Guess Fostex caught on to the fact that the drivers could well supplant the actual TH-900s in sales and wanted to save themselves the shame. I rather doubt FC would do that of their own volition considering how many people likely purchased drivers through them.
Yeah, but who in their right mind is going to buy one of the worst-sounding headphones in the world at MSRP? If I were them I'd discontinue the model and double up on driver sales for owners of other models. Might go over their heads and reach out to Foster who manufactures the drivers. Bet they have high minimum order quantities though...
I guess f**k me for trying to bring their tech a good name with a proper implementation and actually listening to the headphones before slapping on an exorbitant price tag for a garbage OEM-built product.
Nah I get you, it really is a niche voicing (to put it politely) that just happens to have excellent technicalities behind it— the TH900 sucks sacks in stock form and *having* to buy one at MSRP only to need to shell out more to "fix" it effectively kills off most of the interest from people with budgets. Shit, I was hoping to get ears o the ESX eventually somehow.
I'm still happy to do mods on 600/X00 drivers but once you factor in labor cost it becomes less competitve in terms of price vs performance. In my mind modded TH900 was dynamic driver endgame by a HUGE margin. Modded X00 can have great tuning and bio timbre, but dynamics are meh. Solid mid-fi is as far as those can go.
I have no idea if it actually was Foster that took initiative to kill the modding market but it really doesn't compute that FullCompass would do this without pressure from On High, and at risk of sounding like a moron this kinda falls in line with my experience for Japanese pen companies— accidentally kill a Nakaya nib, pay $150+ for a replacement but you don't get to keep the broken one.
Yeah I'd say the TH-900 still edges out the HP-3 slightly for dynamism and head-thwacking slam, only the voicing was a nonstarter. Honestly rather miffed that FC did this but at the same time I'm already irked by a lot of other things rn so it just kinda pinged off haha.
I second figuring out how to become a repair shop. I have thought about registering as a watch repair shop to get better pricing for parts before. Depending on how far down the rabbit hole you want to go, maybe talk to Zach about some of his experiences going from modder to full blown manufacturer creating custom drivers. Might be an avenue you can explore.
I mean if you get a stock TH900 I'll still do it, might charge less for labor too given no transplant needed. Just more cost up-front for the donor phone.
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