The audio equipment manufacturer confirmed the $399.99 price tag was necessary to subsidize the complex engineering process of just leaving the battery door unlocked.
Audio equipment manufacturer Sennheiser announced its new Momentum 5 Wireless headphones on Thursday, confirming that a $50 price bump was necessary to cover the staggering manufacturing costs of not filling the battery cavity with industrial adhesive. The new flagship model, which will retail for $399.99, introduces improved active noise cancellation and a revolutionary unglued plastic flap.
Set to be released on June 30th, the Momentum 5 retains the exact same contemporary, nondescript aesthetic as its predecessor, the Momentum 4. However, under the hood, the company is touting the inclusion of a user-replaceable battery, a feature that Sennheiser executives say required an entire paradigm shift in how the corporation looks at forced product degradation.
Normally, we secure the lithium-ion cell with a proprietary thermal epoxy, guaranteeing the entire headset becomes useless e-waste the moment the charge cycle degrades. Figuring out how to just leave a plastic door unglued required millions in structural engineering research, and we have to pass those costs on to the consumer.
Hass added that the $50 premium also compensates the company for the tragic, devastating loss of future sales from customers who previously would have been forced to throw their otherwise perfectly functional headphones into a landfill. By allowing users to extend the life of their audio equipment for a few more years, Sennheiser warned shareholders it had to immediately recoup the lost replacement revenue upfront.
Despite the radical leap forward in battery-door technology, the company assured loyal customers that the rest of the headset remains meticulously engineered to degrade on schedule. Sennheiser confirmed that the synthetic leather ear pads will still irreversibly disintegrate into a fine black dandruff after fourteen months of standard use, ensuring a healthy hardware upgrade cycle remains intact.