alt Hacker NewsI 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
Replies
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)
I've struggled to understand how Loop earplugs cost $25+ when you can get actual music-playing earphones for less than $10.
Different target markets. Audiophiles and wealth exhibitionists are much more willing to pay the large amount
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.
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.
Price and quantity go in pairs.
As long as a pair exists on the demand curve, Apple can charge that price.
And _STILL_ the Sony MDR's are still ~$100.
a lot of non apple headphones cost more... and many don't even sound better...
It does look strange when you compare it directly to a MacBook, but headphones are a weird category
Same could be said about the Vision Pro, much pricier than their mass market alternatives, while being in-line with high end professional gear.
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.
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.