Yeah lol. I was trying to read the website or find any more information if there is any information to justify the $84,000 cost, but havenāt find any yet. The only thing I found was this headfi thread saying its rumor for only 10 units made, so its a super exclusive amp which might I guess explain the price range. But like you said, $84,000 for a headphone amp is pretty insane, even if there is pre-amp. They sometimes come out with an interview or article before release, so they might go into more details in a later date.
Found a reddit post that the headphone is rumor to be limited for 100 in stock. Iāll take that with a grain of salt as well, but audio technica been doing a lot of limited release recently.
Whyyyyyyyy. Why not make something closer to the range of existing totl headphone amps and sell more of them. I guess exclusivity sells, but just always irritating to see cool products that are limited just to be limited, regardless of price range.
I wouldnāt really be all that surprised at an 84k speaker tube amp, but really putting an amp of that level for headphones is largely a waste. Headphones just arenāt there yet to where they could fully, or even mostly, take advantage of an amp of that caliber. Assuming their headphone amp would actually compete with speaker amps at that price (which you canāt really test lol)
Cost of goods is probably ~20K so itās possible.
Youāve got 4 silver wound transformers I can see in the front, thatās $12K.
The 4 Takatski 300Bās is another $3K.
You might have input and interstage transformers that add 10K on top of that.
100% Markup would be normal, but itās a low production run device, so mark it up moreā¦
I donāt think the point of devices like this is for people to listen to them, but more to demonstrate you can, gives the company some cachet in the space.
Itās a bit like some the 7 figure hyper cars that companies lose money selling.
The fact they exist adds something to the rest of the range.
yeah, that is one thing I hate about Audio Technica. They make a lot of cool products like the leatherheads series, the AT-HA5050H amps, and even their recent W2022 headphone that seem to have positive reviews from what I saw from people. But itās always pretty pricey for what it is and they always make it ālimitedā. Then they are done with the headphone model/amp and move on to the next step they are trying to do. Wish when they do something cool, itās not limited and just makes a regular release.
I think thereās still more an argument to be made for those though to be honest, because thereās probably some cases where the cost can be justified in the sense that they could actually be close to fully taken advantage of in some cases. If youāre tracking some of those insane cars and actually giving them the situation and environment to show what theyāre capable of, thereās at least some justification because of their performance
A closer to 100k than not headphone amp, assuming it competes in a similar realm to speaker amps of that level, is like getting one of those 7 figure hypercars, and only being able to drive it on a really shitty road thatās falling apart. You just will never really get close to what the amp/car can do because youāre inherently limited on what youāre using it with.
If this was a speaker amp in that price range, I wouldnāt bat an eye, but thatās because I know there is actually the potential to harness most of not all of what those amps can do in use, offering some level of value or justification, because speakers are so so so so so much farther ahead than headphones in that realm. There are no headphones that I know of that get even remotely close to what that level of speakers can do, and will not be able to remotely take advantage of amps of that level either. It just seems like a waste. Take it from someone who has done the exact tests with amps of this caliber with headphones lol. Are they phenomenal? yeah. Do they make any potential financial sense with headphones, and take advantage of the amp enough to justify the cost? nope.
Perhaps the new AT really is just far ahead any other headphone to actually utilize such an amp, which Iād say is highly unlikely but who knows. A more likely guess for me would be the amp is just more priced on looks and exclusivity rather than performance and doesnāt actually perform like amps of that price range typically do. But again, donāt know. It just looks like a really dumb idea for someone who actually has that money to spend on an audio setup imo, and I wish they would have targeted something more around 20k or so if they wanted to shoot for the high end, and perhaps had a few hundred units. I think that would have been so much more reasonable overall and added more value to the market than this lol
I guess I just expect statement pieces to actually push the limits in all ways, including sound, without being completely insane in price. If you look at statement pieces from other headphone manufacturers, they look reasonable in comparison lol price wise, and they also actually can be justified for the sound you get (I think the he90 was a good example of this). I just donāt see how you could possibly get what you pay for in sound out of the AT combo, but Iāll let you know if Iām totally wrong if I ever get to hear one (highly unlikely lol)
Sometimes these ridiculous priced, limited editions are directed towards a specific target market. Such as newly wealthy who donāt want what everyone else can get, but something only a few can brag about. Growing up and working abroad this marketing and buyer mentality was prevalent in the Persian Gulf and parts of Asia.
This is a fair comparison but ultimately I think your previous point of simply ābecause you can and corporate imageā Iām sure theyāll sell all of them, and whether or not it makes sense doesnāt matter. People with obscene money will buy the best because they can, not because it means anything more to them than someone giving it the label of best.
In addition to @M0N commentary, thereās also a business model for these hyper cars as the āsupportā from factory race teams and personnel are known to return greater than the initial cost of the car long term as a day renting a track and support staff for the vehicle can run in excess of $250,000 billable and again, people with obscene money will pay for it because they can.
Looks like hedd will be releasing a new HP during canjam londonā¦ Anybody heard the current heddphone? I donāt think there are any impressions of it here
Interesting price point for a streamer, not sure the choice of WPS as the only mechanism to connect to a Wifi network, it was always at best a crapshoot to get working and a lot of modern routers donāt support it at all because of the security issues.
Iād bet itās a support headache for them.
I just got a promotional email about the Air Lens from PS Audio. It talks about this being a product launch, so it doesnāt sound like it has been made available before, other than shows (I saw one at Axpona) and reviews. The email says that there are only a few hundred available but doesnāt explain why - maybe the same parts issues that caused the delays in the first place.
This is a product segment Iād love to see vendors dive into and see growth in the deep end of the pool. At that price point and given the following PS Audio has, Iām rooting for its success. Thereās just too few choices in genuine high end streaming solutions in that greater than $2k and less than arm and a leg retail pricing.
Agreed, I suspect itās not something most dabble in because of the software complexity, your kind of stuck having to support it. PS Audio is probably big enough they can absorb that.
I like that the air lens has focus, with only spdif and I2S. Too many streamers try to do too much and add cost without actually improving quality.
But that said itās a very PS Audio centric focus. It would be nice to have AES along with the Coax and I2S. Iām ok with not including USB, or maybe having a USB version similar to the ultraRendu/opticalRendu products. Either way, I like that itās a sound quality first product not feature first.
