Shills and softies

Difference is that Sony and AKG are established corporation in the industry who actually have labs and researchers, they're not boutique headphones. The R&D involved in the Qualia 010 or R10 is nothing to scoff at, from companies that have been doing audio longer than any of us have been born.

 

I think you put too much stock in R&D and established companies. Sennheiser, Sony and AKG aren’t interested in innovation or this market unless there are large profit margins motivating them. The boutique headphone companies see a market niche and are exploiting the demand.

 

I'm not so sure about that, considering the MDR-Z1R's absolutely colored tuning. I'm almost certain most of Sony's R&D budget go into their noise cancelling research and developing LDAC and other consumer-facing tech like Bose does, while its high-end stuff is boutique as all heck, as much if not moreso than ZMF (gold-plated copper chassis DAP with kimber cabling for $3k, cough), but not completely without research (S-Master digital processor and less resonant Z1R housing). To add to that, its not like ZMF doesn't do any R&D either, Zach works with legit engineers to design these things, thats like saying EC or DNA don't do any R&D.

 

^This. And the problem is when these big companies try to act like they face the constraints of boutique ones and charge boutique prices for products they can crap out rather efficiently. That's why we're getting 4-digit priced headphones that go for half price new after one or two years, since once their manufacturing clicks into place and the kinks have been ironed out with the help of early adopters, they can charge less than $1k for cables, earpads or have actual warranty services. Of course actual boutique companies like Campfire, EC, DNA, ECP and ZMF would get more love, they're people who actually interact with the community.

 

Exactly the same happened in the ski industry. The big players (K2, Salomon, Atomic, Rossignol) mostly rested on their laurels during the 90s and 00s, often moving their production to low-cost locales, allowing scrappy but not cheap entrants like DPS in the US or Black Crows in France to get ahead with innovative designs on small lab and equipment budgets but a lot of on-snow experimentation. This had ultimately a good effect on the whole industry. Some of the new entrants failed, but those who succeeded like DPS and Black Crows reshaped the market, and forced their bigger competitors to innovate again. Salomon skis were boring noodles in the 00s, but when I rented a pair of Soul 7s in Utah recently, they really performed. Atomic has now an outstanding line of lightweight carbon skis for ski touring. (Full disclosure: I'm a DPS fanboi but I also own Atomic Mythic skis).

One additional comment is that CAD, measurement gear, computer-controlled tools are much cheaper and easier to use now than they were back when Senn and Sony ruled the field. IOW, you no longer need a big open-plan office of white-shirt-pocket-protector dudes and expensive SGI or Intergraph workstations to design good gear, whether audio or skis.

 

I'm talking about the R&D that went into the R10/Qualia/Orpheus/K1000, not what products are being put out nowadays.

The R&D from the Qualia brought us headphones like the SA5000/3000/1000, Orpheus likely helped in developing the HD series headphones, K1000 is kind of the odd one out but still an interesting project way ahead of it's time when you consider the MrSpeakers/Abyss/RAL stuff etc.

 

This thread is a f'ing dumpster fire (and was one from the beginning.) The supposed issue brought up in the original post, which I probably contributed to, is complete bullshit.

Now we are talking about the cost of headphones in todays market (again, yay…) and really, mostly just arguing about how to beat that dead horse in a more efficient way.

FWIW, I think the lack of “likes” (not that they f'ing matter) on elmoes posts are indicative of the fact that the vast majority of this forum is not f'ing retarded. Thats nice, at least.

 

Personal attacks suck.

I'm really f'ing sick of complaints about the price of gear too, but not being in a position to play with nicer stuff I tend to keep my comments on relative worth of summit-fi to myself because I'm certainly not the target market. Not unless someone's whining about it anyway, as has been happening here.

The community will vote with its collective purse. If there are people with more money than good sense supporting manufacturers that sell overpriced assberries then shut them down and educate them. If people are embittered by the fact that they cannot afford good gear and make baseless assumptions about said gear then shut them down and educate them.

This is not a new topic even to this forum, though recent releases seem to have caused a resurgence of interest in the matter. @elmoe sorry if I missed it but have you gotten ears on any of these things in decent listening conditions?

 

By my count, not that it matters asshole, I got more likes in this thread than you did. For how little it matters you sure went out of your way to call me out, insult me then dislike my posts. Way to prove the point of the original post.

I've heard my fair share of overpriced TOTL headphones yes. I wasn't too impressed by most.

What's more interesting is how many got their feelings hurt by the very mention of the topic, which goes to prove the OP has a point.

 

These specific ones? Spell it out, it's much needed context. If not, which ones and how did they suck?

There is figurative steaming catshit that costs a gold bullion, no one with functional ears will say the PS1000 is good value or the Ultrasone Edition 10.

 

There's a difference between having know-how but being a small company, and being a newcomer without any accumulated research and development at all. Case in point:

- AKG: haven't done significant headphone development since the early 2000's. Functionally dead as an independent company. Not a fan of what they've been doing since the K1000.

- Audeze: Started from modest roots, small by big player standards, but has been hacking away at the planar problem for a decade. Impressive cans that are still a bit wonky on quality control and reliability.

- Sony: head-fi is a small part of the company and heavily fractured, with lots of personalities fighting over ad space and budgets. They have a big parts bin, and they have access to exotic fabrication (e.g. IER-Z1R, the JE mould making process) that most companies could only dream of. But that doesn't mean that they're using those tools well.

- Mysphere: tiny company but helmed by Austria's two best headphone designers. The "made in Austria" thing is a bit quaint and ultimately I feel like is limiting the fit and finish of their end product, but great ideas and (IMO) great sound. Not a lot of R&D, but when you take something like the K1000 and make it better a lot of the costs have arguably been paid for in AKG's development back in the 80s.

- Grado: small company that seemingly hasn't done anything since about 15 years ago. I kind of liked the RS1 and HP1 for what they were in 2005-ish, but they've done nothing to move past that point. They have a lot of sales and a pretty big distribution chain (I've seen stores with nothing but Beats and Grado in Kazakhstan) but as far as I'm concerned, they're putting exactly zero of that revenue into making better headphones.

 

Who said anything about them sucking? My point is that they're not worth the inflated price, whether you're talking about build quality or sound quality. What more needs to be spelled out other than what's already been said? You want a list of what I've heard that's considered TOTL?

I've heard all the TOTL Grados, PS/GS lines, the LCD4, the Utopia, the HD800/800S/820, Stax SR007, SR000, Abyss Phi Tc, HiFiMan HE-1000 (not sure if V1 or V2 on those).

Out of all of those, there's very few that are worth the pricetag compared to cheaper models of the same brand. Some of those outright aren't worth the pricetag period.

Now then, not that comparing dick sizes isn't interesting in its own way but we have a good discussion about R&D going on. If this thread and the topics discussed for whatever reason offend you, it's probably best to just move on.

Totally agree. Just because you're a small player doesn't mean you can't put out a good product at a decent price. To your point:

AKG: Agreed. I purchased a K7XX from massdrop and was really disappointed. It just didn't sound good. It was cheap, so my expectations weren't that high.

Audeze: They can make a great sounding pair of cans, but it seems like they release new headphones every 3 months, with an ever rising price tag, without a whole lot of innovation since the LCD-2, which I still think is bang for the buck. It's probably over 15 years old now though.

Sony: Sony impressed me with the SA5000, that's unlikely to be a popular opinion, but I always liked them. I haven't heard anything recent, so can't comment on that.

Mysphere: At least there is some innovation here, though I haven't heard these either. It's good that some companies like this one try to do something new.

Grado: My biggest beef is exactly that. Seems there's a lot of Grado hate here so most people probably don't care, but I love the SR/RS series Grados and the PS/GS lines were a huge disappointment.

 

I don't see how it proves the point of the original post, but ok. Anyhow, sorry for the personal attack. I'm coming off some meds and they are making me a cranky asshole. One love and all that. Peace.

 

I've always felt that if Sony managed to pull their designers' heads outside of their asses and give them real budgets, they would flat-out crush the competitors in Head-fi space. But both the profits and costs are just a rounding error in Sony's overall expenditure, and with headphones there isn't much synergy with other departments in the way that the camera or video divisions do (with sensors, Blue-ray and TV's).

Sony flexed their R&D muscle in the interchangeable lens camera market and a decade later, they're beating Nikon on global revenue. Sennheiser might have had that presence at one point, but now you have too many players in the space and they've lost a lot of talent over the years.

Ultimately, if a new company came out from nowhere with no background in audio (2 channel experience is meaningful but should be discounted to a degree), there are lots of reasons to be skeptical. But just because a big company is behind certain products doesn't mean that they necessarily make good products.

One thing about Sony is that they cater primarily to the Asian market and across the pond people have different sensibilities about what constitutes good head-fi. The JE was a massive hit when they opened up orders to SK, HK and in Shanghai and I just can't see people stateside going for something with such a long build cycle and stringent build requirements.

 

On the relationship of value/price to performance/SQ/fidelity:

I have been musing on this for years. I just happened to start a thread over at Computer Audiophile (now Audiophile Style) just a week or so about this very thing. The conversation never seems to go anywhere (or goes everywhere), and very often involves emotionalism. Yet, I think it is something always in the background just as it was in the OP of this thread. It's relative to each individual, but we all appear to have our own line in the sand where the price to performance has to make sense and beyond it, well we start wondering (to ourselves mostly, occasionally out loud) about the the "moral" (for lack of a better word) side of the hobby, certain companies, trends, sources of information, forums, fill_in_the_blank.

Wish I could frame it better or say more, but that's just it - it never gets beyond this point in my experience. I wish it did...

 

Sucking in the sense that they're not worth what manufacturers are asking for them; it's a personal thing but my perception of their overall worth plummets when they do that.

Yes it was necessary for you to spell that out because you were coming across as plainly denouncing the pursuit of "better" and claiming that more accessible options are every bit as good /just a different flavour to more sickeningly expensive counterparts; even in my limited experience with most of the same TOTL gear you've listed (only ever extensive meet conditions save for Senn and Grado; not gotten ears on SR007 or Abyss), I can easily call bullshit on that. Edification was needed.

Upward trend in flagship price aside this is a remarkable time for the hobby where people can achieve near-endgame performance for significantly less than what it'd have cost years back. There are now better available alternatives, whether or not they're worth the premium is something for people to decide themselves. It's in the making of better stuff that manufacturers can learn to do more with less for a more reasonable market, as has been discussed earlier.

Agreed, this was a massive segue. Apologies. Re: R&D there's been little meaningful advancement for ages, and that's only because the market does not care about good audio, Zhanming said most of what's worth saying on that front. The whole point of the thread was to remind people to be critical of gear because that's more useful than lavish praise echoed ad nauseam. I'd be interested in learning more about the differences between the development processes of large and small audio companies. Anyone know how much money Sony gives their team? Curious what testing paraphernalia they have on hand, and how they optimise the workflow to produce new models every three days. Wonder how they go about developing new audio codecs? Genuinely curious.

Lastly, public apology to @ufospls2. I rarely shit on posts unless it's irredeemably idiotic but you were escalating. I'd forgotten that you had good reason for the crankiness, that was insensitive of me.

 

OK so - I debated posting on here because well - it's awkward - but I decided that I'd rather not be misunderstood in my intent and how I run ZMF, so I want to just write a little bit so that whether you like me, our brand, our headphones etc etc at least you can hear my intent and why I run ZMF and make the headphones I do.

I started ZMF as Zach Mehrbach Films in 2010 as a way to have some sort of legitimacy when I was trying to get freelance gigs as a filmmaker, as I was trying to finish film school I was burnt out on film and modded a few Fostex,'s decided to sell them so I could make more, and then people just started asking me for headphones. I never took out a loan to start a business and never ever thought I'd be building headphones as a career. Now I'm here 9 years later, and have been obsessed with trying to make great headphones for a long time. (skipped ahead pretty far there) I thought in starting a business that I'd have more time for other things, as I'd be my own boss. It's been exactly the opposite, as I've been engulfed in headphones for a good 6-7 years now, and I really really really love what I do, and I don't do much else.

I'll bullet point the rest to make it easier to read:

1. I know ZMF's aren't for everyone. The scope of what I like is limited, and I'm always amazed how differently or alike other's experiences will match up with mine. ZMF definitely has a particular sound that's suited to my tastes. I hope other's like it, because that's what I like about making the headphones, is sharing them. I realize they are not perfect, but I try to come up with solutions to meet most owner's needs.

2. I am terrible at sending out review sets and often keep people waiting for months or never get them sets. I try when we release a headphone to get them to people I've known and have been in contact with for years. At the end of the day, I like making the headphones, and don't like the business aspect of it as much. Looking at numbers and figuring out all the business stuff pains me, but I also realize if I want to do this as a career, which I very much would like to keep doing, then building a strong business is important. I very much hope that you don't feel bombarded or pressured by me or anyone at ZMF to buy a headphone.

3. The price we charge is not arbitrary and not based on "what I can get." At the end of the day a good business needs to make a profit and out of that profit you have to be able to pay employees, taxes, develop new products, go to shows, get health insurance for everyone and the list goes on. When I first started ZMF I was charging $150 for t50 mods and making about $20 per headphone. At that point I didn't realize that ZMF would grow to have the 6 employees aside from myself that we have and that I'd have to learn how to successfully manage them and a company.

I use a very specific formula for pricing so that we can handle dealers and have our headphones shown around the world by dealers, but our margins are not good enough for most distributors unless they want to jack the price up. Most don't.

We make about 20-25 headphones a week, and yes it's harder to make headphones out of wood and I realize that aesthetic and sonic choice in using wood isn't for everyone. It makes the final product more rewarding and satisfying for me to make. The final product ends up feeling like something I'd want to own. These are my tastes and my engineers implementation though, and it's a specific look and sound, again not for everyone and there is definitely a premium you're paying because we're a small shop making these one by one and they aren't easy or fast to make.

4. The only people who get anything discounted are either reviewers after their review has been done or employees who have been with me for a long time. I never once have bargained for a good review. Much of the time I'd much rather send out review units to enthusiasts as I appreciate that insight as it resounds with me more than the "big" review sites of which many are pay to play. We are a sponsor of head-fi, and Audio-head (I just like Brian a lot). That's it. EDIT: I am working on becoming a sponsor here too.

5. I try to be attentive and make changes and alternations to our products based on feedback and I try to be responsive to emails and comments. It's been harder as we have grown some - but I don't want to lose the interaction I have with anyone who wants to talk regardless if they own a ZMF or not.

We have a shitty return policy because we've been behind on headphones for the last 3.5 years and we just don't have the staff or time to run that part of the business well. I'm working on that, and we won't be doing pre-orders any more as we finish the Closed version of the Verite. I want to make ZMF more friendly in that way - but I don't think we'll ever be as good as amazon!

OK - thanks for reading, and I'll get out of the way again.

 

That's all I read.


On the serious side though. You are a small boutique business and people should be well aware of what that all entails. Luckily as you mentioned, you stand by your product which is why I purchased ZMF products new and used.

 

Fact checking... the LCD-2 was introduced 8 years ago and the company itself is 10 years old.
There's a great interview with the Audeze CEO here, where he discusses how the company began, and about being a small business. BTW, I do feel that Audeze innovated with their iSine in-ears and Mobius headset.