The Best Audiophile Earphones headphones and Amp

Agree in general about the AVERAGE head-fi poster who is likely to value specific design or parts choices rather than overall implementation, BUT there are several veterans who you can pick out by reading their posts. Comfort is even more important than SQ, cause if they make your head hurt due to the band pressure, or if they make your ears sweat (Stax Pro Lamdas did that to me) it does not matter how good they sound. OTOH, if they are comfortable to you and you don't need sealed cans, a pair of AKG K1000s hooked up to a good 8-10 wpc integrated amp is, IMO, pretty darn hard to beat. As long as you have a thick skin and don't mind being mocked by your entire family... they are VERY odd looking. But they sound fantastic and actually have a soundstage.

I'm sure I'm in the minority here, but as time goes by, I'm leaning more and more towards headphone listening. I have a full fledged 2 channel system, but I have to admit that for less money, the enjoyment I get from being immersed in the sound from my headphones surpasses my main system. Of course, the source is still critical (in my case Luxman D-06)...Anyway, I'm enjoying Beyerdynamic flagships which I find quite musical, as opposed to Sennheiser 800 which sounded unnatural, thin, more analytical, but probably more impressive at the same time.

I should also add that you really need to try on the headphones for the fit. How heavy are they? Do they bind or crush your ears? Do you get too hot? The sound from my Stax Omega II and 007II was incredible but I didn't like the fit at all. I currently use Ultrasone Edition 8 headphones. I find I like closed headphones and the sound limiting feature of the design gives me peace of mind regarding damaging my hearing (I also am careful with the volume control on my amp).

I have thought about trying Tesla T1s and the new Ultrasone Edition 10.

For what it's worth, I look for headphone use to isolate myself from the environment and sometimes act as a white noise provider. You may find you are more or less critical of the sonics compared to how you listen to your loudspeaker based system.

If you are still looking at options and not looking at electrostats, I recommend the Ray Samuels Audio B-52 amp with the Sony MDR-R10 headphones. The R10s are arguable the best non-stat phones that were made, but they're only available now on the used market. Ray Samuels voiced the B-52 with Sony R10s.

Quick update. The Stax SR-009 (was codenamed C32) is now in my system and it sings, oh yes does it sing! It's pretentious to say so but I think the competition, regardless of technology, is going to sweat a few bullets to catch up with this one...

Some pics of the unwrapping, an experience in itself: http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/531743/new-listening-impressions-of-stax-c32-prototype-and-shipping-sr-009/645#post_7487827