Sennheiser unveils the best headphones ever made – for just $55,000
In 1990 the engineers at Sennheiser endeavored to create the best headphones in the world, resulting in the legendary Sennheiser Orpheus, a $16,000 pair of audiophile headphones accompanied with their own tube amplifier. Only 300 pairs of the original Orpheus exist today, reaching an average price of just $30,000 on eBay. Now, they have set to out-do themselves with what Sennheiser says took “almost a decade,” to perfect — the new Orpheus.
Designed for the complete experience, once the headphones are turned on, the quartz glass vacuum tubes ascend from their marble casing and emit their characteristic glow as the protective glass covering opens up to unveil the headphones. The marble comes from Carrara, Italy, home to the same marble Michelangelo used, while the controls are crafted from a single piece of brass.
Meet the World’s cleanest-sounding headphones ever made, complete with high-performance analog technology from ESS that uses 8 internal DACs to convert audio data with a sampling rate of up to 384 kHz, resolution of 32 bits and equipped with a frequency response of 8 hertz to over 100 kilohertz. For those of you non-techies, that’s 20 kHz over what the average human ear is even capable of hearing. This may seem a bit excessive but it is part of Sennehsier’s goal to ensure the lowest distortion that’s ever made in headphones. At a sound pressure level of 100 decibels and1 kilohertz, the system can reach a miniscule 0.01 percent of harmonic distortion. Likely to be the purest sound delivery ever made by human hands, the system is set a staggering $55,000.
“It is able to deceive our senses in a completely unique way, creating the perfect illusion of being directly immersed in the sound,” Sennheiser CEO Daniel Sennheiser said of the new Orpheus.
Via: Gizmodo
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