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What I never understand about the audiophile community here is the over reliance of headphone and headphone amp choices. How about speakers, and amps that will drive speakers?

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I've been on this site for years. Why so many headphones and headphone amps? Why so little else?
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dcha12
461
Sep 8, 2020
Headphones ("personal" audio if you want to call it that) are becoming a larger market for better or worse. More people nowadays live in apartments/condos and either cannot or are unwilling to set up a room for speakers. Even bookshelf speakers are known to sound better on stands. Enter the headphone. Doesn't require mucking about in room placement (most of the time actual room treatment is unnecessary; it's all about finding the right distances from the walls and objects with finding the right speakers/EQ), is overall cheaper, and viable portable options exist. In the age of convenience this last point is especially telling, especially because it's much easier to change headphones than change speakers. Personally I hope those huge speakers with gigantic 12 - 15 inch woofers never die (I don't have the space at my current house but I love those). I listen to my Heresy iii vinyl rig whenever I can.
(Edited)
james.roberts
26
Sep 9, 2020
dcha12“Doesn't require mucking about in room placement (most of the time actual room treatment is unnecessary; it's all about finding the right distances from the walls and objects with finding the right speakers/EQ),” THIS. Just ask anyone who has spent TIME to dial speakers in...I don’t want to know how many man-months I’ve spent with REW trying to get just the right sound just to redo the whole thing with a subwoofer change out.
(Edited)
dcha12
461
Sep 9, 2020
james.robertsI fussed with my spekaer placement for 2 months before calling it "good enough." Running no EQ ironically. That being said my speakers sound better than my headphone rig. I say this as someone who owns multiple high-end cans (Utopia, SR1a, Verite) coupled with boutique amps (like Donald North). Ultimately headphones all fall way, way short of speakers when it comes to staging. And also, there are no comfort issues with speakers unless you decide to sit on a disaster of a chair.
NeenerMan
233
Sep 7, 2020
Once upon a time when Drop was MassDrop, back in the early days, there were bookshelf speakers, and studio monitors. When there started being MD co-branded products and exclusives, is when speakers died off. Don't know if it's just from the lack of speakers in polls or what.
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