What amazing headphones. They’re beautifully built and engineered. They’re remarkably comfortable, especially considering the competition. They’re well balanced without sounding analytically boring. They’re open and airy while retaining precision in the soundstage. The bass extends remarkably deep while remaining in balance with the midrange and treble. The treble, while not quite as perfect as I’ve heard, is still excellent. They sound hugely open, with perfectly fast transients. I think they’re lovely to look at. I wish they didn’t cost $5000. So it goes. If you have the means to buy a pair, I highly recommend picking one up, as they say.

As we know, Yamaha's YH-5000SE is very expensive – but then it's a planar-magnetic (orthodynamic in Yamahaese) headphone made almost entirely out of magnesium, so you can see where much of your money has gone! Thanks to its excellent audio engineering, it offers superlative sound. And Yamaha has also taken a unique approach to accessories; instead of just throwing in seven cables you will never use, it supplies a proper, solid headphone stand, a robust pad selection and a cable that looks and feels great.

To state the obvious, I try a lot of headphones, and I’ve gotten to try a good deal of headphones with $5000 price tags. Usually when I’m reviewing units in this part of the price tag stratosphere, it’s hard for me to say whether a headphone is truly worth its particular price (should it be $4000? $5000? $6000?) A lot of the times, I come away impressed, but have the concept of diminishing returns stewing in the back of my mind. That’s not what I’m thinking about with the Yamaha YH-5000SE: instead, I am thinking about how this is one of the most jaw-dropping headphones I’ve ever gotten to try. I spent a lot of this review just shaking my head at the relentless detail and clarity I was hearing, even in the midst of the extra impact and sophisticated color it was throwing into the mix. Now that I’m wrapping this review up, I can finally get it back on my ears and get back to giving it the attention that it ruthlessly demands at the expense of my other responsibilities.

This headphone is the equivalent of durian to me--a weird novelty that I sometimes like, but stomaching the initial impression of its scent is challenging. After nine months of ownership and ten months since my first listen, my opinion of the YH-5000SE has improved...slightly. I still think it's a headphone that is impossible to recommend to most people without a home demo as it just sounds too weird with the vast majority of music, but I respect that Yamaha has attempted to try new things with the YH-5000SE instead of making a generic-sounding planar magnetic headphone. As I'm using the YH-5000SE now, listening to Hiromitsu Agatsuma, I have to lament that this is not the HP-1 successor I was hoping for. I, frankly, am excited to list this headphone for sale after touring it with some friends. I do appreciate the fact that the YH-5000SE has forced me to try to understand what the engineers at Yamaha were trying to do, rather than lazily claim they don't know what they are doing because I don't like the sound of it or because it doesn't measure close to a target. It's made me a better listener, in its own weird way.

Yamaha’s YH-5000SE are glorious performers that set the standard at this elevated level