So This Is What $16,000 Headphones Sound Like

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Allisons Dad

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In the early '90s, Sennheiser gave its engineers a mission: make the best headphones ever, irrespective of price. They came up with the Orpheus HE90. Only 300 were made. They initially sold for $16,000. Today they sell phone upwards of $30,000 on eBay.

The Orpheus is more proof-of-concept than anything else. Each set comes bundled with a dedicated tube amplifier (the HEV 90). There are six tubes in all, each protected by a metal casing. In the headphones themselves there is a ton of high-strength glass and gold. The setup supposedly has a range of 7 to 100,000 hertz, which goes far beyond what human ears are capable of hearing. The amp has an LED that flashes as its warming up (yes, these headphones need to warm up), and a dedicated volume control. It will support up to two headphones, but if you want a second pair, you're looking at $6,500, if you can even find 'em.

Components aside, the package looks absolutely gorgeous. It's something you would want prominently displayed in your living room, because it's a work of art. It looks more like it's something from the '60s, with its shining metal and its soft brown leather. The cups on the phones are very large and unless you have very large ears they'll definitely fit inside. Sorry, Mr. President. They are nicely padded, and they feel like something you'd never want to take off.

So, how do they sound? The clarity is absolutely unbelievable. There was so much detail, especially in the highs and mids, that it was almost like having your ear up against an acoustic guitar. It was so sharp that it was almost distracting, though I suspect you'd get used to it (and then get spoiled by it) over time. Vocals sounded incredibly natural and realistic. Sound was coming from a JR 800 Trans Rotor record player, which was playing Stockfisch Records Vinyl Collection 180g "Audiophile Vinyl Pressing." It was basically Cat Stevensesque folky stuff, so I couldn't evaluate the bass, but I've been told it's not as deep as more modern headphones. There is an excellent balance though.

So, was really enough to make me shed a tear? Not really. I was amazing and beautiful, but newer reference headphones (like Sennheiser's $1,500 HD 800, which I was able to listen to right next to the Orpheus) sound almost as good and will have fuller bass. At the same time, they do sound more... digital. The Orpheus is pretty much the ultimate in analog. If you ever get a chance to listen to them, take it.
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Has anyone here ever heard or experienced these?
 
Yes, both when they launched and more recently at a local audio meet.

To be sure, they’re very impressive and extremely transparent, but things have changed a bit in the ~20 years since they were created. They’re still a beautiful “statement” piece of course.

I might still rate them the best in terms of raw detail and perhaps in transient response, but they are outclassed, overall, today and at lower prices. Compared to the HD-800s I found the HE90s far sweeter and less fatiguing with music with lots of high-frequency content, though there are simple and cheap ways to address that with the HD-800s.

On the high-end I would (and will, sometime this year) take a Woo Audio “WES” and a pair of Stax SR-009s over the Orpheus.

And for just ~$2,000 a WA6-SE coupled with Audeze LCD-2s is damn close – certainly closer than it has any business being for what it costs.
 
I know what they mean about being spoiled about high end audio. My Grado RS-1's with my tube amp are magical when I haven't heard them for a while. When I listened to them a good deal each day for a week I don't hear the magic.. First world problems.
 
It's not uncommon to see a full set for the Orpheus, cans and amp both, fetch 30-40k in immaculate condition. I haven't had a chance to try these but I got to test out the 'Baby Orpheus' HE-60 and it was an incredible listen.
 
7 to 100,000 hertz, which goes far beyond what human ears are capable of hearing
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so whats the point creating that if you cant hear it:confused:
 
TroyX said:
so whats the point creating that if you cant hear it:confused:
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Allisons Dad said:
Same reason we have 3-10 screens, multiple graphics cards, 8 core processors etc etc. CAUSE WE CAN. lol :D
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No that isn't it. It is because people are fundamentally ignorant and think things matter when they don't. 3 screens and multi-GPUs are things you can visually appreciate at least.

I work in theatre. And a regular guest at one of my old places of employment was a certain nationally known string quartet. One of their members complained to our audio engineer about the air-handler system noise, and wanted the HVAC cut for their show (fire marshall would throw a fit, so that was an easy I don't even have to think about it "hell no" request)...OR for us to put a very low frequency filter (~30Hz and lower) on the recording gear (we recorded all shows).

Said musician is a smart person. Follows tech, is a good musician, and is not stupid by any means. But the frequencies they were wanting us to filter out were WAY below anything any string instrument could generate as a fundamental by an octave at least. As in only large pipe organs generate sound there, and even then the amplitude is so low in the recording gear (The HVAC is generating this so the amplitude is not high unlike an organ) as to be a non factor musically.
 
Allisons Dad said:
Same reason we have 3-10 screens, multiple graphics cards, 8 core processors etc etc. CAUSE WE CAN. lol :D
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you're not making any sense at all, zero.

i can see 3 screens if i had them on my desk, did you read that article?

they saying human ears cant hear/detect the Freq of those headphones.

how is that the same?
 
TroyX said:
you're not making any sense at all, zero.

i can see 3 screens if i had them on my desk, did you read that article?

they saying human ears cant hear/detect the Freq of those headphones.

how is that the same?
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It was a joke. Sorry you were born without a sense of humor. :rolleyes:
 
TroyX said:
so whats the point creating that if you cant hear it:confused:
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I would tend to doubt the frequency range was targeted specifically, more like it was capable of those numbers while they were hitting other, much more useful, goals.
 
There is something to killing freqs that we can't sense. Kind of like how some people, like Sheldon Cooper, completely miss obvious social cues but still feel like they missed something.

Certainly it is a bit overkill. However, I think the more non-existent the noise floor is, the better.
 
listen this thing back to 8 years ago. smooth and natural sound from the headphone I ever heard before.
 
I was at CES last week and I got to hear these beauties. They were everything I had imagined them to be. I had to go back to the booth a couple times every day just to get another chance to listen to them more.

http://imgur.com/AU8Il
 
Skripka said:
I work in theatre. And a regular guest at one of my old places of employment was a certain nationally known string quartet. One of their members complained to our audio engineer about the air-handler system noise, and wanted the HVAC cut for their show (fire marshall would throw a fit, so that was an easy I don't even have to think about it "hell no" request)...OR for us to put a very low frequency filter (~30Hz and lower) on the recording gear (we recorded all shows).

Said musician is a smart person. Follows tech, is a good musician, and is not stupid by any means. But the frequencies they were wanting us to filter out were WAY below anything any string instrument could generate as a fundamental by an octave at least. As in only large pipe organs generate sound there, and even then the amplitude is so low in the recording gear (The HVAC is generating this so the amplitude is not high unlike an organ) as to be a non factor musically.
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A 5 string bass's B string is 30Hz.
 
TroyX said:
so whats the point creating that if you cant hear it:confused:
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Give any group of talented, enthusiastic engineers unlimited funds and a mandate to achieve perfection and the result will likely be similarly above and beyond what is necessary or even practical.

You may not be able to hear 100,000 Hz, but creating headphones capable of reproducing upwards of said frequency is a tremendous achievement. Certainly something the Sennheiser engineers are quite proud of.
 
In the case of frequencies lower than you can hear, you may not be able to hear them, but you can certainly still feel them.
 
TroyX said:
so whats the point creating that if you cant hear it:confused:
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The point is that when you push audio electronics far beyond the limitations of the hearing it typically pushes resonances, distortion etc. also away from audible frequencies.

Electronics just as moving membranes typically start to degrade in performance the closer you get to the envelope limit of the performance.

When people laugh at 100khz specs they don't understand the technological reasoning behind it.
 
Face said:
A 5 string bass's B string is 30Hz.
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And even 30hz string can produce harmonic frequencies of a much wider range. It's too narrowminded to think "if a string can produce only 30hz I don't need anything below that". Multiple things together can create various harmonics which would get erased.
 
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