What $80,000 headphones buys you

THESE are easily and without a doubt the very best headphones I’ve ever listened with — and so they should be.

YOU can buy a lot of great stuff with $80,000 — a luxury car, a second-hand light aeroplane, a house in the middle of nowhere, some really flash jewellery, or even a piece of art.

If you’re an audiophile, however, you could also buy a set of what may be the most expensive headphones on Earth.

German audio brand Sennheiser have recently unveiled their pinnacle of the range headphones; the Sennheiser HE 1 — and they can be yours for approximately $80,000; depending on the exchange rate from the Euro when you buy them.

Sennheiser describe the HE 1 as “the best headphones in the world”, taking the mantle from the company’s previous peak offering of the Orpheus, and are the result of more than 10 years of research and development.

It’s not entirely accurate to call the HE 1 just a set of headphones, as they’re also attached to an amplifier unit made out of Carrara marble (from the same quarry as the marble used in Michaelangelo’s David statue), with the set-up further complemented by eight valves (as in, those glowing glass vacuum tubes familiar to anyone who’s played the Fallout games) which help with the actual amplification aspects.

It does look nice.