How much "better" is a $1000 headphone than a $300 one?

Headphones General Headphone Discussion
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Before anyone leaps in the with obvious answer to the title question, let me clarify.

Having watched the latest Noise Floor (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzwI4e31PTk) about whether more expensive = worse, let alone ‘not necessarily better’, I’m aware of long-standing opinions on price v quality, and that it is not always (and indeed often not) an assumption that greater price implies greater quality.

A higher price MIGHT imply more expensive components being used, but that doesn’t automatically mean better sound. Better materials ought to mean better comfort, and/or durability over the longer term, but does it?

All that is NOT what I’m getting at here.

Let me put it this way. Suppose YOU, dear reader, had $1000 to spend, or you had $300 to spend. For whatever product you, personally, would pick at each price point, how much, if any, better would you expect it to be.

I’m trying to eliminate the fact that, for anyone reading this, what sounds best to your ears is very possibly not what sounds best to mine. Anyone regularly watching reviews (and live streams) on this site, can’t miss the fact that different reviews (say, Resolve and Listener) often do not agree on how good, or bad, a given headphone is. Our actual perceptions are affected by many factors.

But for an individual to spend $1000 on a headphone rather than $300 clearly suggests they’re getting something they value that is worth the difference, or nobody would … unless they just want bragging rights to an expensive ‘whatever’, and I am not interested in that.

So, I’m suggesting if someone said to you, you can have any pair of $300 headphones, OR any pair of $1000 headphones, bought for you, how much difference, if any, would you expect between those pairs of YOUR top pick, at each price point?

Note : by $300, I mean “up to”, and including nominally above, so if you choice happened to be $320, pick that. Similarly for $1000.

Second, I don’t really care what price points you pick, so if you want o choose between $750 and $4000, go for it. Similarly if it’s $100 and $300. But whatever price points you pick, they MUST be price points you would personally consider, even if the money used was your own.

So you COULD afford, and justify to yourself, either price PROVIDED the difference is big enough. For some people, $1000 on a headphone is stupidly expensive, but for others, $5000 is doable. A lot depends on personal finances and again, that’s not what I’m asking.

What I’m getting at is, for your personal tastes and preferences, how much (if any) difference is there between two significantly different but viable price points, and is it sound quality, or ‘other’ things you’re basing it on. I’m assuming, though, that your choice at both price points requires adequate comfort, durability, etc, or you wouldn’t have picked that pair at all.

My apologies for the length of this, but I’m trying to make it clear what I’m on about, as well as what I’m not talking about.

If you got this far … well done. And thanks. :smiley:

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Not sure if you’re asking theoretically what I’d expect, or from experience if there’s a noticeable difference between headphones at different price points.

If i were to spend 10x as much I’d expect a huge quality jump. From experience however, I spent anywhere from $80-1500 and I think $300-500 is a sweet spot for quality vs price.

I really enjoyed the expensive electrostatics at the $4000 range, for me that’s the only true upgrade and jump in quality, none of the headphones between $500-3000 are categorically better than the $300-500 range imo

Add in personalized EQ to the mix and my daily drivers are $80, $100, and $170.

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You can get the HD 6XX or 600 for $300ish, and at that point the point of diminishing returns is in full swing. Based on my experience, I’ve not heard anything better in every way than either of those headphones in the $1000 tier, so I’d say I’d only get another 15-20% increase in sound quality max by moving price tiers; probably lower to be honest. It’s fully subjective, so YMMV.

BTW, this is assuming PEQ is not an option.

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I executed a comparison very much like you seek several years ago. In my Focal Utopia review, I included a table describing the characteristics of the Sennheiser HD 600 (around $300 to $400), Focal Elex (then $700, now <$500), Focal Clear (then $1,500 now around $800), and the Focal Utopia ($4K+). I included the closed Dan Clark AEON Flow because I had it.

You do get more technical performance at each price tier, but @Nuance is correct. After $300 it’s mostly playing in the margins. Still, if forced to choose I’d go with the Clear over the HD 600 any day of the week. The HD 600 is too vulnerable to scratchy treble artifacts on many amps, while the Clear is cleaner and more forgiving.

I’ve demoed the Utopia a dozen times and very much want to tolerate its treble, but I cannot. I’ve demoed the $6K Susvara, but find it as bland and boring as white bread with a topping of mashed potatoes. No salt. To this point I’ve stayed with my HD 800 S, as a technical step above the Clear and below the Utopia – both in price and performance.

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On the first point … kinda both.

Okay, some background. Due to health issues, my remaining time is, erm … unknown, but limited. Could be months, could be a number of years. I was told 6-18 months, but that was over 5 years ago, so …

Given that, we have our finances sorted out, own our own house (no mortgage), have no debt and adequate savings etc. SO … I have an agreed supply of funds with which to indulge, within limits, in whatever the hell I choose. Which puts me in the position of being able to indulge quite a bit, but not to extremes, in everything I might choose to do, all at once.

Headphones are important to me, partly for the sound quality I get, but also for not driving the neighbours, and more importantly the wife, nuts.

Which left me trying to decide what would give me the most ‘bang-for-buck’. I’ve been looking for, oh, a year or so. I already had several ‘decent’ (though views will vary on that categorisation, I’m sure) pairs before I started, ranging from Sennheiser (HD-something, high-ish end from about the '90s), to an old pair of Stax’s.

I considered everything from Edition XS to Warwick Acoustics Bravura. But the thought that kept running through my mind was … if I step up from price level A to price level B, just what do I get for the extra money, and then I can decide whether I want to pay it.

That I’m fortunate enough to even consider the Bravura’s cost doesn’t mean I’m going to pay it. I’d look at the range of usual suspects in the flagship category and pick, provided I was convinced I’d get value for money for those flagships. I’m lucky to be able to consider it, but certainly not in the category to spend that much on a whim. It would take a sizeable chunk of that fun fund, and I’m NOT looking to just spend for the sake of it.

Which led to me thinking, if I go from, say, $300 to $1000, or from $1000 to $2500, or $2500 to $5000, does the difference in what I get justify the cost to me. On my list were Clear MG (OG not easy to get here in UK), Empyrean II, LCD 5, Bravura, Stax and so on. But some listening tests convinced me that, personally, there is no serious audio benefit much above $1000-ish. That isn’t to say there aren’t very good headphones at much higher prices, but that to me, at my age, the benefit of going much above $1000 isn’t enough to justify the price … except that I haven’t yet ruled out the Stax SR-007 Mk.II (and power unit, my old one being the wrong voltage).

But that process, which I’m pretty much past now anyway, led to the more general question of, leaving me out of it (and it’s not about buying advice for me), how much difference people generally would expect to get for a serious bump in price to convince them to pay it, if price was not really their limiting factor.

I mean, if you triple the price band, pick the best pair of headphones FOR YOU in each band, presumably the more expensive pair, whatever they are, would have to be quite a bit better (in sound, comfort, build quality, whatever factor or blend of factors you index for) to justify to yourself the extra cost. But how much better? Any teeny-weeny bit, a ginormous difference to justify the tripling of the price, or more? Less than triple?

My expectation is that to go anywhere near the $5000 (or more) price tag people would either have to be determined to get the very best, no matter by how small a margin, at that price, or that their finances are such that $5000 is still a whim-level purchase. And those people exist. I know a guy that buys a new Ferrari every year, because he doesn’t want to drive one on an old plate, or of an old model year. The ones he trades in, annually, typically have under 2000 miles (sometime a long way under) on the clock. To me, that is conspicuous consumption at it’s most obnoxious, but to him, the £30k or so it costs him is … trivial.

Money, therefore, has a very different meaning for him than to me, and some years ago, when I was struggling just to pay household utility bills, $300 on headphones was a pipe dream. So, I was trying to avoid asking about specific models or even specific price bands in the question, because that is very much circumstance-dependent.

It was more about whatever price levels apply to a given person, how much better would the dearer one need to be to get it over the cheaper one? For most of us, the opportunity cost of buying X is not being able to buy Y. Maybe you can have a new car or do a nice cruise, or a kitchen refurb? Or choose between a much more expensive new car or the kitchen and the cruise. But unless like that Ferrari changer, you have so much money ANY headphone is pretty much a petty cash purchase, most of us have to decide between spending $x00 (or $x000) on this, or that, but you can’t do both (at the same time).

The difference between the lower priced headphone and the dearer ones enables spending on something else, so how much do we each value the difference between the cheaper and dearer unit?

That’s why I say to your quote, kinda both.

On your second quote, I ended up in much the same place, which was about £800, but on two different units. Oh, and Airpods Pro 2 as well, but for different reasons. I decided I’d get better value for £1000 that way than on, maybe, Clear MG. But I do like Stax’s, my old ones are very old, and I’m still tempted there.

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Fully agree. It’s also tricky trying to word the question to explain what I meant. What got posted was about tthe 4th draft. :slight_smile:

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I hadn’t seen that, and yeah, it’s very much on point.

Also, in answer to Nuance, yes, I meant ignoring PEQ for the question, because, PEQ is free (peace, etc) if you choose, or feel the need, to apply it. And the same cost if you chose not to do so. Presumably, while it might affect which models someone might pick, most of us either will or won’t be willing to EQ, so either way, it’d affect model selection but not price point.

I’m not convinced I explained myself very clearly there. IF I’m willing to EQ, model choice would reflect using EQ. If I’m not willing to EQ, I’d chose models that will give me the best (to me) sound, without EQ.

In other words, yes, I’m trying to dodge the “to EQ or not to EQ - that is the question” question. Because, ummm … it wasn’t the question. :smiley:

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As noted, this is entirely subjective, but here goes.

I already have the 6XX @ $200, and the Verum 1 Mk2 @ $350.

There are only a couple headphones I would consider spending more money on.

(1) Nectar HiveXS @ $700. Gets me a e-stat without spending silly money. Well-regarded by people here I trust. What do I expect – the sort of transient attack and midrange purity that is associated with the transducer type.

(2) Something from ZMF in the $1200-$1500 range, if it strikes my eye. Yes, looks count (a lot) on this one. I expect the ZMF house sound (i.e. plenty of body and an organic, fluid midrange) and a headphone that I will enjoy listening to as well as looking at.

I’m not interested in $4k or $6k headphones. At that price or higher, it’s gonna be speakers for me.

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I hear ya. The only reason I mentioned it is because it would likely change priorities for some people if it was on the table. I.e., sound quality moving down a bit on the priority list.

Back on topic. If I had to pick something at the $1000 mark to ostensibly outperform the HD 600, it would be a Focal Clear (OG) or a used Sennheiser HD 800 S. Maybe the Focal Hadenys, though I haven’t heard one yet.

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Yeah, I imagine it would. If someone won’t EQ, then whatever sound you get out of the box is pretty much it, and at a minimum, if there’s an intolerable aspect (sibilance or whatever) it would probably entirely eliminate that model, but if you can just tweak it out with EQ, it’s back on the shortlist. And sure, no EQ = audio performance left unachieved with almost any headphone … provided you can get the EQ right.

Personally, I’m not adamantly in either camp, though I would tend to just avoid any model that had a characteristic that I had to EQ to find it bearable, because I don’t want to be forced to EQ. For anything I do buy, how much time I’ll spend tweaking EQ is limited because, so far, I’ve not found any dramatic benefit. And before any of the EQ crowd jump on that, I’m absolutely willing to concede that that may say more about my 70-ish year old hearing, and my EQ skills (or lack thereof) than it does about the principle.

Ah, but I’m more asking about the “difference” for a given price change, than on what model, and I think you answered that earlier with te 15-20% comment. This comes back to my rather clumsily asked question. What I was trying to get at wasn’t so much whether any of us would spend $1000 (or whatever), because that’s going to depend largely on individual circumstances, I’d think. Some people couldn’t, some could but wouldn’t because the improvement isn’t “worth it” and for some, the extra $700 (or however much, depending on price points) means very little to them, like the annual Ferrari-changer I mentioned.

It was more about how much difference you’d expect to get, if you did.

The best $300 (or $1000, or $5000) headphone for me might not be the same unit as for someone else, but there will be a best (or a small number of best) at a given price point. I suppose the exception to that comes when someone says “my best option is an X and it costs $Y, and NOTHING above that in price is better for me”. Until we each reach that point, going up to the most suitable model in the next price band should mean they’re better, but if someone then won’t go that step, the amount they’re better by isn’t enough to justify the price. They may be 20% better or 2% better at $1000 over $300, but what difference people expect at whatever price points they pick is what I was looking for, not whether an individual is willing to pay it or not.

Maybe a better way to have asked is "Suppose you’re going to be given two pairs of headphones, one at price A and one at price B. You can pick whatever headphone you persnally prefer as your ‘best’, */- 10%, at each point. A and B could be $300 and $1000, or they could be $1000 and $5000, Or whatever.

But for point A and point B, how much better would you expect the best headphone for you to be … if you’d expect it to be better at all?

Phrasing it that way focuses (I think) on how diminished the diminishing marginal return would be, without getting into whether an individual thinks the difference, whatever it is, is “worth it”, because they’re going to be given both of their #1 picks at BOTH price points.

I’m interested in the expected difference at each price point, not a necessarily subjective view of whether the difference is “worth” it. For the Ferrari-changing guy, he had enough money that, really, it seemed to mean nothing to him. So his pick would be presumably be whatever he felt was the best (for sound, comfort, styling, durability, extras, etc) whether it cost $300 or $30,000. I don’t think he’d care about how big the difference was, and certainly not about the cost. He’d just get the one he thought was best, whether it was 1% or 100% better, and probably not even ask the price. I am very much interested in how much better, though. .

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$700 better.

It was always too late.

To play Captain Obvious, this really is a value versus cost question, hence the confounding layer of subjectivity over the complicated relationship between cost and more objective matters such as capability or quality.

I spent a smidgen over US$300 on my most expensive headphone, then immediately heavily modified it based on my previous experience with cheaper and less capable big planars and the perceived capability of this headphone. It continues to impress. Nevertheless, I will swap it for my least expensive (US$20 + US$30 pads) headphone in the same listening environment for its qualities, and do the same for my other headphones of varying cost which I obtained based on my evaluation of a value peak and sufficiently interesting difference from my current gear.

So the real question is how to identify the value peaks on the cost spectrum over time, but since you asked,

if someone said to you, you can have any pair of $300 headphones, OR any pair of $1000 headphones, bought for you, how much difference, if any, would you expect between those pairs of YOUR top pick, at each price point?

I would expect that my pick of a value peak in the “$1000” category would be objectively better than my pick in the “$300” category in all the categories which matter to me, in addition to opening up some cost-limited options such as getting a good Electrostatic headphone earspeaker. I know picking an electrostatic here is slightly cheating, but we are ignoring sources. This is a result of the distribution of those value peaks over that cost range.

You need adequate time to properly evaluate and appreciate and upgrade and re-listen to all the old recordings and the new ones. Death will just have to be patient.

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I hear you on the ZMF’s. Oh, do I ever. But, while I certainly would expect “very good” sound, that wouldn’t be why I’d buy a pair. Somewhat obviously, it’d be the appearance. My problem is that here in the UK, finding them to audition to ensure the sound (to me) is good enough is tricky, and that weight and comfort are okay. And, unless I find a pair at a dealer and buy that specific pair, the nature of the beast is that organic materials vary. There’s no guarantee I’d like a specific wood, when they actually arrived.

I nearly ordered the Atrium a while back, but then the wood seemed to change (to Cherry, IIRC) ad I’m not so keen on that. I’d prefer a darker, warmer wood. Ideally, my first choice would be Sequoia, Giant Redwood. I have a couple of items here made from it and I think it’s stunning. And in case anyone’s about to leap on me from an environmental perspective, the items I have are from the gift shop at Muir Woods, outside San Francisco, and they say they use ONLY wood that falls naturally, and of course, therefore, it’s very limited and unpredictable in supply. Could ZMF get enough to be worth it, and would the wood (excuse pun) have the necessary acoustic characteristics? I’ve no idea, but they’d look fabulous.

As for the speakers at $4k+, I get that. I still have an old set of IMF transmission line’s I bought about 40 or 50 years ago. I don’t get to use them much though, as the wife has exceptionally sensitive hearing. I used to tease her about having better hearing than a bat, or a wolf hunting rodents under the ice. My listening circumstances are such that speaker usage is … restricted. Besides, the moment I go to speakers, I the have room acoustics to worry about. Which is why if I were too spend $4k or more, it’d be on headphones … and not ones that require very specific amplification. Personally, if I can’t run them off my phone and a Chord Mojo 2, or a similar portable device, they’re off my list, at any price. But that is specific to my circumstances. More speakers, other than very much actual “bookshelf” speakers are out, too.

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I now have a mental image of a very bored dude with a scythe, standing there tapping his foot, looking at his watch and muttering “Oh FFS, aren’t you done yet? How hard can this be?”

What follows is a lengthy discourse on the complexities of various factors, and about halfway through my attempt at explaining measuring rigs and HRTF, he gives up, hands me a card with his phone number, and says “Give me a call when you’re done”. So, I now rkon I have at least a millenium or two before he shows his face here again.

I won’t tell him about electrostatics. I’ll keep that for the next visit. See you in 4025. :smiley:

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It’s certainly subjective, in significant part. Personally, I’d have comfort as a fundamental feature, and that includes not being, for me, too heavy. If I can’t wear a pair of headphones for a protracted period, they’re no use to me.

Durability is an issue too. Once I get something I like, I don’t want to have to change it and something prone to breaking would wind me right the hell up. Build quality is worth paying for, to me. But, there’s also no point in getting a supremely comfortable and superbly engineered and buit, using premium materials, if I don’t like the sound. It is very much a personal balance.

But that’s why I tried to specify that the reference points should be for units each of us pick for his/her own reasons, and should be our own ‘best’ for that price band. My blend of factors might well be very different to someone else’s, and some otherwise commonly highly rated units (later LCD-X) are out, on weight alone, for me.

So one person might rate sound quality as much better on a more expensive unit, but another might be after durabilty, or style. Mostly, I suspect we’d all be picking based don a blend, and how to evaluate how “much difference” there is in each of those, would be a nightmare.

I think I’d ask if it’s comfortable enough, not too heavy, built well and looks decent. If it passes all those, hand it over and let me hear it. Give me an hour or two. At least. All in all, pretty subjective, yes.

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I’ve been amazed by some of the advances in headphone design in recent years, including in sub-$500 range. Sheesh, just a few years ago, you’d be hard pressed to find a decent planar magnetic headphone for around $200. Now they seem to be popping up everywhere (an exaggeration, but hopefully you take my point).

So yes, I think a well designed $1000-5000 headphone probably could sound a little better than a competently designed and manufactured $300 headphone. Couldn’t tell you which ones though, because my listening and budget for headphones doesn’t extend to the $1000-5000 range.

Money like that could potentially buy more R&D, QC, better assembly and driver matching, and more advanced materials with lower distortion and wider dynamic range, among other things. It is amazing how much of this technology is trickling down to the lower end though.

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Absolutely, ADU. What you can get, and how relatively (and I stress “relatively”) little money it costs, is astonishing, these days. Several of the Hifiman models have dropped in price a lot, from Edition XS to Arya Stealth, Organic and so on. FiiO FT! Pro, of course, Audeze Maxwell, and more, many at sub-$500 and all at sub-$1000.

And it’s partly why I’m asking this question. Unless I target things like ZMF styling, Empyrean II build quality, or what I’m currentlyy thinking, Stax electrostatics, I’m finding it quite hard … no damn it, very VERY hard to justify to myself going above something like those models I mentioned, I’m almost wanting to convince myself that I need an Empy II, or whatever … but realistically, other than maybe for build quality, I just can’t.

I listened to the Maxwell and the LCD-4z, and for my money the Maxwell was most (but not all) of the way there, at about one thirteenth of the price. Roughly, a £4000 difference.

And it leaves me wondering … is it my ears? Or is the difference between different models in the $300-$1000 (or lower, at the top end), like HD600 to Clear MG, as much or more than between those two Maxwells. I mean, the difference (to my ears) between, say, Sennheiser 600 and Arya Organic seems wider than between Maxwell and LCD-4z.

There might well be a reason, be it materials, necessary research, simple lack of economies of scale or whatever why mega-expensive flagshipss cost what they do. Or maybe they’re just an appeal to the crowd that want them because they’re expensive, not despite that. The same crowd that might buy a mega-expensive Swiss watch, or designer this or that. I don’t know.

But I’m a consumer, and I’m looking from the other end of the telescope - what MORE do I get if I spend $Y rather than $X. In terms of sound quality, or build etc, it seems that the diminishing marginal returns have diminished a hell of a lot, pretty rapidly.

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Just get second hand top of the line stuff, try a few, sell them for basically the same price and keep what you love if any.

You said you’re dying soon or something, quit wasting your time asking Internet strangers for their biased takes on value proposition and just try the pricey stuff.

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Redwood isn’t very hard tho. I think you would want a hardwood for use with headphones

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There are going to be some differences in the sonic qualities of the different types of drivers: dynamic, planar magnetic, and electrostatic. I think you could also fairly say that they each have their own strengths and weaknesses. So comparing a dynamic headphone like the Senn HD600 to a planar like Arya Organic is a bit like an apples to oranges thing.

I think it can be all the above.

Yes they have. What you can’t get with the lower end gear though is the same level of personal attention to the details and customer service, and some of the more exotic “space age” materials. And I think that can also potentially translate to better sound in some cases, including lower distortion, better driver symmetry and imaging, and better consistency.

The staff of this site will often make the opposite point though, which is also legitimate imo. That you can get a higher fidelity sound at much lower cost.

I don’t agree with DMS on the K361 btw. And I think sometimes the folks who make this kind of argument may be indexing more for FR. Whereas audiophiles will often index more for things like lower distortion, clarity, imaging, “soundstage”, and other “technicalities”. And be less concerned about a headphone’s FR/neutrality.

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The staff here, and hosts of the YouTube channel and The Noise Floor podcast, would likely tell you technicalities might all be due to FR, though; or, stated differently, found in the FR. I’ll defer to them, though.

No matter your viewpoint, it makes for some great conversation and provokes critical thinking. God knows we need a lot more of that these days!

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