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Sennheiser HD 800 headphones here to save world

If you want the most inspiring, mouth-wateringly gorgeous and stunning personal audio on the planet, these are the headphones you want to try out.

Nate Lanxon Special to CNET News
The symmetrical cabling detaches from each open-backed ear cup, a little like Apple's MagSafe power cables--accidentally trip over the cable and it pops out instead of breaking. Click on the image above to see more pictures of the headphones. Crave UK

Crave UK flew all the way to Germany last week to hear what was promised to be the best headphone in the world--the greatest, most paradigm-shifting personal audio equipment man has ever seen. With his ears.

After an afternoon of listening tests at Sennheiser HQ with Professor Sennheiser himself, even Sceptical Cat (she travels everywhere with us) admitted she was close to believing the company's claim. They're the successor to the superb HD 650s, Sennheiser's new flagship headphone--Damen und Herren, the $1,400 HD 800s!

Our first glimpse of the HD 800s was at CES back in January. They use an entirely new type of doughnut-shaped diaphragm for bouncing sound toward you, and at a slight angle to mimic the way sound enters the ear from floor-standing speakers--an idea dating back, CEO Jorg Sennheiser told us himself, to 1994. The HD 800s didn't begin development until 2002, but have been painstakingly perfected ever since, until their launch this year.

After giving them a close look and listen, we concluded that if you want the most inspiring, mouth-wateringly gorgeous and stunning personal audio on the planet, these are the headphones you want to try out. Click here to read more about how we reached that conclusion.

Sennheiser HD 800
The HD 800s being worn. See? Large. But new kinds of in charge. Crave UK

(Via Crave UK)