Lake People made good, well engineered headphone amplifiers that weren't hideously expensive. They noticed there was a market for audiophile headphone amplifiers which cost more so developed the Violectric brand. These were very expensive but at least they remained well engineered, well made products. Now it seems that the Violectric name is low rent and a premium line is needed for the dashing headphone fan about town and we have Nimbus.
$5000 for a headphone amplifier. We'll park the fact that the JDS Atom is all the headphone amplifier you need and costs about 1/50 of the price or for a bit more you can get the Massdrop THX amplifier with stellar performance. Even if looking at higher end headphone amplifiers $5000 is absurd. You could get the Sonoma system for that which gives you an excellent pair of headphones and a DAC as well. You could get a terrific Stax electrostatic system for a lot less. The Violectric amplifiers are already overkill, or you could buy an SPL Phonitor which is overkill and audio jewellery but at least looks cool with its analogue VU meters. You could buy a seriously good integrated or power amplifier for less.
For many years headphones were an island of sanity in the dysfunctional world of audio. For a long time the Sennheiser HD580 was recognised as being as good as anyone needed and it wasn't expensive (it was outright cheap relative to today's headphone market). I find it sad that the headphones market has become the new gold rush for audio manufacturers to sell audio jewellery at hideous prices supported by paid shills. Let's be honest, in many cases the headphone output of devices and DAPs work fine. If you want more volume then you don't have to spend much. The whole high end market works backwards from a price point set to appeal to a certain demographic.
To be clear, if people want a $5000 headphone amplifier then that is their choice. There are plenty of people for whom $5000 isn't even small change, it's a rounding error. Equally if people spend more than they need to or should then that's their choice (how many are going to claim that they have never spent more than they needed to on something?). If this was marketed as expensive jewelry it would be fair enough, but it isn't, it is sold on the basis of performance and being better and for some reason I just find there is something particularly dumb about the idea of a $5000 headphone amplifier. Especially when the same company's Lake People models are already perfectly good at a small fraction of the price.
$5000 for a headphone amplifier. We'll park the fact that the JDS Atom is all the headphone amplifier you need and costs about 1/50 of the price or for a bit more you can get the Massdrop THX amplifier with stellar performance. Even if looking at higher end headphone amplifiers $5000 is absurd. You could get the Sonoma system for that which gives you an excellent pair of headphones and a DAC as well. You could get a terrific Stax electrostatic system for a lot less. The Violectric amplifiers are already overkill, or you could buy an SPL Phonitor which is overkill and audio jewellery but at least looks cool with its analogue VU meters. You could buy a seriously good integrated or power amplifier for less.
For many years headphones were an island of sanity in the dysfunctional world of audio. For a long time the Sennheiser HD580 was recognised as being as good as anyone needed and it wasn't expensive (it was outright cheap relative to today's headphone market). I find it sad that the headphones market has become the new gold rush for audio manufacturers to sell audio jewellery at hideous prices supported by paid shills. Let's be honest, in many cases the headphone output of devices and DAPs work fine. If you want more volume then you don't have to spend much. The whole high end market works backwards from a price point set to appeal to a certain demographic.
To be clear, if people want a $5000 headphone amplifier then that is their choice. There are plenty of people for whom $5000 isn't even small change, it's a rounding error. Equally if people spend more than they need to or should then that's their choice (how many are going to claim that they have never spent more than they needed to on something?). If this was marketed as expensive jewelry it would be fair enough, but it isn't, it is sold on the basis of performance and being better and for some reason I just find there is something particularly dumb about the idea of a $5000 headphone amplifier. Especially when the same company's Lake People models are already perfectly good at a small fraction of the price.