[Trevayne10]

That is a specious analogy, and you know it.  Either you are deliberately misunderstanding me, or you revel in being obtuse. In any event, you might consider trolling elsewhere.

 

[VandyMan]

Not trolling. Just tired of hearing about how the Orpheus is too expensive from people who would not buy it even if it were much much less expensive, have never heard it, and have little experience with headphones in that class. Sorry to pick on you. You are certainly not alone in this. We have an entire topic with dozens of similar posts.

 

[Trevayne10]

Alright, fair enough. From your last response, it seems reasonable to conclude that you have experience with headphones in this class. Have you heard the Sennheiser Orpheus?  If so, I'd be interested in your opinion of them. Do tell!   (did you write an online review of them?  If so, perhaps you could provide a link).

 

[VandyMan]

Sadly, I have not had an opportunity to hear them yet. I'd like to read more hands-on impressions too.

 

[ToroFiestaSol]

The new Orpheus is an statement product, if I were rich I'll buy one asap, but I think, for 50K € they should be really nice, because with that money you can buy Rockport Atria, Devialet 400 amplifiers and custom room treatment...really tought competition at that price.

 

[edstrelow]

The only thing I am interested in here is whether or not the new Senn phones are better than current designs, such as the Stax SR009.  I fear that Sennheiser is running a con here because they are providing a system  of phones, amp and dac. where you can't simply plug in a different phone and do a listening comparison. Nor can you run the new Senns on another system since they are integrally bound to their amp. Whatever technical advantages there are in such a way of doing things there are clear marketing advantages of preventing critics from properly assessing the componenents of their system. 
 
Nor am I impressed by the reports by a  non-audiophile about this being the best thing he has ever heard.  BFD.  For $50K it better sound good. But I could probably match or exceed that level with my own choice pf components. 
 
The only thing I know about Sennheiser's headphone designs which makes me think that they may have a "best" design has nothing to do with the marble case and retractable tubes.  That is just crap for show purposes.  Rather it is that at least since the HD800 they have been using specilaized damping materials, located if you can believe this, in the headband. This dissipates mechanical energy in the earcups/headband which can seriously degrade performance. Grado has also recently started doing something like this with their e series phones, with specialized plastics designed to achieve this type of damping in the construction of their phones.   I would assume that this new  phone  from Sennheiser would build on the techniques used with the HD800.
 
Stax doesn't do this type of damping  and that I would I think places the SR009 at a great disadvantage compared to  the Sennheiser.  On the other hand you can usually fix these issues with a few dollars worth of sorbothane applied strategically. to the phones.  Nor does it hurt to dampen the amp and DAC this way.   See
 
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/744839/damping-mechanical-energy-distortion-of-stax-and-other-phones-with-sorbothane-and-other-materials

 

[wink]

I can save a LOT of trouble, time and effort by just dampening myself...    

 
That way everything I use benefits when I use them.......      

 

[Vigrith]

Apologies in advance for the semi off-topic reply, great reviews and impressions from both Beolab and Kaiserh, a very fun read for anyone interested in the topic.
 
Quote:

  That is a specious analogy, and you know it.  Either you are deliberately misunderstanding me, or you revel in being obtuse. In any event, you might consider trolling elsewhere.

 
You're missing the point.
 
As someone a little above me said the Orpheus is a statement product, even if your hearing is short of stellar some people still want to have the satisfaction of having the best possible despite diminishing returns and bottlenecks - I've seen at least two different Bugatti Veyrons driving around Lisbon past few years, our highway speed limit is 120 (140 tolerance), even if you are able to squeeze in the occasional 160-200km/h. Why would one want a 400+ km/h top speed Veyron over my 1998 F355 Berlinetta that cost me about a 10th of the price? It can't be driven at a German autobahn anyway, one reason to be the whole "wanting the best" I already mentioned, a lot of people like the way it looks, same goes for the Orpheus because to my taste I think it looks beautiful and would easily compliment my living room area in a way very few other pieces could; it just depends on what you like and personally I'd much rather spend 50 thousand on this than on another painting or art in general. I could not even own a pair of headphones and I'd still have the WA7 Fireflies powered up on my desk just because it looks stunning.
 
To each their own, the only thing I dislike is your tone of disdain just because you don't think it's worth it - given your level of hearing could you really tell and appreciate a difference between the Orpheus v1 and v2? Or a Viva Egoista + Abyss? Or Woo WA7 + LCD-3s? Maybe you could, maybe you could not. I'll refrain from commenting on comparisons to 40$ headphones because I don't know to what level your ears have gone down to but either way I'm sure you understand what I'm saying. You don't buy them (just) because they sound 10 times better than a five thousand dollar setup, there are a myriad of reasons for why you'd want to own an Orpheus on top of the couple most obvious ones I have already touched on previously. Some people like real estate, some like cars, some like sculpture, some like headphones and sound systems.
 
If you are going to be so adamant in voicing your (uninformed, by your words not mine) opinion(s) expect reactions and responses such as the ones Vandyman gave you because I would say he did not come off as disrespectful at all.

 

[Trevayne10]

Vigrith.  Vigrith, Vigrith, Vigrith.  None of this really was about me, but apparently you need it to be.  I didn't know you cared!   ; ) 

 

[listen4joy]

kaiserh, what is your home rig? 

 

[kaiserh]

I've got the original Sennheiser Momentum and Beyerdynamic Custom One Pro headphones. I now, thanks to Sennheiser, have a pair of Momentum Wireless as well.
I've been using a few different low-end DACs, am currently playing with a CEntrance DACport Slim.
As for the source, it's generally an iTunes library containing mainly Apple Lossless, AAC 256 and MP3 V0 files.
Nothing too fancy

 

[listen4joy]

so after you heard the best Headphone in the world will you settle and compromise with some of Stax009,HD800/S, Abyss 1266, LCD4, HIfiman HE-1000,Ether.... or wait to shangari la? only 10k and th erumours said its not fall off in SQ from  the new Sennheiser Orpheus in fraction of a price.

 

[Trevayne10]

I suppose one of the subtexts of my prior posts is simply this:  "'most expensive' does not necessarily equate to 'best'".

 

[kaiserh]

Unfortunately I'm not sure my headphone budget can even stretch to "affordable" electrostatics or even planar magnetics.
Whilst I'd really like to audition some more high-end cans, it's impossible to really compare with the Orpheus unless you're doing back-to-back listening tests.
 
I'm going to have to just keep trawling the for sale part of the forum until some affordable planar headphones come up - although having listened to the Orpheus, I gotta say that the Momentum still sounds good. No, they're not the same, but there's only one headphone out of the Orpheus and the Momentum that I can wear anywhere except a dedicated listening room

 

[Trevayne10]

Now I'm curious, kaiserh -  ever listened to Sennheiser HD-650s, or even 600s?