Auditioning headphones (ethically)?

@bslon, thank you so much. I read in another headphones thread here that the Cable Company had a good policy but I couldn't find it on their website. That's great. I have an account with them and will most likely try that.

@orgillian, thank you. I've had Grados for at least twenty years, the SR-60, SR-80, and now the RS2E. They're incredibly comfortable and I love the Grado sound. Long story short, I want to branch out. 

Not sure where the ethical concern comes in, if you're abiding by the return policies. The Music Room literally expects people to try and return things, so I'd think that other companies must expect the same, or at least they should if they want to stay in business.

Why not start buy buying a couple of headphones from TMR: https://tmraudio.com/personal-audio/headphones-over-ear/

"Every product we sell has undergone a rigorous testing protocol and is backed by our 14day satisfaction-guaranteed return policy (when purchased at www.tmraudio.com), along with a 45-day warranty. In short, we want to make sure you are 100% satisfied with your purchase."

Ethics were part of your question, yet most responses seem to ignore that aspect.  From the standpoint of a dealer selling headphones, the only real ethical point is that if you use a dealer's time, demo inventory, home trial policies, etc., you owe it to the dealer to make your purchase from them if you settle on something they made available to you.  In a case where several dealers have the same offering and each made their best effort to facilitate your decision, you have to choose to buy from one.  A "good customer" will thank the losing dealer for their help, and acknowledge they bought elsewhere and why.  If price becomes a factor, always allow the most courteous and professional dealer the option to counteroffer or match, and be prepared to ethically decide if their service has monetary value, because if it doesn't, you are not a "good customer"!

Buy used, try them out, and if you don't like them, flip them.  If you don't overpay you should be able to get most or all of your money back.

Headphones are a personal thing, definitely find out if the person selling is a non-smoker and consider buying a new set of earpads for them.

Again, thank you all. @big_greg, super advice about the ear-ads and the smoking. 

The ethical concern for me is what @crustycoot picked up on. It's not a question of following policies; that's easy. It's about playing fair. I'm especially interested in what that means when I'd like to audition at least three and maybe (after reading this thread) five pairs of headphones--ideally at least some of them at the same time. Is it ethical to buy three pairs of headphones from a website (would we call that a dealer?) knowing that I'm going to return at least two of them? If a dealer carries more than one pair that I'm interested in, is it ethical to sequentially buy headphones, knowing that no matter how much I like one pair I'm going to return it and try another, and another? Is it ethical to buy headphones from three different sources, knowing that two of those sources will never see a penny of my money? Is there a difference between buying from Amazon and buying from a smaller vendor? Etc etc. I can read the policies but would I just be gaming the system? 

To put this a different way, it would be easy for me to buy five pairs of headphones, from one site or from multiple sites, and return at least four of them. I would be within their policies. But is that ethical?

And, yes, good idea about buying used and flipping. That doesn't solve my hope to have more than one at a time, and ... there are obvious risks and costs to that approach.

I'm not looking for problems here! I'm genuinely curious about how people audition multiple headphones. I'll check with the Cable Company. If they're set up to do this, I'm in. (I've emailed with them in the past about auditioning cables from their "library" and, well, it wasn't as straightforward as it sounded.)

Finally, I wonder how dealers would respond to this. If I asked audioadvisor or headphones.com or a store, would they encourage me to buy three pairs, knowing I was returning at least two? What would feel fair to them?

And, yes, amps. Right. That, too.