HE1000

Dynamic: Sennheiser HD 800, Sony Qualia 010, AKG K1000 Planar: HiFiMAN HE-1000 v1 (with the deeper cups) E-stat: STAX SR-Omega, SR-009/009S, Sennheiser HE-1. I haven't heard Sennheiser HE90 but that also has a huge soundstage supposedly.

HE1000 v1 is the best version HiFiMAN has made. Disregard all other versions, the only real upgrade is Susvara. Just make sure you have a powerful solid state amp for it.

I have been watching out for comments like this for while. I have the original HE1000 and like it very much but am looking for info about eventual replacement. I suppose this means none of the current HE1000 variants would be a good replacement. I also have the Focal Utopia. I assume the new HE1000 variants being brighter would be more like the Utopia? I have no preference for either headphones for most music but I just think the HE1000 is better all around sounding. To me, nothing really sounds bad with the HE1000 but certain music just sounds bad with the Utopia because of the sibilance in a few tracks. It is only a minor issue. Otherwise, they are just different and add variety. What about the two Susvara variants? Would these be better replacement?

It took me like 5 seconds to realize that the HE1000 is something special the first time I heard it. It is just physically in a very sorry state now. The fake leather is flaking off. I need to use a elastic band to add some clamping pressure. It is kind of pathetic for a $3000 headphones. It still sounds just as good as ever though. I hope I would never have to replace it. I just need a plan just in case.

As an FPS gamer, I find that good audiophile headphones don't mean good gaming headphones. A sound signature that's works well for music doesn't work well for hearing footsteps or audio cues for me personally. I find that I'm able to separate objects better on my gaming headphones than my HE1000s, The bass on the HEs muddy everything up.

Personally I’d go with 2 headphones at this budget. For music I run a Modhouse tungsten and for gaming the new asus kithara. In my experience a more expensive headphone does not equal better gaming performance and deminishing returns hits hard beyond ~500-600€. So I’d invest a good portion of the budget in some nice headphones for music paired with a nice dac / amp combo and some solid headphones for gaming. Coming to mind would be the above mentioned kithara, ananda nano or Arya stealth’s. I didn’t try hd 490 but they should be solid too. For music it highly depends on what you want. Warm or bright or even dark headphones? You could go with LCD X for darker headphones with good bass quality, or he1ks for something brighter. Also the tungsten’s are some of the best headphones out there if you can power them.

HE1000se. Before that it was the HEK & Arya Stealth. Nothing has beat the comfort and sound of these for me.