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Comment by simias | Hacker News Reader

>The difference between a $50 and $200 pair of headphones is staggering.

You fall exactly for the trap the parent is talking about. "$50 earphones" and "$200 earphones" is meaningless. There are many reasons why earphones can be more or less expensive, many of which have nothing to do with audio quality. Things like wireless support, quality of the materials used and whatever brand is embossed on it. My $50 "studio" AKG 240 are probably as good as many $200 earphones, but they're all plastic and not wireless.

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I think the assumption here is that an educated consumer isn’t going to just buy any $200 piece of junk that calls itself “high end”. They are going to listen to it themselves and/or do research to figure out who is providing true value at any given price point. In that context, your $50 AKG 240’s will definitely sound 2nd rate compared to options at a higher price point (HD6xx series and a couple hundred milliwatt amp would be my favorite example at a $300 price point). I do agree that other features (wireless, vanity, etc) may factor into the decision, as I myself enjoy the decent sound provided by the AirPods Pro given their convenience.

That's true, but when op says that, I assume they don't mean any $50 headphones, they mean the best (lets go with least harmonic distortion as our arbitrary criteria for "best") ones you can get in that price range, and for the most part they are describing a trend that DOES exist to some degree in almost any category of physical good you can buy, from power tools to kitchen appliances.

That’s an uncharitable interpretation. I understood it as “average quality to price correlation”.

Right, but that's the thing, because these products these days are often fashion statements there's less and less correlation between price and quality, especially as you go towards very expensive devices. A $50 pair of headphones is almost certainly better than a $20 one. $500 vs. $200? Maybe. $5000 vs $2000? Who the hell knows.

The point is that at $50 the AKG 240 are already the maximum audio quality you can get (in the sense reproduction). They are literally made for studio professionals to monitor recordings. Do you think non professional people need better gear to listen than what was used to record? What you are really buying above that price is build quality, comfort, or misc features.

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