Headphones vs speakers….

@fsonicsmith1 

Real well thought out post. Newbies can be a welcome breath of fresh air on here. No doubt that headphones have their place in the audio world. Even If I don't listen to them at home anymore, they always travel with me. Got back from vacation in Gd Cayman and had a pair hooked up to my android phone via a simple in cable dac, listening to Qobuz every evening while going to sleep. Life is good.

Either can be a great a experience. However, you're missing something important with headphones. Headphones completely isolate left channel from right channel. Stereo is engineered so that the right ear hears some of the left speaker and and vice versa. That's why they use headphones in the engineering process...to isolate and determine the degrees of blend.

You're missing some of the imaging experience with headphones. That said, headphones naturally eliminate much of the music/space interplay and will be easy for most to enjoy music. It just eliminates all the variables.

But if you're willing to make some big concessions to the room...and most cannot or will not...you will be rewarded with a sense of scale and impact that headphones can't quite reach.

My current room cannot eclipse a decent set of headphones. But I'm not giving up because my last room surely did.

Rooms are tougher than headphones. This is my experience.

fsonicsmith1 - I like all your analogies but I’m glad you stopped before you went too far. Red Burgundy is made from Pinto Noir grapes, not red Zinfandel ( original indigenous North American grape) & the two  are her different. Both can be excellent but it’s like comparing a tube amp w/ a class D solid state. Maybe a delicious Oregonian Pinot would have been more appropriate?

my ears hurt and I tend to cause a lot of accidents after 30 minutes when I wear headphones. Am I doing it wrong?

Stereo is engineered so that the right ear hears some of the left speaker and and vice versa. 

Not necessarily true. In fact, most times not true. I would even go so far as to say that "stereo is engineered" is an oxymoron. I won't elaborate. Talk to someone who does studio engineering or simply read about studio engineering. 

Red Burgundy is made from Pinto Noir grapes, not red Zinfandel ( original indigenous North American grape) & the two  are her different. Both can be excellent but it’s like comparing a tube amp w/ a class D solid state. Maybe a delicious Oregonian Pinot would have been more appropriate?

I am quite aware. My analogy to two completely different wines that are not only from different grape varieties but from different countries with completely different character was on purpose. But now we are getting both silly and pompous, aren't we? :-)