Sennheiser's Orpheus HE90 are often regarded as the best set of headphones in the world. Created in 1991, the HE90s came with a dedicated amplifier and a staggering price tag of $16,000. Only 300 sets were ever made and if you want them today, be prepared to spend some serious cash.
Or, you could simply wait until next year and pick up Sennheiser's latest rendition of the legendary headphones.
Described by the company as a rebirth of the original, the new headphones are an aesthetic work of art and may quite possibly be the best-sounding set of cans money can buy. They're hand-crafted in Germany of more than 6,000 high-end components including 2.4-micrometer platinum-vaporised diaphragms, gold-vaporised ceramic transducers, Carrara marble from Italy and 99.9 percent silver-plated OFC cables.
Sennheiser says the headphones feature an audio range from 8Hz to more than 100kHz with the lowest distortion ever measured in a sound reproduction system: 0.01 percent at 1kHz, 100 dB SPL.
I'm no audiophile but I can tell you that it'd be a real shame to waste these on compressed MP3s and low quality streaming music. I suspect those with the money to afford this kit won't be using it with such inferior media. If you want a better breakdown of the technology at work here, I'd point you over to this excellent write-up from Gizmodo.
As you can imagine, something of this level that took nearly 10 years to craft won't come cheap. Expect to pay $55,000 once they go on sale in mid-2016. That's an insane amount of money by almost any standard although for the uber wealthy, it'd be no different than buying a $20 set of headphones from Walmart. It's all relative.