I'm not too worried about $12k headphones affecting the market.  Mercedes got spanked when they tried to charge 4x for their rebranded cars without introducing any new significant technologies or designs.  This is probably a huge risk for Goldmund to take because people who buy this stuff do so for prestige, and will sooner or later find out what they really bought from a friend they invite over.

What does worry me is the escalation of entry/mid-level cans.  $350 is the new $200.  $1000 seems like the starting point to even be considered higher-end.  It's too round of a number not to hit.  But what gives me hope is, if you look at the much more mature speaker market, incredibly expensive speakers are ever-present.  Despite that, the market has never been better in the $300-$1000 range.

I'm not too worried about $12k headphones affecting the market.  Mercedes got spanked when they tried to charge 4x for their rebranded cars without introducing any new significant technologies or designs.  This is probably a huge risk for Goldmund to take because people who buy this stuff do so for prestige, and will sooner or later find out what they really bought from a friend they invite over.

What does worry me is the escalation of entry/mid-level cans.  $350 is the new $200.  $1000 seems like the starting point to even be considered higher-end.  It's too round of a number not to hit.  But what gives me hope is, if you look at the much more mature speaker market, incredibly expensive speakers are ever-present.  Despite that, the market has never been better in the $300-$1000 range.

Go vintage and you can find more value for money than you can imagine. I always tried to bring that up when people started hyping up new headphones. Vintage AKG and Sennheiser on the used market; the old pro-audio gear alone...

It's sad.

Seems like Goldmund is very fond of rebadging stuff as their own. Which isn't at all uncommon, but they seem to be doing it in a rather questionable way (since apparently HiFiMan was unaware of the change to the "HP1" according to jerg?).