bagwell359
Headphoneus Supremus
When the word flagship comes up, then price is out the window. OTOH, that's artificial, because everybody but a billionaire uses cost in the formulae to decide.Amplifier is feliks echo 2, I know it doesn't get the best of hd650, but still I don't see them matching todays top tier performers. If I haven't owned and heard few of them I could debate that hd650 could stand with best. From the price point HD650/600 is insane value and I don't think there are many other hp with such price/performance ratio. today market is filled with mediocre and overpriced stuff covered by glossy reviews across websites and forums, but you can get good SQ for cheap which was not possible before.
Some of the flaghsips though are in the league of their own, but they usually are crazy expensive
HD-600's on an amp that is made for it (OTL) is probably the cheapest way I know how to get into a sound that is not perfect, but perhaps be dubbed "psuedo SOTA" if you can shutoff your judgements about tubes and a ~$300 can, then the enjoyment of this combo takes you a long way.
OTOH, that combo is no match for the Susvara and matching top pieces. But at what? 10X the price. An E2 on a Mjolnir 2? 4X more and better. A HE-600 se v2 w/ on steep discount w/ a Lyr3 and a multibit DAC included might be better.
But not much else in that price range, no to Ananda, LCD-2, etc....