Contrary to popular belief, I am really not trying to pick on anybody, but I see some not-entirely-correct assumptions in one of the above posts.
"My headphone system is completely independent of…...echos, standing waves.....early reflections....."All those may be less prominent in headphones, even less in earphones, but "completely" may be an exaggeration. Above statement may be mildly insulting to any serious headphone designer.
"I avoid the noise and distortion that accompanies.....speaker cables,"True, if Bluetooth is in play. Otherwise, just a different name for the same thing. Speaker cable, headphone cable, ear speaker cable.
"I avoid noise and distortion that accompanies transformers, large capacitors and fuses."Are there small capacitors anywhere? If yes, are they perfect for this purpose?
"Immunity to vibration."Smaller devices, namely SONY Walkmen and Discmen (CD Walkman, to cut that debate short) were so prone to vibration that SONY and other manufacturers included ESP (Electronic Skip Protection) in many on their products. Not to make them perfect in some theoretical sense discussed on Audiogon, but to make them playable at all. They were so sensitive to vibration that it is not even funny to make fun of the above statement.