The Best Audiophile Earphones headphones and Amp

One thing you should consider is whether you require sealed phones or not. Many phones, such as Grado, are "open" and you can hear every sound in the room while you're listening. The makers of such designs feel that this gives the best sound, but you may require a closed phone for whatever reason. Other than that, there are many good phones out there, especially once you get into the $500+ range. The other thing to consider is - you just may not like listening to headphones as opposed to speakers. I own what I would consider to be one of the top models, but I still prefer my speakers. Still, they're good to have and I don't regret the purchase.

Second headfi site, it is an exceptional resource, like Agon. Everything swampwalker said is accurate and great information.

Headphones and amps are even more pesronal, IMO, that regular systems. Use Headfi and find somebody close to you and visit them and check out their set-ups, it can be very educational and helpful.

I may be the odd one but I think more than 50% members on headfi are teenagers or young adults. In fact I noticed some are as young as 15 years old.

Word to the wise...take it slow. I,too, have a pretty decent 2 channel system and thought that I'd like to enter into the headphone arena. I started by doing a little research on Head-fi.org and there's really quite a bit of information available. The Sennheiser 650's are a "good" pair of headphones and can be bought reasonably for around $500. A decent entry level headphone amp to drive them will run around $700 new. Start there and see how much you really like headphones. Sure you can buy a $1500 set of "cans" and spend 2 grand for a superior headphone amp and get a much better setup, but sometimes the journey getting there is better than the final destination. From your initial comments about your high-end hi-fi system, you probably built up your current system by steps so why not do the same with a headphone/headphone amp system because there will always be something better to move up to.

Go to Headphone.com....all your answers are there.