2012 was a stellar year for audio. The Audiophiliac picks the best of the best! HE-6 was chosen as one of The Audiophiliac's best-sounding gear of 2012

I've covered a lot of great sounding budget gear this year, but the very best audio is far from cheap. That's hardly unique to high-end audio; the best cars, cameras, and clothes are always pricey, so it shouldn't surprise anyone that cutting-edge audio can be crazy expensive. What follows is a list of most astonishing gear I listened to this year. I love my job!

This $1,200 headphone produces a shockingly vivid sound -- other headphones sound downright cloudy by comparison. Yes, the HE-6s are expensive and are extremely fussy about headphone amplifiers, but you can't get your Ferrari tuned at the corner gas station. I've heard most of the world's very best headphones -- Sennheiser's HD 800s and their legendary Orpheus, the Audeze LCD 2s ($995) and LCD-3s ($1,945), the Stax SR-007s ($2,600), SR-009s ($5,200) -- and Hifiman's flagship HE-6 headphones are up there with the very best. They're also significantly less expensive than most of those other contenders.