The Sennheiser HE 1, The World's Most Expensive Headphones

Publish date: 2024-05-02

The World's Best Headphones Are Gorgeous And Incredibly Expensive

April 7, 2017

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There are two kinds of people in this world -- people who ask how much difference good headphones can really make and people who have owned a pair of awesome headphones and know.

In 1991 Sennheiser created the Orpheus headphones, which they insisted "transform music from something you listen to into something you live in."

Naming a pair of headphones after a mythological Greek hero who could charm anything living with his music would be incredibly pretentious -- if the product didn’t live up to it.

Fortunately, the run of just 300 pairs of headphones were widely regarded as the best in the world, and worthy to carry the name of a man who could navigate his way back from the underworld.

Now, Sennheiser is presenting its new pride and joy, the Sennheiser HE 1.

Sennheiser

The HE 1 uses a floating membrane instead of magnetic vibrating coils, has an eight vacuum tube amplifier housed in Carrara marble and platinum coated diaphragms that are 2.4 micrometers thick, which we're told is the optimum thickness to avoid distortion.

Gold coated electrodes and a second amplifier built into the headphones mean there is absolutely no distortion as the electric charge is perfectly evenly distributed. It claims to have the lowest level of distortion ever recorded on a sound reproduction system.

It’s basically as if the band you’re listening to is in the room with you.

However, the slight drawback is that such excellence in sound quality doesn’t come cheap. In fact it might be cheaper to actually get all your favorite artists in the room with you.

The Sennheiser HE 1 retails at, wait for it...

$55,000. Not a typo!

So maybe in the meantime you may have to settle for some slightly more realistic options like the excellent Status Audio HD One noise isolating headset at a mere $36...

$36.00 at Amazon.com

...or the Denon in-ear headphones at a mere $25.

$40.42 at Amazon.com

If you’re feeling flush, you can buy the Sennheiser HE 1 here. Don't tell your wife you mortgaged the house.

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