quarter of the price. So again, speed isn't even something those car makers are eyeing. No one's gonna sit on the dashboard - hell, we may never even interact with it, but yeah - Rolls Royce: Rosewood dashboard. Ebony dashboard. Ceiling? Leather. I aint got leather seats in my car, where it may actually have a FUNCTIONAL PURPOSE. But talk about leather you only get to stare at (RR) lol.
I absolutely HATE Grados, from just the one that I've tried, and Tyll and a lot of other people do, too.
Now that Spirit Torino line of Made in Italy headphones are a further extension to it, and those headphones are so damn expensive, yet I have to laugh at the ****** (at least by the looks of it) drivers that they insist on using. Those cheapos might be had for $30 a pair off AliExpress - maybe. Again, that's my assumption.
I HAVE however felt that Kennerton may just be using a $20 a piece driver in their $700 pair of headphones.
People love $20 Koss Porta Pros, and
Crinacle just shat on $5000 Final Audio Sonorous Xs. (EDIT: Okay, just found out, he
shat on $2200 Spirit Torino Radiante also)
So what's the issue here? Well, Kennerton (and Spirit, I'm sure), must pride themselves in making their headphones, by HAND, by a Russian and an Italian (respectively) with GREAT materials (nice metals, sometimes 500 year old aged woods, premium leather), great care, great finesse and stuff. They may not sound great to some. Hell, they may sound just average, but sound ALONE is not that they're selling. Beauty will lie in the eyes of the beholder, and people must be willing to pay for the whole EXPERIENCE of owning such a thing.
We definitely get stupid soon as we start assuming that okay, if it's EXPENSIVE, it just damn well be better than anything else below it's price. Price is a defining factor for the whole package - not just the acoustical component. And there may always be
some caveat.
At the moment, for example, for the Focals, the overall sound still isn't. It's the intended clipping they've implemented to discourage over-excursion. And like a few of us here - well, many now own Focals, and still look forward to own them. It is possible a few are really, REALLY pushing them beyond the limits of the expected parameters. The clipping might just be a fail-safe to make sure your cans don't go complete kaput. But I haven't seen any real hate for the overall sound sig Focal's offer. Only mere nitpicking, aside from the clipping (which again, an issue that I and many others don't have).
Also, Sennheiser Orpheus HE 1 is premium - the Shangri La is - multiples of thousands of dollars (5 Focals to 50 Focals worth). No one has called THEM wacky just yet.