The 5 most expensive audiophile headphones in the world are a prime example of how you don’t need a flashy brand name to produce ridiculously expensive products. Unlike the best budget headphones that’ll save you a ton of money, these are dead set on providing the absolute best that technology can produce and couple it with the most luxurious and stylish presentation they can come up with. These pairs of headphones are not only extremely expensive but also rare since most of them have an extremely high production cost and are only made in limited numbers or per request.
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These pairs of overly expensive and rare cans are also not something you’d plug in your iPod and crank up the latest ode to renting expensive cars, clothes and women that the musical industry has spewed out. In purely technical terms, you cannot plug them in your iPod at all, since these sets of headphones have a very high impedance rating, meaning that where you’d hear some self proclaimed master of the universe yell out world capital names, you’d only hear a faint whisper. Listening to music with any of these is serious business. You wouldn’t go mud wrestling in your fanciest clothes in the same way you wouldn’t just plug these into any amplifier out there. People who would buy any of these sets probably already have a considerably more expensive tube (these glowing, toasty glass tubes you’d see in old circuitry) amps that are most certainly top of the line and offer the most pure and clear sound quality there is. After that comes whatever you are playing your music on, which should also be of absolutely uncompromised quality. The last part of the chain is the type of music you are listening to. Don’t be surprised when you see people using more expensive gear with analog music sources such as turntables or even tape recorders because they are the closest you’ll get to an actual physical representation of music. From then on, everything else like CDs and music coming from phones/computers/DVD players has first been converted to a digital bit stream for recording and then is converted back to analog signal for playback. The problem with that is that certain formats like .mp3 greatly compress and get rid of certain frequencies in order to keep files small. On the other hand, there are lossless (with as little compression as possible) formats such as .wav and .flac that aim at keeping the sound just as it was at the point of recording but they can get impressively big.
All in all, listening to music on gear that is that high in quality and price is not for everyone. Not only from a financial point of view but also in the way that many people can’t even differentiate between a horribly compressed audio file and a lossless one. On the other side, there is a lot of modern music which is entirely electronic and heavily processed which will sound pretty much the same in both situations even to the trained ear. There is, however, some of the novelty factors to these sets of headphones and it is easy to see how someone who could easily spare that amount of money could get a pair just for the sake of having one and boasting about it. Let’s take a look at what’s so enticing about these sets of headphones.
5. Audeze LCD-3
Most recent price: $1 945
Type: Open Circumaural Headphones
Frequency Response: 5 Hz – 50 000 Hz
Starting off the list, this pair of Audeze headphones is the cheapest on the list by far. It features planar magnetic technology which may take a little too much to explain on this list but just trust people when they tell you it delivers a once in a lifetime experience.
4. Audeze LCD-4
Most recent price: $3 995
Type: Open Circumaural Headphones
Frequency Response: 5 Hz – 50 000 Hz
Making a considerable leap, the Audeze LCD-4 take the fourth spot on this list of the most expensive audiophile headphones in the world. They utilize a unique type of transducer technology, using double fluxor magnet arrays to achieve the most dense magnetic field, combined with an ultralight but powerful membrane which gives you the most accurate and clean sound reproduction.
3. Stax SR 009
Most recent price: $4 450
Type: Push-Pull Open Back Circular Electrostatic Headphone
Frequency Response: 5 Hz – 42 000 Hz
The Stax SR 009 are a special type of headphones which you’d be surprised to see are rated for 145 KOhm of impedance. This does not mean that you’ll need a monstrous amplifier to drive them but instead they are designed to use a special type of very high voltage amplifiers so you should keep that in mind. They also use planar magnetic technology and come with a six strand silver coated 99.99999% pure copper cable.
2. Ultrasone Edition 5
Most recent price: $4 999
Type: Dynamic Closed Headphones
Frequency Response: 5 Hz – 42 000 Hz
Ethiopian long-haired goat leather pads and moor oak wooden elements with seven layers of varnish on them is just the beginning of the story for the Ultrasone Edition 5. This is a very limited run of Edition 5 which also comes with titanium coated hangers and a transducer technology that Ultrasone has exclusively patented.
1. Abyss AB-1266 Deluxe
Most recent price: $5,495
Type: Open with Planar Magnetic Transducers
Frequency Response: 5 Hz – 28 000 Hz
The 5 most expensive audiophile headphones in the world are, without a hint of doubt, the Abyss AB-1266 Deluxe which come looking like an awkwardly styled pair of war memorabilia but would change your life if you had the chance to hear them. The kit comes with a designer leather bag and a whole array of other exclusive accessories but this is not at all what these headphones are about. You won’t hear a single person say that they are not worth the money.
