Thanks for your welcome...
I will say to comment about your post that for sure everyone of us not only own different components but live through very different situations...
There is not so much general rule which can be applied to everyone...
I think as you that a dedicated acoustic room/speakers is the road to go.... There is no comparison in my experience between speakers in a living room and the same in a dedicated room...
I lost mine with sadness... There was no comparison either with any of my 9 headphones and my dedicated room ...
But i had be fortunate enough to own an exceptional underscore headphone, the AKG K340, which is not optimal at all right of the box and very hard to figure out... But it was AKG flagship for years and till this day, no doubt unsurpassed by none of their other master designs ( many people claim it rightfully so) ...
If it was not for this fateful and happy headphone on my head, i would had been sad and stayed so, because it takes me YEARS to fine tune my room for my speakers...I never imagine that the K340 will surpass it on almost all acoustic factors...The technical specs of the K340 implied also better deeper bass than my past speakers and better highs...( in the bass register i feel under 30 hertz the sound of organ pipe clearly and deeply, through my body and feet with no need for subs at all , this was not the case for my speakers)
i did not like headphones on my head at all for more than one hour , but the K340 can be forgotten because of his confort and especially because the music did not come from the drivers and dont stay inside the head... They are speaker like...I forgot them in aminute or two ( 10-15 minutes to be exact because the two cells need a warming time contrary to all my other headphones because there is a transformer crossover in need of warming )
Then i am sure now that even if i could, i will not go under the dedicated room road again for two reasons: higher cost and very, very long time in many , many months to fine tune all my 100 Helmholtz resonators... You cannot do it all in one shot... It is almost one or two or three at a times and hours of listening experiments to tune them ...At the end the soundfield was all around me, even beside me or behind me in some recordings and not at all coming from the speakers or from the speakers plane...It was more a surround field almost...
If the K340 was unable to give me that as in my room, i would have been desesperate... But think about that the same Helmholtz resonators fine tuned all around my room which give me this 3-D holographical sound with the speakers, these same Helmholtz resonators , five, circle the dynamical cell of the K340 behind the electroacoustical cell creating then inside a dual acoustic chamber INEXISTANT in all other headphones on the market at any price...The soundfield so peculiar and life-like natural and 3-D and OUT OF THE HEAD that come from the K340 is explained by these two new technologies till new this day : this array of fine tuned resonators and the hybridation of dynamical and electroacoustical cell at 4000 hertz where the "presence " the aura of the piano and voices precisely are located in the frequency range....The electroacoustical cell here is not a super tweeter at all ( as in the Dhama enigma case the only contender hybrid with NO tuned resonators, i dont need to listen to it to know and bet that it cannot beat the K340 ) ...By the way the representative agent of a great headphone Russian company revealed to me in a forum thread discussion that doing it again , an hybrid headophone as the K340 is too complex and costly to do to be doable by them with a profit and this headphone company rival the others best headphone company...
Now i am more happy than before for three reasons : lower cost, minimally easy to control electrical, mechanical and acoustical embeddings, and a soundfield rivalling most speakers especially those located in a non-dedicated room... And even some as my Mission Cyrus 781 in a dedicated room...
I arrived at the conclusion that my K340 is the best deal S.Q. /price ratio ever...At 100 bucks used nothing can beat that ...
But beware the K340 is so picky headphone and so hard to figure out his workings, because of the way these two new technologies work together , it takes me 6 months non stop each day to learn what to use around them and to serve them optimally and how to open them for some necessary internal modifications ( anti vibrations products and cutting off of the thick obstructing protecting plastic grid between ears and the second cell...
Then right out of the box with no thinking experiments about this completely different workings headphone compared to any other headphone,the K340 is not at all optimal even if it is a good headphone already, read the reviews on the net : some reviewers even pro reviewers observed an apparent mismatch between the two drivers speed, and an interpenetration of the bass and mids and then a lost of clarity etc... All that i felt it AT FIRST....Now after many optimization stages , nothing of these negative aspects subsist at all, and if they were always here by badluck design i will throw this headphone in the trashbin as i did for all my past headphones ... :)
The apparent mismatch of the two drivers speed difference is especially hard to understand and cure... This come from many factors at play when the K340 is not optimized ( 6 different modifications in my case) and it come also with the fact that we are used to listen SINGULAR DRIVER headphone, where one cell take charge of all the frequencies range...With two cells working together the soundfield impression is vastly different... We must learn how to listen ANEW...And we must learn how to listen to this headphone to cure SLIGHT apparent mismatch impression that come in part from the unusual soundfield and in part from, the negative effect of the wrong pads, then the wrong dual volume chamber in the shell, vibrations of the shell, obstruction of the plastic grid i cutted off, wrong source, too much noise in the electrical grid, an amplifier which do not synergetize well with the K340 which is really more difficul to drive than any other headphone because all the other headphone so hard they could be to drive nonetheless are onlySINGULAR driver even the infamous Hifiman HE 6....Then they are LESS picky at least even if they are hungry as the K340 is...
Then beware i did not recommend the K340 for most people and certainly not to beginners...Dont be fooled by my enthusiastic passion for this headphone... Right out of the box half people will be disappointed especially those who think clarity are most important than 3-D natural ...The K340 dont lack clarity at all read me right but it put realism and naturalness OVER artificial "details" 2-D impressions ... You will not enjoy the perfect natural 3-D soundfield i spoke about at first but an apparent mismatch between drivers resulting from the non optimization and your habit with SINGULAR driver headphone and you will feel a lack of clarity in the mid-bass zone a boominess which disappear completely with mine...
AKG discarded it not because it was not the gem and ideal headphone flagship, but because it is not realistic to sell an headphone hard to figure out to crowds who dont want a job to do but an headphone on their head period, you dont sell an headphone too complex to assemble easily and too costly to do it with big profit and way too hungry and picky for almost all headphone amplifier at a time where headphone amplifier was rising... This headphone is an acoustic marvel, read the patent of Dr. Gorike the real genius behind AKG era...
Let me add to the chorus -welcome back mr Mr M.
Speaking broadly I agree with yr premise (assumiing I have it aright.
A ggod system inn a properly treated room is the ideal but most folk living arrnangements dont allow for that.
If one is not prepared to run a system in an untreated room and take yr chances then headphones are the route to go.
Myself I dont particularly like them wired or not-dont like them on my head .
That said headphones sidestep the room interactions normal with speakers in a room so can provide a better sonic and musical experience.
In my environment I get better results with my arcam a49- Totem Forests than with phones even though they are not optimally set up.
However among other domestic issues my son still living with me works night shifts now snd sleeps during the day from 11:00 am on at which point of course the main system gets shut down.
After that its listen via phones or not at all.
