Speakers vs Headphones

[GaetanL]

I live in an apartment and most of the time I listen to music with headphones when I sit down and do nothing else.

I must have listened to Wolverine - "Communication Lost" with my headphones a thousand times since its release...

Tonight I sit down and listen to it with my speakers instead of with my headphones...

I love my speakers, I love my headphones, but I'm so used to hear this album with my headphones that tonight it sounds bad with my speakers, it sounds slower and distant...

I had to press stop!

In my case, headphones win hands down!

Back with my headphones...

[keifling]

I can't even listen to music out loud anymore. This summer I had one of those nights where I didn't sleep because I couldn't stop clicking play on another mp3 every time one ended; they all just sounded so dam good and I couldn't stop listening... So when the sun came up in the middle of my session, I loaded some on a flash drive to play in the car. Weird thing is I just couldn't get in to any of it that way. Had to go back to the headphones and I was enjoying them again.

[Nos]

I would rather not use headphones, whenever possible. Even with a good set, the sound isn't quite right when it feels like it's already inside your head. Having it in the air makes it sound bigger, at least to me.

[Mark]

I use headphones at work and speakers at home.
I like the sound of headphones but they tend to be uncomfortable to wear for long periods of time.
When my primary purpose of listening to music is for its energy, I stick to speakers.

[MJ Brady]

Need better speakers??

[LarryD]

Need better speakers??

***Dude that's not your set up is it ???

[LarryD]

There's a lot to be said for headphones ....... I know a few guys who have outrageous headphone set ups ......and for big $$$. I've got a set of Sennheiser phones I use sometimes when I want to block out the world, or hear something with almost just vocals ( think Loreena McKennitt ) or some other solo artist that is lyric driven.....

That said -- I prefer to listen to music with the speaker set up -- primarily because I want to feel the energy of the band like someone else mentioned, and I want to feel like I'm there in the room with the band ...... with headphones, I can't achieve this as the imaging is contained in the ears......

[GaetanL]

I also sometimes prefer speakers, for example for movies or for some other albums. But for albums I like very very much, like Wolverine - "Communication Lost", I prefer headphones, I want to hear all the details! Also, I can crank up the volume as much as I want without disturbing the neighbors!

Maybe in an environment I could crank up very much the volume of the speakers, this could be different, but here I can't really do the test...