Michael, obviously my Sony Walkman and Sony Ultralight headphones system is not the same as “room listening.” However, I should point out that headphone listening, or “direct ear” listening as you call it, does have some very important advantages over in room systems. Let me list them for you here. I won’t dwell on COST SAVINGS, which is obviously enormous. I also won’t dwell on SPACE SAVINGS, either. Or even TIME SAVINGS. The primary advantage of my current system is SOUND QUALITY - purity, air, dynamics, coherency, and extremely low noise and distortion.
1. My headphone system is completely independent of room acoustic anomalies that plague room systems - echos, standing waves, comb filter effects, early reflections, phase issues,. I do not have to constantly tune my room, I.e., playing around with room treatments and adding/moving/removing them, as well as moving speakers to keep up with all the changes and tweaks. It can be an endless cycle, I don’t have to tell you.
2. I have no AC issues, or AC ground issues, since my system is battery powered.
3. I avoid the noise and distortion that accompanies power cords, speaker cables, interconnects, and digital cable.
4. I avoid noise and distortion that accompanies transformers, large capacitors and fuses.
5. I avoid distortion produced by speaker crossovers as my Sony Ultralight headphones are crossover-less.
6. I have greatly reduced the number of variables that affect my sound by going to a small, battery powered system. This makes things much easier to CONTROL.
7. Immunity to RFI/EMI.
8. Immunity to vibration.
Quick Summary - More music, better sound, less audio nervousa.
1. My headphone system is completely independent of room acoustic anomalies that plague room systems - echos, standing waves, comb filter effects, early reflections, phase issues,. I do not have to constantly tune my room, I.e., playing around with room treatments and adding/moving/removing them, as well as moving speakers to keep up with all the changes and tweaks. It can be an endless cycle, I don’t have to tell you.
2. I have no AC issues, or AC ground issues, since my system is battery powered.
3. I avoid the noise and distortion that accompanies power cords, speaker cables, interconnects, and digital cable.
4. I avoid noise and distortion that accompanies transformers, large capacitors and fuses.
5. I avoid distortion produced by speaker crossovers as my Sony Ultralight headphones are crossover-less.
6. I have greatly reduced the number of variables that affect my sound by going to a small, battery powered system. This makes things much easier to CONTROL.
7. Immunity to RFI/EMI.
8. Immunity to vibration.
Quick Summary - More music, better sound, less audio nervousa.