Headphones vs full range speakers

@b_limo  I must disagree on post #1. I used to think the same way. Even when I had my Meze Empy headphones I thought it was good but not 2 channel good. The RAAL is really 2 channel for me.

I also listen to the RAAL every day. The great thing is that I do not feel like I am doing a downgrade when I shutdown the 2 channel and put on the RAAL.

I’ve gone pretty far down the headphone rabbit hole in the past 6 years. Currently I have 7 headphone amps, 3 of which can serve as system preamp for my desktop audio system (2 x 2-way nearfield monitors + sub); and 5 or 6 headphones at any given time.

My favorite headphones are the heirloom-quality wooden earcup designs of ZMF headphones. I have 3 of those models currently; had and sold 2 others. I can firmly recommend the Verite Open, the best dynamic driver headphone I’ve ever heard (and I’ve heard many).

Headphones with planar/orthostatic drivers are a whole other bag. I really love certain sonic qualities that planars excel at. I currently have 2 planars: 1 is the legacy ZMF design, the Ori (lovely sounding closed back design); and tied w/the Verite Open for best headphone here is the Final D8000. Both of these headphones manage to combine a lot of resolution & speed with an organic, musical sound that is the opposite of the forensic/accurate thing found in some pricey headphones (and speaker, of course).

Speakers systems & headphones are both audio reproduction, but they are relatively dissimilar. I’ve come to love the intimacy and drama of really good headphones. Of course, no headphone can light up a room like a speaker system (horses for courses).

I use the Sennheiser 800 phones and the superb Luxman P-750u headphone amp exclusively now and have no notion of going back to standard stereo now. The levels of detail are extraordinary and far superior in my opinion than speakers. The Senns. are a very difficult set of phones to drive and not any old headamp will do to let them shine but the Luxman does that in spades. My music speciality is classical piano and it is trully amazing just how different pianists sound and my setup lets me get right to the heart of the music without outside distractions. No I won't be going back to speakers.

I never knew how good headphones could sound until I tried Stax earspeakers. They are truly in a differnt class than anything else I have ever heard. The spatial experience is different, of course, but very involving in it's own way to me. The speed, resolution, and immediacy are 'better' than any speakers I have yet heard. In fact, if there is a track where I can't make out some of the lyrics during normal listening, I usually can with the Stax. I started out witha humble SRD4/SR40 system and gradually moved up to SRX Mk3 earspeakers and a SRM-T1S tube driver as my budget increased.

To me it's not either/or; it's horses for courses. @tony1954 put it very well.

When i succeed to install my relatively good but low cost audio system in his rightful three dimensional embeddings controls space, i throw all my SEVEN ,dynamics, electro-acoustic,magneplanar,or hybrid headphones in a drawer for ever...

Same here, except that I still keep one in the box, only for display. I sold the rest. The costliest one I owned was the Beyerdynamic T1.