Wednesday, January 7, 2015

What are your top 3 headphones over $1000?

Q: What would you consider to be the top 3 headphones that cost over $1000?

A: Personally, I would consider the Sennheiser HD800, the Audeze LCD3 and the Fostex TH900 my top 3 (open, planar, closed). HD800 wins on design, TH900 wins on craftsmanship (urushi!) and LCD3 wins on its materials.

But there is a second tier of headphones that are cheaper and provide almost as much performance, so from a price-performance perspective these headphones make much more sense to aspire to than my top 3.

Two disclaimers: I'm not into electrostatic headphones, so haven't considered them in the ranking.

Second, I'm not going to rank headphones that cost well over $2000, because I wouldn't spend over $2000 on headphones. At that price point (and above) speakers reign supreme, and you will never get the best $2000 headphones to sound as good as above-average $2000 speakers, and the best $3000 speakers will end up blowing the best $3000 headphones away.

In sum, it doesn't make sense from a price performance perspective to spend over $2000 for headphones, since above that price point you are probably better off getting speakers.

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