Can headphones ever be as good as high end stereo?

If you haven't already seen it, I think you'll find this review by Chris Martens in "The Absolute Sound" to be informative and helpful.

My Stax experience is limited to an older model, but based on that experience, and consistent with the author's comments, I suspect that the most notable upsides to the current higher end Stax models relative to most speaker-based systems are likely to be cleaner, faster, more accurate transient response, and increased detail and resolution. And putting aside the obvious differences in imaging and soundstaging, I suspect that the most notable downside (depending on your present system) may be some reduction in the "weightiness" of the bass.

And of course there will undoubtedly be differences in tonality relative to your present system, which you may or may not prefer. As others have noted, subjective reaction to any headphone model will tend to vary widely among different listeners, so an audition is essential.

Personally, I find having electrostatic headphones and dynamic speakers to be nicely complementary, and I wouldn't want to be without either.

Regards,
-- Al

I've had good experience with stax! The biggest difference is imaging inside of your head as opposed to in front of you...the clarity is really out of this world with stax!

I could probably live with the TOTL Stax and call it a day. Even my older lowly smaller STAX Electret design phones are hard to beat, save perhaps in bass extension.

Probably TOTL Sennheiser as well. Maybe others....but not quite as sure. SO many good ones for even just a few hundred $$$s. Can't beat the sound/$$$ value of phones.

Can be, just depends on whether you enjoy sitting listening to headphones or not.

Another good thing about phones is they are likely to sound much like they did in the store when you get them home, with no room acoustics in the equation. That's assuming similar quality headphone amplification in both cases, to the extent needed.

The sound quality of "Audiophile" type phones like those in TAS review Al cited above will tend to be more dependent on amp than say portable phones designed to require less robust mobile amplification.

Plus the cost threshold of top notch headphone amplification for most any phones also tends to be much lower than similar quality speaker amplification due to teh much smaller scale involved.

Its not hard to imagine it a much easier task to drive very small transducers (ie headphones) located up against or even in your ears optimally than it is much larger ones (speakers) at a distance.

ALso full range type drivers are common in phones and no electronic crossover which gives phones a clear advantage in general in terms of phase coherency.