Capitalism, Scams and Headphones

What you see in the picture illustrates a scam.  You may not be interested in Headphones, or  Frequency Response Graphs, but the principle here is cross applicable.  So just consider the following.

Let me keep it simple. AKG produced the k601 some years ago, with an MSRP of $300usd. Then, after a while, it discontinued it. You know why? Because the quality of these phones is similar to high end models now being sold at more than a thousand US dollars (click image above for a clearer view of the similarity between the $300usd k601 and the $2000usd Audeze LCD X).

So AKG realised that they were selling us real quality at a relatively low price with the K601. Now, even for the best AKG headphones, like the K712 or K812, the latter of which costs more than a thousand dollars (approx: $1500usd), you can't get the quality of the k601 in terms of frequency response curves. (click image below.  The $1500usd K812 is only slightly better only at the 1-3khz region.  But in the rest, of the curve, the $300usd k601 produces a more neutral professional response)

They've decided to hold back technology that they produced a few years ago and for which they made a profit selling for as low as 300usd, SO they could sell us 'higher end' models at 3 or more times the price with LOWER quality. So in future, to get the same quality as the k601, we'll have to pay much more.

capitalism isn't about innovation, but holding it back so much much more money can be made from selling lower quality presented as higher quality, and even higher quality can thus be sold at much much more. And that also means that the price of truly low quality stuff can be sold at a higher price.

You see folks, capitalism isn't about innovation, but holding it back so much much more money can be made from selling lower quality presented as higher quality, and even higher quality can thus be sold at much much more. And that also means that the price of truly low quality stuff can be sold at a higher price.

I've checked out the net on this, and haven't seen anyone realising this scam.  However, some sellers on Amazon US must have realise this as they are selling the k601 for a higher price than its original MSRP.  That is strange as older products are sold at a lower price, unless they realise its good quality and the manufacturer has discontinued it for that reason.  Even Apple sells its small-storage mp3 players at a higher price per gb than its discontinued Apple Classic ipod.  It goes on everywhere. 



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