Here's my opinion and it's only worth anything to me, but I'm going to share it with you anyway. Where do you come up with this monetary value? Do you even know if you like listening to headphones? I'm not trying to let you down, but that's way too much money to devote to headphones / amp. Anyone that openly tells you to buy a pair of $1500 Stax hasn't met anyone who owns a pair of $1500 Stax and likes their $400 Beyerdynamics better. For the music I listen too, I can't buy a better set of cans than the AKG-702's. Pair them up with a $300 Little Dot MKiii or a Darkvoice headphone amp, and it will make you want to upgrade your Rogue, and I own Rogue amps. $1500 headphones are the equivelant of $20,000+ speakers paired with $15,000 worth of monoblocks. If you're going to spend the big bucks on this set up, buy a Cary SLI-80 and some Sennheisers, but don't waste your money. What's your music preference? I can blow your mind for $800 - $1000 total. Save the rest of your money for some other type of upgrade. Did you read the Stereophile review of the Little Dot MKiii? Did you know that most serious audiophiles that listen to jazz, classical, and heavy vocals prefer the AKG-702's over ANY other headphone, or that Sennheisers are the preferred headphone for rock? I can point you to so many Stax reviews where the owners like their much cheaper headphones better, and do the same for $1500 headphone amps. Also, check out Sam Tellig's review of the Music Fidelity M1HPA in this months issue of Stereophile. It sounds like a real winner.
