It basically is, but that’s ok 
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Of course with speakers you have the same or more expensive situation building the source to speaker chain, PLUS proper placement and possibly room treatment. No matter, at work I’m very happy with the speaker solution, but the small room speaker solution is a roughly $9-11G proposition. AND the use case I have still doesn’t let me crank them much.
As far as @Eskamobob1 's thoughts on the HD-580s, I’ve had mine for what, 25 years now, and yes they scale, but not to the extent that the HD-6xx does. And my planars do not scale - they merely deteriorate on poor equipment or insufficient power. (I’m talking about the Hifiman HE-560) with most of the different configurations I’ve been able to try.
Different situations for everyone. I’m currently using a nearfield and in my living room I have some floorstanders. None of my spaces are optimal and I expect to never have an optimal sound room. However, I don’t think that should limit my choices to only headphones. I would hazard a guess that 99% of audiophiles don’t have a perfect room in their house yet they can still have a good sounding speaker system that’s less than $9-11k. Whether you want to venture down the speaker path is up to the individual but I think it’s a myth that you must have all these perfect parameters before you can truly use speakers. If that were the case, I would make the argument that you should be ready to spend $10-15k to have a good system that works with something like a Susvara.
Agreed. The next speakers will be for the much larger space that is my living room at home, and not the small office space, I think I need to budget between 10-15K on just the speakers. Most of my current electronics and turntable will do, at least initially on speakers in that range, The question is auditioning the likely options with my better half. This is not a quick process, at least not in Lancaster, PA.
And my office is not a perfect room. The system came together in part based on what I had - that old Sansui amp, and a reputable board level restoration. Then when Covid delays in production put the kibosh on the Maggie 1.7i and bass panel I was planning on, and the Eggleston Works Nico Evos presented themselves, I was most of the way there. I could do some room treatment, but the fortunately the Lokius provides enough quick tweaks to reduce the effect of a too live room in the upper midrange without cutting air. And the lowest range can provide a bit of bass shelf at low volumes.
Just FWIW, I was trying to compare these to stuff like big-7/EC 2a3 (cause I see those being brought up as true senn grails a fair bit) not the more mainstream stuff from those lineups.
No need to tease. Its not a sensible decision in the slightest
I don’t subscribe to those “vintage” amps to be the grails but I haven’t tried them so maybe I’ll change my mind if I ever have a chance to listen to them.
I will say sennbro/HE-6 culture of saying these are basically the only good headphones and everything else is bad can be pretty toxic. I believe there is some truth to the statement that those two are good headphones but I definitely know there is some copium there.
I would love to find a current production headphone under $1k that will wow me but I haven’t found any of interest after prioritizing speakers. I have my pair of HD580’s (that i bought for $200) and a LCD2pf just for nostalgia sake. ETA is probably the only brand that I still have some interest to try.
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I’m a host at local Bay Area radio station and wanted better headphones for the job. I jumped on the DROP HD580 Jubilee recently on sale for $140.
The DROP HD580’s compliment my nearly 20 year old “Vintage” HD650’s and the amazing ZMF Aeolus’s with Universe Perf suede pads.
The HD650’s are just that much better than the HD580. I enjoy the HD580’s and they work really well at the station, but I also have little interest using them in critical listening sessions for music.
Guess I’m saying something vintage is sometimes still competitive, sometimes nostalgia and more often than not just drifting into obsolescence. Interesting that few can name or state a headphone prior to the revolution Sennheiser started on the mid-90’s.
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Beyer, AKG, Koss, Fostex, Stax,… but I’ll admit that Senn’s 6 series (old 580 included) is probably the first modern tuned headphone.
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Audio Technica, Sony, Grado.
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