Headphones vs speakers….

I love headphones for the same reasons already mentioned this thread but still prefer listening to speakers despite their faults. I think it’s important to have a sound wave actually traveling across your head, with the driver far enough away from your head that your head doesn’t become reactive with the driver. The ear and the driver are best acoustically uncoupled to create externalizing effects. With software it is possible to simulate the effects of sound waves traveling across the head and outer ear to make an externalized sound field. I know the Smyth Realizer does this and Apple and others are starting to work on it too. I haven’t heard these technologies myself yet. Occasionally I’ll get a startling effect on headphones that tricks me into thinking I’m hearing something far away so I know it can work. Another issue though is it’s more comfortable and relaxing to not have things on or in my ears when I’m in the comfort and relative quiet of my home. When traveling headphones can block noise and sometimes keep ears warm so they make sense on multiple levels. I might wear them even if I’m not listening to anything. One thing that amazes me is just how noisy a car interior can be on the highway. It’s mostly bass rumble and that becomes apparent if I put on headphones that don’t block or cancel noise. I turn them way up and still can’t hear any bass!

It takes a really good system to beat a decent set of headphones. I'm not sure a set of Totems are up to that task. If you are putting together a really good headphone system, it's going to take serious bucks to get better quality out of a loudspeaker system. Not what we want to hear but that is what it takes. 

There is a difficulty most people do not have with "luxury" high end headphones. They are all made with leather and I have ethical objections to killing animals for their body parts or for food. If I wanted the headphone experience, this is a limit. 

Over the years I have perfected the placement of Magnepan speakers driven by 833A single ended triode amplifiers in a round house with acoustic treatments. 

Personally prefer speakers, but the room and speakers have to be good. Couple of reasons have already been covered by other posters - there are crosstalk and phase stuff that occurs around your head (even across your face) with speakers, so the soundfield/stage is a different experience. The other reason is I like low end you can feel in your chest, headphones can't do that.

Sure I'm coming to this a few months late, but it's a relevant post and will remain relevant for some time. That, and of course this thread has been left open for comments.

@russ69  wrote above ...

"It takes a really good system to beat a decent set of headphones. I'm not sure a set of Totems are up to that task. If you are putting together a really good headphone system, it's going to take serious bucks to get better quality out of a loudspeaker system. Not what we want to hear but that is what it takes."

I haven't written on Agon for years, but this caught my eye as I'm trying to catch-up to those that have tried the latest headphones. While I'm not at all surprised by the comment above, I'm very surprised that no one has responded to it. To wit, while I completely agree that it takes an exceptional loudspeaker system in order to shower its listeners with an exceptional audio experience (however the listener defines that), I absolutely disagree and have spent a decade of my life disproving the contention that such a system would require one to spend "serious bucks".

How could one possibly know this? I know you never stepped foot into my "really good system", nor did you ever ask me how much I spent on it. 

How does one define how serious one needs to be to spend "serious bucks"? From the tone of the comment I'm fairly certain that many of us can easily disprove his statement. The numbers matter. Significantly.