Can headphones ever be as good as high end stereo?

Headphones are way easier to try and audition than a home system.

The beautiful wall of sound will be different, more encompassing and less in front of you. Some pricey audiophile phones and/or phone amps may attempt to simulate a soundstage and imaging like a good speaker setup.

You might like it better or worse. Speaker soundstage and imaging are the aspects of sound that will most likely be impacted. All the rest could well be better for much less. It all depends on what you value.

I tend to still prefer my speaker setups when I can listen to them but headphone listening time is on an uptrend for me for practical reasons.

I listen a lot away from the house via Plex Media server, which is a very nice very low cost, high quality option for listening via computer audio and mobile devices.

PLEX mEdia server and web site enables listening via any web browser for free and there are mobile apps for Google Android and Apple mobile devices for only $5 per platform. Its a no brainer to try this alongside ones big buck home system these days and see how it goes.

Yet another reason why the future of audiophiledom as we know it looks to include a lot of change and/or expansion from the old, proven, and often quite expensive tried and true ways.

BEing able to listen at volume you want without disturbing others alone is a great reason to add headphone listening to ones arsenal, and hten just let things play out from there as need be.

I have older Stax and newer Sennheiser, Audio Technica and Klipsch phones/buds. Each is different and has its charms. If you like the sound of Electrostat speakers or Maagnepan, you will like the Stax and/or other newer ES or planar magnetic headphone options out there as well. Sennheiser tends towards a warmer less bright non-fatiguing kind of sound overall. Klipsch and Audio Technica are both good as well but sound more like most other good phones.

When choosing phones, don't forget to give how and where you will use them and overall comfort ample consideration in addition to the sound. Like shoes, different styles/designs may be more confortable to wear and work best case by case for different people. That's one big reason among others that there are so many different kinds/styles of phones out there today.

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.

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.

My first pair of good headphones were Sennheiser HD424s back in the early 1980's. My most recent pair is the larger Sennheiser Momentum. I've listened to them all over the years. The Sennheiser line always place consistently strongly, at most any price point. Audio Technica as well. I have always wanted to like AKGs, and they can be very good, but I have had many poor auditions of those over the years. My sampling of STAX phones is much smaller, but that is the other long time gold standard line I know of, though marketing of these to US has changed considerably over the years. Hard to find in the US to audition these days.

I've listened to a lot of phones in last few years and have heard most of the leading contenders. Lots of useful headphone reviews availble to sort through. You'll find many well liked ones and little agreement on what is best. There are some nice newer lines out there as well, but I have not heard anything there that clearly knocks out the long term leaders. Just more good stuff to sort through and choose from.

I am NOT a Beats fan. Stay away from trendy new lines for the most part, but some are still quite nice.

A rancher is a good solution.

I had my downstairs office insulated when our curent home was built so I can go in there and play as loud as I want anytime in our 3 story modern Victorian style home, but I have given thooght about what to do when the time comes to downsize. A nice rancher just might be the ticket for this and other reasons in retirement.