Introduction

For Cyber Monday, I ended up purchasing the Bottlehead Crack, a DIY headphones amplifier targeted at high impedance headphones like the Sennheiser HD 6XX I already owned. In this post, I'd like to break down why.

Optimizing seller perspective

I think of price from the seller's perspective as the sum of

cost of inputs + cost of logistics + value of performance + value of marketing + value of usability 

Assuming, I cannot control the cost of inputs nor logistics, if I hold the price constant and want to maximize the value of performance, I would “diminish” the value of marketing and usability.

Therefore, for marketing, I find myself more skeptical the more I perceive a product as more heavily marketed than necessary. For example, audiophiles trash on Beats by Dre as “all marketing,” and I have avoided Beats by Dre.¹ I also try to avoid brands which merely position themselves as “luxury” without a legitimate, concrete (verifiable) claim about performance.

For usability, my instincts push me toward more obscure, specialized brands, with bonus points for slight product hurdles. Would a random friend have to ask me about the brand? Great. Does the brand only make amps, not even headphones? Great. Does the product require a bit of soldering? Great! All these, apply to Bottlehead, by the way.

Material intelligence

We observe people have different types of intelligence. I feel I lack “material intelligence,” building and understanding physical systems. To that end, I built a Corne keyboard. To go beyond the realm of soldering and simple computers, I am building a Linorobot, an autonomous car, next week. And in January, I am building a Bottlehead Crack with my friend who has previous experience with building audio equipment.

Compatibility

I reflected before that searching big product spaces requires a strategy or group of strategies. In paring down the product space, you can restrict your search to products which work well with your existing resources. In this case, the Bottlehead Crack works well with the Sennheiser HD 6XX I own. I realize now this benefit of narrowing your product search helps sustain product ecosystems, like the “Apple ecosystem.”

Conclusion

The Bottlehead Crack will take around 10 hours to build over multiple sessions, as I have estimated and planned. Wish me luck!