Why would anyone make headphones, of all things, heavier to make them feel high-quality? Comfort (wearing them for hours) is one of my highest priorities and every gram shaved off the headphones adds to comfort. The fact that they estimate the material cost of a 199$ product to 17$ is the icing on the cake, haha. Now I will look down on people who wear these even more.
They don’t. To quote Marco Arment: "Those metal parts are the hinges, subject to the most wear, that need to be most durable."
See also:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-CkZ71iz68
That would be reasonable if the entire hinge were metal, but only the visible portion is metal where internally it is mounted in plastic. It's only as strong as the weakest link and that bit of plastic holding the metal half of the hinge looks very weak to me.
The zinc alloy in the knock-offs is weaker than stainless steel. But still much more durable than the plastic its hooked to. In either one the upper part of the hinge will break before the lower.
I don't think the metal is there to add weight, however. Seems to me to be so it looks shiny and has the appearance of being more substantial than it is. (Thus stainless steel which doesn't tarnish readily.) I think it does make a difference having metal on the shell of the ear cups because that's where your fingers touch. Over time painted plastic will fade and show smudges. The metal covering can be wiped clean and maintain its appearance longer. But everything else is plastic and will fade so a pyrrhic victory.
I have some Sony PS4 headphones where there's a metal rod going through plastic hinges. I would gladly pay an extra 100 bucks for a headset where any part of the device which is prone to wear would be made of metal, aluminum or otherwise. My larger than average head means that most headsets shatter after about a year of use.
I've got Audio-Technica ATH-A500, I don't think they make them anymore (now its A500X or something, so i can't vouch for that).
They look a little weird, but are sturdy as hell and sound plainly amazing (although after years of daily heavy use - connected to PC as exclusive sound source - they might seem to have a little lower sound quality - I'm not really sure)
I've literally stomped on them, run them over with a chair, had the cable go into the chair wheels (repeatedly) and then pull them off my head forcibly when I got up without noticing it. They are still fine.
I did break the audio jack when my headphone DAC fell of the desk and hit jackfirst into the ground (it sometimes doesn't connect properly and has to be wrangled about)
:(
And one the main differences between the original teardown with the counterfeit headphones was that the hinges were zinc alloy and with the real Beats headphones, the hinges were made with higher quality stainless steel.
I was taught that 5.5x was the standard BOM to retail price ratio. If the revised article is correct and the BOM is $20.19 then there is a fairly large markup to $199.
