I find that the only aspect in which headphones lack is the size of the sound stage. Other than that, they seem to win out in terms of accuracy since there are no room interactions, it's a single driver system requiring no cross over and the frequency response is wider than any speaker out there.

Hi Elk and AlexO

nice thread

I used to have an old set of STAX electrostatic H,phones which were just ... hmmmm hmmmmm hmmmm yummy. They broke and the cost of fixing the diaphragms was the same as buying the Cayman Islands.

I take the point about the spacial response of h,phones in comparison to speakers -- but when I sit in the audience at a venue listening to Elgars Cello Concerto (or whatever) played by a fine Orchestra - I dont have the weight of two house bricks clamped to my skull.

Though, you gotta listen to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon through H,phones .....oh yes !

My speaker system kills my headphone setup every time, but, the sad reality is I can't work in my audio room and the only way to enjoy decent audio while working in my studio is my headphone rig.

I think the spatial presentation of a speaker system is a big factor. In my particular case, my transport is superior to the one in my headphone rig and although I use the same model DAC in both systems, the one in my main system is preferable (they were modded by two different places).

Another factor is my main system retails about 7x my headphone system--there's just better components and tweaks poured into the main rig.

Given a choice, I would use my main rig all the time, but, the reality is it isn't always possible.

It was just jarring how much nicer the presentation of Raising Sand was on the main system.

I prefer speakers, mainly for the depth and width of the image and the physical feel of the sound waves against my body. Forty years ago I longed for speakers as "accurate" as my headphones, but today that's been achieved and I consider them equally accurate.

Still, I love my cans. The AKG 701s through the Woo WA6 is a sweet setup that cost less than 1,000-bucks. I clearly prefer my speakers, but the cans greatly reduce the withdrawal pangs when I go days without hearing my speakers. My speakers and their amp cost seven times as much as my cans. The front-end components cost four-times as much as the HP setup.

As a musician, I'd probably always strive for speakers, but the price/performance ratio with cans is extremely high. I'm glad that I can afford a good speaker rig.

See this thread for the persepctive from a headphone forum:
http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f4/headphones-vs-speakers-challenge-282335/

Dave

I suspect part of why speakers appear to present subtlety better is that those kinds of cues that we listen for are time based and spatial in nature (think decay, rear wall reflections), and are most convincing when placed in the context of the originally struck note. You almost need that air and space between you and those time based events to fully appreciate them.

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Too bad the Head-Fi'ers so quickly turned into a group of bratty elementary-age children.

Their thread circled back to sanity, but it's probably only a matter of minutes before some insecure head phone hugger tries to derail it again.

Dave

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Too bad the Head-Fi'ers so quickly turned into a group of bratty elementary-age children.

They always were... literally. Actually, head-fi was for the most part inhabited by teens and college age kids.

Quote:

Quote:

Too bad the Head-Fi'ers so quickly turned into a group of bratty elementary-age children.

They always were... literally. Actually, head-fi was for the most part inhabited by teens and college age kids.

And that's a GOOD thing since most of these "bratty children" actually care about how their music sounds and someday might very well represent the future of high end audio. Besides that there are more than a few older folks over at Head-Fi, they just don't tend to get involved in those silly preschool types of threads.

I have a rather nice headphone setup and as good as it may sound, it always loses out when compared to a decent speaker rig. and for many of the same reasons stated so far in this thread, e.g. size of the soundstage, impact of the bass, etc.

Thanks for your thoughts Elk.

I stay away from these talks on the Head-fi forum. It gets too crazy.

I find it pretty simple.

I think speakers are great, and I prefer them over 'Head'-speakers for many reasons (some have been mentioned above). One of my problems became 'space'. I moved to a townhouse and I really didn't have the space to setup a 'real' listening environment that I had before.

By 'real' I mean a dedicated room (or at least the major function of the room) where I can setup a listening position, and be able to place my speakers in a proper 'stereo' listening field. I was pretty good at setups, measuring, soundproofing, etc. That all went away in my new place. So I started a search for better and better headphone reproduction. It has been a long road, but I have discovered that at a certain level headphones can be very musically satisfying.

I thought that my Exposure -> B&W 802's were good, and they are. I have had them tuned into such a level at one point, that I could step into the music. You could feel the music as well. These are the two things that are lacking in all headphones, soundstage and sound pressure on the body. But the level of fidelity that can be achieved with headphones is staggering. My SinglePower ES-1 -> STAX SR-007 Omega II can reach a level of resolution, detail, and tonality, that is on par with the best speaker systems that I have ever heard. Once I got to the level that the headphones disappeared, then I was at the point of listening to the music only. And I think that is the point any of this anyway.

Cost is another factor. For $5k-10k (amp+phones) you can have the best headphone amp and headphones on the planet. And you could spend 10x that amount for a speaker setup and not be as happy. I will probably always have a headphone rig from now on. But when I have the chance to setup my home speaker system again, the headphones will be a second thought.

Cheers,

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.....Cost is another factor. For $5k-10k (amp+phones) you can have the best headphone amp and headphones on the planet. And you could spend 10x that amount for a speaker setup and not be as happy. I will probably always have a headphone rig from now on. But when I have the chance to setup my home speaker system again, the headphones will be a second thought.

Cheers,

Very well stated. I completely agree.

I accidently discovered something neat. When I plug headphones into my preamp, I turn OFF the power amp so the speakers don't play. Naturally. But when I got a subwoofer a while back - which gets fed from an additional preamp output - I realized that I was getting subwoofer only output, which gave some visceral impact to my headphone listening experience. So the loudspeakers are still silent, but I'm getting sub-60 Hz rocking the room, thus ameliorating one of the few drawbacks of headphone-only listening. Serendipitous!!