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Sennheiser announces new update to its Orpheus headphone line, $55,000 price tag

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XiaNaphryz

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Nov 5, 2005
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http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015...000-marble-clad-valve-amp-orpheus-headphones/

Sennheiser, purveyor of all things high-end audio, has released an update to its legendary Orpheus headphones, which combine an electrostatic set of cans with a valve pre-amp clad in solid marble. The company claims this results in an 8Hz to 100KHz frequency response—far beyond what human ears are capable of hearing. As such, the price for these new cans is pegged at $55,000 (probably £40,000 or more in the UK).

For the uninitiated, the original Orpheus HE90 headphones were the result of a Sennheiser R&D mission in the '90s to build "the best headphones ever made." It took until 2013 for Sennheiser's engineers to come up with the Orpheus HE90, and even then, only 300 of the things were made and attached to a ~£12,000 ($16,000) price tag.

The modern reboot took another 10 years to make, according to Sennheiser, thanks to updates to the electrostatic design and valve amplifier. The result is a set of headphones with a sound pressure level of a hefty 100 decibels and an alleged total harmonic distortion of just 0.01 percent. If true, that makes the Orpheus one of the cleanest audio products ever made.

The high cost of the Orpheus is largely thanks to the electrostatic design, which works very differently to the two driver that you'd usually find in headphones (dynamic drivers, which are basically a miniaturised speakers, and balanced armature drivers).

Electrostatic headphones work by placing a static electric charge on an extremely thin film that floats between two metal plates. The voltage of an audio signal passing through the plates causes the lightweight film to oscillate and produce sound. Because the film is so light and there's no physical contact required to get it to move, it doesn’t have its own resonances or damping issues. Thus, the device produces extremely clear sound.

The downside to electrostatic headphones is that they're tricky to produce and require a high-voltage amplifier to drive them. For the latter, Sennheiser has gone for a hybrid approach with the Orpheus. The pre-amp is driven by eight valves (or tubes if you're in the US) housed in Carrara marble. The power amp has been integrated into the headphones themselves, which Sennheiser claims avoids the signal loss that can occur between the amp, the cable, and the headphones.

The amp inside the cans is all solid-state, making use of MOSFET transistors. The diaphragm in the headphones is platinum-coated, and it sits between two gold-coated electrodes. The resulting diaphragm is just 2.4 microns thick. You get all the other usual audiophile guff too, including silver-plated oxygen-free copper cables and an ESS Sabre ES9018 chip that uses eight internal DACs with a resolution of 32 bits and a sampling rate of up to 384kHz.

Oh, and when you turn the Orpheus on, the controls and vacuum tubes rise out from the marble base, and a protective glass cover opens up to reveal the headphones. That's what $55,000 buys you in this day and age.
Click to expand...



 
LQX

LQX

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Dec 18, 2008
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And I bet the headphones squeak and feels like you might snap them in half once you try to put them on.
 
R

ReturnOfTheRAT

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Dec 11, 2010
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Buy a car or get a pair of headphones? hmm, tough decision, except for the fact that to get real use out of those headphones I'll need uncompromised audio going into them. That just ain't gonna happen.
 
W

wanderingprostheyltite

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Feb 13, 2013
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Reminds me of the electro shock thing from Return to Oz lol.

Looks cool, doubt I could hear the difference between it and any of the $200-300 pairs Senn sells.
 
K

kanuuna

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May 25, 2013
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So how many flagship STAX, FOSTEX, HiFiMAN, Audeze, AKGs etc. can I buy with this money again?
With a single amp for fair comparison, of coruse.
 
G

GhostTrick

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Jan 11, 2012
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I wonder if it's another expensive headset without removable cable which break at any occasion.

... Seriously, I really hope this trend of +100 dollars with non removable cable stop.
 
A

Antiwhippy

the holder of the trombone
Mar 28, 2010
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GhostTrick said:
I wonder if it's another expensive headset without removable cable which break at any occasion.

... Seriously, I really hope this trend of +100 dollars with non removable cable stop.
Click to expand...

What trend? Most $100+ headphone of any note comes with removable cables.
 
iNvid02

iNvid02

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Aug 16, 2009
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i like my hd700s a whole lot, but gotta wonder how $55,000 feels like on your head
 
L

LCfiner

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Feb 23, 2008
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The Sabre DAC in this thing cracks me up at this price point. There are better options out there.

hopefully there are analog inputs for the millionaires who will be buying this.
 
F

FloatingDivider

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Mar 8, 2013
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Does anyone give a poop? As the owner of an exceptionally shitty pair of ears my opinion may be overturned but considering most 25 year olds can barely hear shit above 16khz why do you need headphones that go up to 100khz? Surely anyone established(read old) enough to purchase these also doesn't have the ears to actually make use of them. I guess you can fuck with your dog/cats for a while by playing tones you can't hear but they can?
 
old

old

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May 11, 2013
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Gonna add this to my Christmas wish list just below "rich relatives".
 
A

Ally of Justice

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Sep 13, 2014
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Well, I can either buy two of them or a relatively decent house in a relatively nice neighborhood.

Decisions, decisions...

/s :(
 
E

Extra Sauce

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Mar 29, 2010
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If I get to see a hipster wearing the HE90 with the amplifier and a portable generator strapped to himself on the metro, I will die a happy man.
 
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