I've had the HD 800 for about ten years, but it's starting to fall apart. To put things into perspective, I've had to replace both the cable and the padding twice, and each of those spare parts cost the same as a typical pair of "decent" headphones. Then I had to get a dedicated headphone amp PCI-e card, because it turned out that "regular" soundcards are not good enough.

I've easily spent over $2K so far. When I replace it, I'll have difficulty resisting the temptation to upgrade to the "next level". Planar magnetic or planar electrostatic headphones are the next logical step. Those start at $2K and go up from there.

I'll be lucky to escape this with less than $10K spent...