Recently I was thinking about upgrading my headphones. A small challenge I always face when I say “my headphones” is that since I use them primarily for audio production in a home studio, I’m referring to at least two pairs of headphones. For a while I’ve used these Sennheiser HD 202’s; they’re remarkable for the price. Pretty level response, no boomy bass or sizzly high end, and pretty good sound at high levels. They’re great for basic recording, and excellent for general listening. But maybe not so much for final mixes. So I thought I might break down and finally check out some fancier options. I forgot to mention another factor here though: in general, I’m a cheap bastard. I mean, I’ll pay for quality, but I’m sensible, so if I plan to buy some headphones, I have my limits. In this case, the fact that I need two or three pair meant I probably didn’t want to go over a grand total, or – as I joked to a friend – I might have to live on Ramen for a few weeks. My little joke apparently had some basis in reality; this (I kid you not) was in the recommended items under one of the first items I viewed, the Sennheiser IE 8i:

These recommended items are something we joke  about a lot around here. Anyway, the point is I’m apparently not the only one forced to make the choice between high-end headphones and eating. So once I started seeing the price-points on high end units, I thought to myself, “Okay, what if I DO decide to plunk down a grand on each headset? How much poverty food could I get with the same amount of money?” I decided to pit the top-rated units priced at a thousand dollars or more against basic broke-ass food like Ramen, peanut butter and jelly, mac & cheese, or beans and rice. Here are some price breakdowns:

Stax SR-009 or Kraft Mac & Cheese?

We’re not implying there’s anything cheesy about the sound of the STAX SR-009’s, and ironically, there may not be anything genuinely cheesy about packaged mac & cheese, either. But we’re not looking for a culinary experience here, just survival, and for 3500 bucks, you could get 2163 packages of mac & cheese. That’s enough to feed you for 1.97 years! Provided of course, you didn’t mind eating mac & cheese three times a day, and didn’t mind a mild case of scurvy now and then.

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HIFIMAN HE1000 or Zatarain’s Beans & Rice?

The HIFIMAN HE1000’s get pretty good ratings as reference standard headphones, but two common comments are that they need a lot of power, and that they’re large enough to function as floatation devices. On a possible positive note, if you bought both the 1913 packages of rice and beans you could get for the same price AND the headphones, you’d have enough food for a year and nine months, and headphones that look like they’re ventilated well enough to deal with the side effects of your diet.

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DENON AH-NCW500 or Smuckers Goober PB&J ?

The DENON AH-NCW500 Global Cruisers are called that for a reason – they’re meant as high-end travel headphones, and given the price tag, presumably the “one percent” traveler. We don’t know how they sound, but they’ll look great, either sitting on the passenger seat of your Bugatti Veyron or hanging around your neck as you ask the pilot of your Learjet how long it’s going to be before you land. This one’s a tough call, because as much as everyone loves peanut butter and jelly, 1738 bucks will only get you about 5 1/2 months of it.

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Sennheiser HD-800 or Maruchan Ramen?

We may have found the winners here. The Sennheiser HD 800’s are the very reference standard of reference standard headphones. Handcrafted and engineered in Germany, they have flawlessly correct sound across the audible spectrum, and a “soundstage” that most listeners say is more like listening to high-end, perfectly spaced speakers, not headphones. Of all the headphones here, these are probably most worth the price, if you can pay it. With the the 1800 bucks you’ll save by not buying the pricier STAX headphones above, you’ll be able to afford 8 1/2 years of Ramen!

But Since You Can’t Hear The Difference Anyway…

You might as well bust out the Bedazzler. The fact is, most people can’t even hear the difference between different quality mp3’s, so it’s unlikely that they could tell the difference between $1,000 and $3,500 headphones. So if you’re really dying to buy some thousand dollar headphones, why not go for some *bleeeeng* with these Beats Pro babies, made with custom Swarovski ornamentation? They’re just under a grand:

*All prices as of 4/24/16