I don't understand how a pair of headphones can be $549 meanwhile the Macbook Neo is $599

The pricing on these always seemed a bit crazy to me, like the value is way off compared to other Apple products

Peripheral tech must have absurdly lucrative margins. I see it in my niche interests too. Cycling or golf gps are like hundreds of dollars. They are the same products they were 15 years ago: cheap lcd screen with a cheap gps radio and some severely underpowered cpu with noticable input lag. Designed to fall apart in a few years. Still same prices they always were, maybe they get away adding another $50 a year to the price on occasion. It is like they hit their price point and margin number and are perfectly happy making probably >60% markup on us who have no option otherwise. Yes we could potentially order prototypes trivially for cents a unit from same places in china the first party manufacturers go to, but minimum order is probably 1000 units.

That is literally the sole moat of these companies: minimum orders from china and the fact we can't spend the ad money they can to move that volume quickly. Not tech or offering a good deal. Just being there already with money and doing the inevitable. Being the more productive drug dealer quicker to move the kilo to the captured audience and bankrolled to get the next several and scale.

	▲	mixmastamyk 21 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Inflation calculator site says 45% inflation since 2011, USD.

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porphyra 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Isn't this pricing pretty in line with other high end ANC headphones?

e.g. Bowers & Wilkins PX8 ($699), Focal Bathys ($849), Sony WH-1000XM6 ($399), Kef Mu7 ($399), Bose QC Ultra ($449)

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kakacik an hour ago | parent [-]

Or Sennheiser momentum 4, 150 bucks and sound at least as good if not better, have absolutely huge battery compared to tiny apple one, more comfortable and generally work much better with non-apple ecosystem (also apparently they support multi-device pairing but I haven't used that one).

Don't pay the novelty price shortly after release, these go down quite a bit after introduction, ie last year Sony are basically the same device.

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margalabargala 16 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

> Sennheiser momentum 4, 150 bucks

Where do you see these at 150? Lowest I see is 250.

	▲	elicash 2 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Amazon price history: ranges between $187 and $430, with average $277. $250 now. (So I agree with your take.) https://camelcamelcamel.com/product/B0B6GHW1SX

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arccy 21 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

Sony actually listened and made the cups foldable again though

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momoschili 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Different target markets. Audiophiles and wealth exhibitionists are much more willing to pay the large amount

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Paria_Stark an hour ago | parent [-]

Doubt audiophiles are really the target for the AirPods Max.

	▲	bayindirh 39 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		As a (sane) audiophile, I happily use Apple devices for enjoyable listening. Their headphones have amazing clarity and soundstage for their size. If you keep in mind that AirPods are calibrated to your ears with your iPhone's FaceID camera, they provide nice, tailored sound. I also have nice, but not over the top equipment. Yes, some of them sound nicer and more detailed (you can't compare large, 100W/channel bookshelf speakers with headphones, can you?), but for getting 95% of what they provide without any effort is pretty worth it. Last, but not the least, Apple used Wolfson DACs in their iPods for most of their lifetime. Their replacement DACs are not worse than the Wolfsons, but probably even better.

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bayindirh 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

As said, different markets. If you look from the same perspective, the last iPhone I ordered is 3x the price of a last generation MacBook Air.

$549 is pretty reasonable if the headphone has the sound detail it's advertising. Given how AirPods Gen 3 sounds, I'm sure that thing sounds pretty amazing.

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bombcar 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Sennheiser HD 800 S is $1700 and has been around for years. Or the Meze Elite Tungsten at $4,000 - if Apple can get 80/90% of the way there at $549, they'd be a steal for the right customer.

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Shebanator 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The quality x price curve is not linear. Expensive materials and engineering often produce only incremental quality improvements, if any. Sometimes the improvements are only cosmetic. So Apple's headphones would need to be a lot closer to the best of the best than 80-90% in order to justify their price.

	▲	Kon5ole an hour ago \| parent [-]
		The feature that applies a hearing test as an equalizer setting make the APM sound pretty damn good, so much so it ended my 20 year long headphone-collecting hobby. Before hearing-tuned EQ became a thing, trying headphones was like trying food. No matter what someone else said it was no guarantee you'd like the sound. Conversely, you might find a cheap pair that sounded spectacular to you. The APM will sound very good to just about anyone, with the hearing test EQ applied. I think every headphone maker (or better yet, DAC maker) should have this feature. Audiophiles are often old, a hearing test EQ can make them hear music like they're 20 again, and they'll pay for it.

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hackingonempty an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Just buy the good ol' HD-600, or some sealed cans, or whatever fits your head the best and use an eq profile from AutoEq.

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j3k3 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Price and quantity go in pairs.

As long as a pair exists on the demand curve, Apple can charge that price.

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butlike 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

And _STILL_ the Sony MDR's are still ~$100.

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throwaway290 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

a lot of non apple headphones cost more... and many don't even sound better...

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steve1977 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Well, in the market segment of Bluetooth ANC headphones, there's not that much. Bowers & Wilkins and Focal come to mind, both audiophile luxury brands and similarily overpriced.

On the other hand, the flagship Sony is quite a bit less than AirPods Max.

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ruszki 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Doesn’t Sony have the best codec on Bluetooth? It definitely has worse noise cancellation than my AirPod, but afaik it should have better audio quality on paper.

	▲	steve1977 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		At least the WH-1000XM6 also has better noise cancellation (on paper).

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interludead 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It does look strange when you compare it directly to a MacBook, but headphones are a weird category

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ActorNightly 42 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You do, you just don't want to admit it because you think it may make you look ridiculous, but your intuition is correct - Apple sells tech jewelry.

Every single one of their products is overpriced to appear premium.

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Computer0 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Same could be said about the Vision Pro, much pricier than their mass market alternatives, while being in-line with high end professional gear.

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2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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