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from the audiophilia-for-the-1-percent dept.
El Reg reports
Sennheiser has announced a new pair of headphones it says will cost "around €50,000" (£35,314 or US$54,279).
The forthcoming "Orpheus" model boasts silver-plated copper cable and "gold-vaporized ceramic electrodes and platinum-vaporized diaphragms ... exactly 2.4 µ thick, the result of extensive research that shows that any thinner or thicker would be sub-optimal." The accompanying amplifier boasts "comes from Carrara in Italy and is the same type of marble that Michelangelo used to create his sculptures.
The tubes "rise from the base and start to glow", and "the control elements, each of which are crafted from a single piece of brass and then plated with chrome ... slowly extend from the marble housing."
We could go on, but fear doing so may induce ire among some readers. Know, then, that there's a very gushy website here [ecmascript required] full of all the jargon a rich audiophile could want.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 06 2015, @01:11AM
http://www.sennheiser-reshapingexcellence.com/en/v:standard [sennheiser-reshapingexcellence.com]
Using that link, I could read the ad copy and view the still images. There's an amplifier that apparently comes with these headphones. They've encased its tubes in quartz envelopes, to lessen microphonics [wikipedia.org]; the stone covering around the rest of the unit would serve the same purpose (although it's not explicitly mentioned)—something that in my opinion is unwarranted in an amplifier that is only used with a set of headphones. Think about it: if your music room suffers from such strong external noises or vibrations that it's going to create microphonics, you need to take care of those noises. If the only sound is from your headphones, it's not going to cause microphonics in your amplifier. I suppose that one's movements could disturb the cord.