Headphones vs speakers

It is possible to design an headphone  which can rival most speakers... Even giving you bass in the chest...

but the cost of research and portable necessity and low cost perhaps makes it less urgent if your crowd buy any simple  headphones anyway at any price...

 

@larsman    I can't imagine that, but then, I have a really good headphone system. 

No worries. I was being hyperbolic for sure, but the thread was headphones VERSUS speakers.

I have Sennheiser HD580 with their own amp, and while I like them, the notion that this kind of interaction with music could replace being-in-actual-space with music is, to me, deserving of hyperbole. It's so far from what it's like to listen to music, or anything else, that it couldn't possibly replace speakers.

Comments above about having to downsize change the original issue. That's different.

Now that my living situation has no "need" for headphones, i almost never use them anymore...

I must say that if many people never heard a well optimized system/dedicated acoustic room,

almost all people never heard  a well optimized headphone system...

Why ? 

In my case at first it was price...

The 10 headphones i bought were all with the same defects : inside the head artificial imposed soundstage (big or small nevermind artificial) timbre unnatural at some level... Lack of deep bass... No higher frequencies aura instead piercing one or rolling off one ...

Then i discovered it was by faulty  design in the worst case or design limits in the best case...

Why?

Because i bought one with none of these defects after optimization because of his special complex design...

I dont know about Raal,Orpheus,or top Hifiman...

But their price is many times the price of my speakers system...I dont have this budget and reading reviews i cannot conclude that they beat my K340 on all acoustics factors only on some probably, and there is many acoustics factors at play here...And some headphone design cannot be optimzed at the same level than others they are not flexible...

 

I converted to headphone as my main system for sacred hours of listenings even if my low cost speakers/room system is satisfying because my headphone beat it  on timbre count, deep bass count, spatialization count...

And dont think a second my low cost optimized speakers are bad or mediocre...I prefer them to magnepan or my Tannoy dual gold not optimized and in a living room...

I chose headphone not by choice but by obligation...(after loosing my first dedicate acoustic room)

i knew headphones are most of the time very bad (compared to my past dedicated acoustic room ) probably at any price...

I had no other choice...

But i was lucky with my last headphone purchase... Thanks to Dr. Gorike ...

Then the choice between speakers and headphones is one of convenience,budget,age, etc... It is not about S.Q. superiority...

 Except it is possible to design an headphone  which rival speakers on most acoustics count and factors, as speakers in non dedicated and uncontrolled room cannot beat some headphone on all factors...

 

Acoustics rules over trade-off designs,headphones or speakers, not price....

 

Acoustics rule...

One of the reason why no consensus exist among for most headphones as no consensus exist about any gear pieces is related to room acoustics, ears measurements, optimization, design, part qualities etc ...

But for headphone we must insist especially on   differences between each units of the same model with different HRTF and psycho-acoustics measures :

 Headphone Reviewers Can’t Be Trusted. Here’s Why.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtyri3F5Yis