[musicday]

For the asking price £35,000 that failure should have never happened, and they say that the Tera player is expensive. Been used mine daily for nearly 3 years and no problem ever.
Waiting for Shure SKE1500 to arrive in UK and listen to them instead
Maybe they worth after all.

 

[purk]

For the asking price £35,000 that failure should have never happened, and they say that the Tera player is expensive. Been used mine daily for nearly 3 years and no problem ever.
Waiting for Shure SKE1500 to arrive in UK and listen to them instead
Maybe they worth after all.

Not acceptable for sure, but I think this particular one is still a prototype of sort so they may have not worked out all the quirks.  Still its failure rate maybe higher than the original HEV90 given the amount of movement parts compared to the original Orpheus amplifier.  For in stance, my HEV90 has been nothing but rock solid since it has been in my possession (knock on wood).

 

[up late]

I have been ragging on the new Orpheus in this thread, but I am certainly glad it exists, and hopefully it will inspire other companies to take the gloves off and think outside the box. More options are always a good thing in this market.

i'll say but at least you're glad it exists

 

[bapcha]

Sure the Orpheus is probably the best there is - like someone here said "the Bugatti Veyron" of headphones.  I think it is stupid to pay "Porsche"
kind of money for any kind of audio equipment.
 
Sincerely,
Bapcha

 

[mulder01]

Dunno how many people clicked on the review on the last page but in the summary it says:

"The new Orpheus are probably among the best headphones ever made. The audible difference between them and a $5,000 pair is probably not huge."

I wonder what sort of level the headphones themselves are on compared with Abyss/009/HEK etc. - maybe about the same? BECAUSE, it seems like they are just selling this as a bundle to make sure everyone hears the headephones ONLY with the absolute ideal driving conditions. If you get a summit-fi dac, a WA234 and an Abyss/HEK with all your fancy cables etc and spend $55k on THAT system, then it's going to make the headphones look really extremely brilliant. To me it looks like Sennheiser has just bundled their headphones together with the most suitable customised summit-fi gear and forced you to buy it in a package to make the headphones seem better...

 

[Peti]

This is by far NOT EVEN the most expensive item of one of the most fines watchmaker's product line:
 
http://www.watchmaxx.com/watch/patek-philippe-grand-complications-men-5213G-001
 
Do your own research to find wristwatches priced for over a million bucks. Now are these watches more punctual than a 50$ quartz Casio? Hardly. These are really handcrafted statement products. (your average Rolex is handcrafted? Hah, forget it). Of course, a perpetual calendar movement will cost more than an average movement but you can get a nice Tissot perpetual calendar for less than 600$, brand new straight out from Switzerland with warranty. With these multi hundredthousand -dollar timepieces you pay for the finest materials, white gold, aligator skin, etc. and the brand name it comes with. Alas, most people outthere never even heard the word Patek, so when they look at your watch they won't realize it's not stainless steel but white gold, etc.
 
Only you know what is on your wrist and it makes you feel just good and proud. Luxury watchmakers built a multi billion dollar business on this concept.
 
Want the most punctual watches? Get a japanese masterpiece (I remember it's a Seiko) which automatically adjusts its time by connecting to some atomic clock on a daily basis for like 700$, brand new (if memory serves me right).
 
The aforementioned Patek model costs way more yet it's not as punctual as the Seiko. What you pay for is the name, the brand and, sometimes, the innovation. (think of kinetic watches, for instance).
 
Now we have this new flagship from Sennheiser. According to the news it emplyos innovative approaches and materials to further push the barriers of our headphone realm. It's not only like you buy an elegant product from a respected luxury company (a'la Patek) but something that had never been done before. I don't know Jude Mansilla personally, but based on his background I'm sure he knows what he talks about when it comes to headphones. When he says this new product was something like he NEVER heard before in terms of realism, I tend to believe him. And you know what? If someone can pull such a feat, that would be only Sennheiser or Stax, I think.
 
In a way I understand the source of the negative comments as I'm one of those who love this hobby with great music and I know I won't be able to check these out let alone to own one. But to bash this company who have invested 10+ years into this product to come up with something we never heard/seen before is simply foolish.
 
And I by no means trying to talk low on the beautifully crafted luxury watches I just ry to bring some attention to the fact that some people spend quite a lot of dough on luxury products that serve only one goal: to stand out. If you can afford and decide to buy this new Orpheus you shall not stand out (well, maybe a little bit ) but you will possess a headphone system so innovative that even most of our contemporary headphone lovers/aficionados can't really apprecaite.
 
I have a feeling with this model Sennheiser created something that will be only appreciated by the posterity. On the flipside, chances are, that, because of the asking price, many of these items will be bought up by millionaires who won't even know the difference between a sollid state vs tube amp!
 

 
 
My two cents.

 

[Music Alchemist]

Dunno how many people clicked on the review on the last page but in the summary it says:

"The new Orpheus are probably among the best headphones ever made. The audible difference between them and a $5,000 pair is probably not huge."

I wonder what sort of level the headphones themselves are on compared with Abyss/009/HEK etc. - maybe about the same? BECAUSE, it seems like they are just selling this as a bundle to make sure everyone hears the headephones ONLY with the absolute ideal driving conditions. If you get a summit-fi dac, a WA234 and an Abyss/HEK with all your fancy cables etc and spend $55k on THAT system, then it's going to make the headphones look really extremely brilliant. To me it looks like Sennheiser has just bundled their headphones together with the most suitable customised summit-fi gear and forced you to buy it in a package to make the headphones seem better...

 
I'm really hoping they let people buy the headphone by itself, without having to buy the rest of the system...and I really hope it works with other systems! (An official statement was made about it being available separately, but it was a little ambiguous.)

 

[mulder01]

   
I'm really hoping they let people buy the headphone by itself, without having to buy the rest of the system...and I really hope it works with other systems! (An official statement was made about it being available separately, but it was a little ambiguous.)

 
Admittedly I didn't watch the full 20 minute video, but do I remember correctly that part of the amplification is done at the headphone?  In which case that probably isn't compatible with anything else?

 

[superlowfi]

  This is by far NOT EVEN the most expensive item of one of the most fines watchmaker's product line:
 

 
Why stop at watches? There are also 9 figure yachts out there, perhaps we should also strain logic to compare yachts to headphones. it seems we've compared headphones to almost everything else in this thread.
 
At the end of the day, a headphone is not a watch, a car, or a yacht. It is a headphone, and can be evaluated as such. From what little information Sennheiser has released, there are certainly question marks from an engineering perspective on the value of some of the excesses engineered into the new Orpheus that have questionable value from a sound reproduction perspective. Those things are open to debate and critical evaluation. Sennheiser has engineered amplification in the earcups to avoid distortion in cabling and built the amp out of marble to reduce microphonics in the amplifier. These developments and engineering decisions are certainly open to critical evaluation.
 
I don't understand this desire some people have to cut all criticism off at the knees and pretend like this headphone is above all manner of critical evaluation. Just because a company put effort into something, even over ten years, doesn't really mean anything. Especially as it relates to headphones, which are by all accounts a subjective determination not unlike flavors of ice cream.

 

[superlowfi]

   
Admittedly I didn't watch the full 20 minute video, but do I remember correctly that part of the amplification is done at the headphone?  In which case that probably isn't compatible with anything else?

It's possible Sennheiser will release a baby Orpheus variant with a solid state amp that is compatible with the earcup amplification. I'm sure if they release a volume production model other companies can reverse engineer solutions to 

 

[Music Alchemist]

  Admittedly I didn't watch the full 20 minute video, but do I remember correctly that part of the amplification is done at the headphone?  In which case that probably isn't compatible with anything else?

 
Yes, some of the amplification is in the headphone, but that in itself doesn't tell us whether it could be compatible with aftermarket amps. Even if it was, I haven't yet seen specs for the bias voltage, how many pins the headphone cable has, and so on. I'm pretty sure every electrostat freak would appreciate the option to use their own amps instead of being forced to pay such a premium for the HEV 1060.

 

[up late]

I don't understand this desire some people have to cut all criticism off at the knees and pretend like this headphone is above all manner of critical evaluation. Just because a company put effort into something, even over ten years, doesn't really mean anything. Especially as it relates to headphones, which are by all accounts a subjective determination not unlike flavors of ice cream.

i'm all for informed criticism but that's sorely lacking in this thread at the moment. there's no shortage of soapboxes, however.

 

[Peti]

   
Why stop at watches? There are also 9 figure yachts out there, perhaps we should also strain logic to compare yachts to headphones. it seems we've compared headphones to almost everything else in this thread.
 
At the end of the day, a headphone is not a watch, a car, or a yacht. It is a headphone, and can be evaluated as such. From what little information Sennheiser has released, there are certainly question marks from an engineering perspective on the value of some of the excesses engineered into the new Orpheus that have questionable value from a sound reproduction perspective. Those things are open to debate and critical evaluation. Sennheiser has engineered amplification in the earcups to avoid distortion in cabling and built the amp out of marble to reduce microphonics in the amplifier. These developments and engineering decisions are certainly open to critical evaluation.
 
I don't understand this desire some people have to cut all criticism off at the knees and pretend like this headphone is above all manner of critical evaluation. Just because a company put effort into something, even over ten years, doesn't really mean anything. Especially as it relates to headphones, which are by all accounts a subjective determination not unlike flavors of ice cream.

I did not compare watches to headphones. Rather, I merely pointed to the fact that there are people outthere who are willing to spend fortunes on luxury things. This particular Sennheiser model is not merely luxurious. It has brought headphone listening to a new, yet unseen, level, according to the OP's video report.

 

[superlowfi]

i'm all for informed criticism but that's sorely lacking in this thread at the moment

 
I've brought up several things that haven't really been challenged. If these criticisms are uninformed, let's have a conversation about them.
 
- motorized tubes and buttons as an engineering point of failure which does nothing to improve sound
 
- amplifier built of marble to reduce microphonics - are microphonics actually an issue with the top tube amps being produced by other companies? are there audible microphonic distortions in competing tube amps?
 
- amplification built into the earcups to avoid distortion over cabling - is there currently audible distortion in amplifiers set up to carry the amplification signal across cables?
 
Again, people seem a little too eager to shut down all potential criticism. It's best to balance the over the top marketing that is currently being distributed with a grounded perspective that actually attempts to critically evaluate some of the engineering decisions involved in the development of this headphone.

 

[jibzilla]

 
I did not compare watches to headphones. Rather, I merely pointed to the fact that there are people outthere who are willing to spend fortunes on luxury things. This particular Sennheiser model is not merely luxurious. It has brought headphone listening to a new, yet unseen, level, according to the OP's video report.

 
What would be interesting is if OP compared the new Orpheus to his 009/Frank Cooter amp/$20k dac. If he prefers the new Orpheus then we have something. Not mentioning what the 009 was driven by at Sennheiser really leaves allot of "if's" imo.