Gadgetory

so a huge shout-out to Squarespace for allowing us to be here at CES 2016 you can check out the link in the video description to learn more so here we are in the private listening room on the show floor at the Sennheiser booth and we are going to be seeing for the first time the $50,000 follow-up to the original Sennheiser orpheus headphones I haven't seen it yet but apparently they're here somewhere I actually don't know where they are so let's go find out because there's not a whole lot in here okay so oh there's there's an activation experience this is one of the coolest things okay that knob right there with the red light if you just press it in very gently uh-huh right there in front yep just tap that in okay turns white yep and then you'll see the front knobs oh they all come out thing is motorized and then the tubes will open up and then the case will open up on its own and then kind of raise the headphone slightly and this is done for two reasons one it's really fun to watch too it also only takes 20 seconds for the tubes to warm up to be ready for use so it's the whole process is done with purpose so that now you put your glass down hit the button have a sip of your drink and then you're ready to go okay so um so now what I just take him out and off I go they come out and run as fast as you can yeah okay so let's talk about the transducer for a minute the main difference between an electrostatic headphone and a more traditional magnetic driven headphone is that well there's there's no magnets you don't have magnets and a diaphragm and then the differing magnetic fields move it back and forth and cause the vibration that creates the sound waves that you hear instead we are actually using we're actually manipulating these tiny thin sheets of in this case a vaporized platinum to move back and forth to deliver the best possible sound and when I say best possible sound I really do mean they spend a lot of time figuring out that 2.8 micrometers was the optimal thickness for the vaporized platinum transducer in order to achieve what they're saying is eight Hertz all the way up to one hundred thousand Hertz of frequency response so to put that in perspective I could not hear how good they are neither could you I don't care how much of an audiophile they are literally beyond human comprehension it's true the rest of the unit features fairly exotic materials and construction techniques as well everything from the aluminum fins on the outsides of the ear cups in order to keep the power sources cool to the actual like hybrid velour sort of soft material and genuine leather material that sits up against your head for maximum comfort now that's not to say that all of the craziness is necessarily in just the headphones and let's move our attention to the entire completed unit 6000 hand-built components make up the entire Orpheus experience everything from the single slab of it's some fancy marble I'm sure we can put a note in the video I've forgotten what it is but it's apparently very very amazing there you go Carrara marble for the base station itself it takes an entire day to create one of these units with someone assembling it in Germany yes an entire day to build one of them and they've even they thought of everything because the bottom of the amplifier unit itself is actually a shock absorber so just in case you're on a crowded show floor hall floor and people are funding around outside like elephants it will be able to absorb some of that so it doesn't transfer it to the listener but all of that sin theory I haven't actually put them on yet so why don't we do that next I always wondered what a $50,000 pair of headphones sounds like kind of shaky so Hotel California is just the the universal song that everyone's obviously heard on their high-end headphones good choice 30 years well the appointments are unfortunately only 15 minutes long but it's very clear and this is not going to come as a surprise to anyone that that is by far the best rendition of Hotel California I have ever heard however would I pay $50,000 for it well that's going to come down to the individual buyer and this is the part of my CES coverage of the Orpheus that Sennheiser is probably not going to like that much with the original Orpheus what I liked about it was the exclusivity of the item and while this one is expensive enough that not all of your neighbors are going to have one in their basement next to their you know old lazy boy from the 80s that's just the right kind of comfortable they are not limiting production this time outside of a yearly maximum quota so would you if you have the money pay fifty thousand dollars even knowing that someone else could buy one if they could scrape together the dough or would you prefer son Heiser had gone the same route as last time and made it a numbered limited-edition let me know in the comments and let me know in the comments below if you guys are enjoying our CES coverage so far don't forget to get subscribed to Linus tech tips so you don't miss any any huge thanks to Squarespace for allowing us to be here at CES 2016 remember guys if you're building a beautiful website visit squarespace.com / - use offer code linus and you can save 10% on your website today that is uh that is just I mean that is just incredible I mean obviously I any high-end pair of headphones you can kind of pick out an individual instrument but this is this is a very very different level this is like you've yeah it's um yeah