If you are itching to drop $55,000 on something, just anything other than a car, and have an undying love for very high-quality audio, then we have good news for you: you are reading an article that will point you to the right direction. Meet Sennheiser 2015 take of the Orpheus HE90 headphones. Simply called Orpheus, this latesst wonder of the audiophile world is a sight to behold and comes packed with an ESS SABRE ES9018 chip with eight DACs to convert audio data with 32 bits resolution and a sampling rate of up to an astounding 384 kHz, an Italian Carrara marble base (the same stuff Michelangelo used for his sculptures), and lovingly crafted brass knobs and tubes that reveal themselves when it is turned on.
Turning on this holy grail of personal audio also opens a protective glass cover, revealing the real star of the show: the Orpheus headphones. Like its forebear, it is a pair of audio cans that screams sonic excellence and luxury, starting with silver-plated oxygen-free copper cabling sheathed with the aim of eliminating noise, fine German leather, built-in amps in the ear cups, and delivers a frequency response of 8Hz to over 100KHz, which are far beyond what human ears can hear. 10 years in the making, this reboot also inherits its predecessor’s electrostatic design, but updated for today’s Scrooge McDuckians demand for audiophile experience.
As you may have already guessed, the updated Sennheiser Orpheus Headphones is not quite a consumer product – it is more like a reference product that is set to go on sale mid of next year for the said five-figure sum. That’s a heck load of money to be paying for a pair of headphones/amplifier combination on any count, but nobody is going to stop you from diving in for one – if you are one of those who swims in a vault of bills.
Sennheiser via Gizmodo
