You don’t have to be an audiophile to appreciate the world’s most expensive headphone system

US billionaire Warren Buffett likes to note how little advantage his considerable wealth secures him over the average person. He still wears pants like everyone else, lives in a modest house, and uses the sort of technology that’s accessible to the masses. The only thing, Buffett would argue, that distinguishes his privilege is being able to fly in his own jet and travel faster and more conveniently than everyone else. All the other luxuries out in the world are valueless to Mr. Buffett, but I would venture to suggest one that he might be interested in: the $130,000 MSB Select DAC and headphone amplifier combo, the world’s most expensive headphone system.

It is true that in most realms of technological development, the latest thing becomes the mass-produced thing so quickly that it’s practically impossible to have anything approaching “luxury technology.” You can put luxurious touches on tech, like diamond-encrusted watch complications, but tech has an irresistible, democratizing impetus toward mass availability. The only exceptions I’ve found to this rough rule are cars and audio: in these two spheres, there’s a degree of advanced engineering that means spending ridiculous sums of money gets you ridiculous performance in return. My experience of listening to the MSB Select setup at CanJam London this weekend just reaffirmed that belief.

The MSB Select DAC II costs just shy of $90,000 (before taxes and extra options) and its allied Select headphone amp is $37,950. The three-part demo rig — which includes another big slab of machined aluminum serving as the power base — that I heard was hooked up to a pair of Stax SR-009 electrostatic headphones, which cost $3,825 just by themselves. Yes, it’s all wildly expensive, and no, I can’t dissect the particular benefits of having a femtosecond clock, but I can tell you this: the resulting music produced by this hyper-engineered system is nothing short of magical. Every minute detail is rendered with microscopic precision, and you don’t have to be an audiophile to pinpoint the tiniest nuances and alterations in a note. It’s all just there for you, in a way that no other personal audio system has been able to recreate before — though the similarly extraordinary Sennheiser Orpheus comes close.

Keep in mind that I was, as usual, skeptical. When I heard the awesome $999 Focal Elear, I was sure that the $3,999 Focal Utopia would be just a silly excursion into greater expense, but nope, the more expensive headphone did indeed prove itself better. Not four times better, of course, but this isn’t a math class. This Select system validates its greater cost with unprecedented performance, even if it doesn’t justify it for most sane people who might prefer, I dunno, a Porsche 911 instead. My point, though it might be difficult to believe without hearing the Select rig for yourself, is that this is just as much of a pleasure machine.

Putting on the light and perfectly comfortable Stax headphones, I instinctively closed my eyes and it wasn’t long until my face stretched into a smile. There’s a degree of detail, resolution, and refinement to this sound that honestly feels real. We’re past the uncanny valley of sound here, to the point where I can visualize the violinist or guitar player right in front of me. The intimacy of being able to hear even the physical shuffling of a musician in the quiet moments between notes, or the way a singer’s voice occupies a space rather than just a point, is entrancing.

I listened to Aerosmith, Adele, Amy Winehouse, Nirvana, Metallica, Mendelssohn, and a variety of other music, and in all cases there was some detail or element I could pick out to show why the Select system is indeed superior. Those differences are most apparent with music and vocals that are less electronically processed than the stuff most of us listen to these days, though even Metallica’s distorted guitar in “Enter Sandman” sounds better through the Select DAC — still distorted, as it should be, but that distortion is now more fine-grained (yes, even the ugly parts of the music sound prettier). You won’t get more of anything with this system, but rather you’ll get everything reproduced in a better and truer form. The whole point to all this heavy and extravagantly sophisticated equipment is to filter out imperfections and purify the thing you hear to the absolute maximum possible.

There are sixteen digital-to-analog converters (eight dual hybrid DACs) inside the Select DAC, working to eliminate distortions and imperfections. Frank Vermeylen, MSB’s European rep, tells me that it takes a good 24 hours to warm up the Select DAC, with the musical image growing wider and the sound more relaxed over time, though he also points out that most customers would just set this system up once and keep it on “forever.” That’s lofty language, but I find it forgivable in the presence of such superlative technology.

In demonstrating the quality of its hardware, MSB intentionally demonstrated it with some utterly conventional 16-bit, CD-quality files. I remain an agnostic on the benefits of high-resolution music recordings, and the Select showed me again that the more important thing is the equipment rather than the file format. You always want good master recordings, naturally, but their resolution is not the thing that will make you smile or tap your foot or nod your head or wave your hands in the air like an orchestra conductor. For that, you need really awesome engineering and technology.

The MSB Select system is over-engineering at its most opulent and resplendent best. Most of us will never have to worry about whether to buy a thing of its kind, because of how wild its price is. But as luxuries go, this is one of those respectable ones where the benefit isn’t purely cosmetic or illusory. Michael Jordan’s $90,000 Urwerk watch doesn’t tell the time any more accurately than a $10 Casio. Kim Kardashian’s best choices after the demise of her BlackBerry are the same phones that you and I can choose from. Technology tends toward democracy. But if Warren Buffett ever wants to feel like audiophile aristocracy, I’m confident the MSB Select system will live up to his (or anyone’s) highest expectations.