Once upon a time, a company introduced a pair of headphones so grand and luxurious, they cost a whopping $16,000 US dollars, or $38,000 CAD today. Really.
Now, Sennheiser is back and has released a new and improved set of over-ear headphones, the Orpheus, at the low, low, consumer-friendly price of $71,500 CAD. Again, really.
According to Gizmag, the Orpheus headphones have 6,000 components and a combination of both vacuum tube and transistor technology. The cans feature a “handcrafted casing made from glass and Carrera marble” and the knobs are forged from a single piece of brass. If that weren’t enough, the headphones have a frequency range from 8 Hertz to 100,000 Hz with nearly flawless sound, as any distortion is too subtle to detect.
While the price might seem a bit, well, unreasonable, Gizmag writer Aaron Heinrich notes that “what you get are a set of hand-crafted headphones that come with their own separate amplifier,” which maybe makes the price tag a little more palatable. “Powering up the headphones is meant to showcase just how much workmanship went into the system’s design and to emphasize that this is as much art as object. When the system is inactive, all the control knobs and internal amplifier components are retracted inside the glass and marble housing, but give the on/off volume control a slight push and the entire system comes to life.”
But if you’re looking to pick up a pair for the audiophile in your life, they’ll just have to wait: The company won’t be selling the insanely expensive set until next year.
To learn more, read here.
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