You prefer listening to music via headphones or 2 channel speakers?

Just wondering?

Depends on my mood and what I can get away with regarding disturbing the neighbours.

How about you?

Only had speakers.... Just bought some HD800's so will be able to test soon.

Very nice

Speakers or using Dolby Headphone (DH1 or DH3) with L+R mapped to Front Left and Front Right (no 5.1 upmix - this simulates listening to stereo speakers over headphones).

Headphones with no processing as a last resort.

both, depends on the mood.

headphones are great for alone time

Uriel said:

Speakers or using Dolby Headphone (DH1 or DH3) with L+R mapped to Front Left and Front Right (no 5.1 upmix - this simulates listening to stereo speakers over headphones).

Headphones with no processing as a last resort.

Click to expand...

Have you tried using a (hardware) crossfeed? personally I actually like the high degree of separation and tend to use headphones but sometimes turn to speakers but mostly I'm using my HD600s.

Nothing sounds like speakers and sub. I just can't use headphones now. Even £2000 headphones.

Yes I've tried both hardware and software crossfeeds. I'd usually rather have crossfeed than not. To me crossfeed needs something more though. A large and forward soundstage helps in that circumstance. Chances are if I had some HD800s crossfeed would be enough.

For me, Dolby Headphone provides an excellent psycoacoustic representation of stereo speakers in a way that simple crossfeed simply can't, even with headphones with a small and central native soundstage. I percieve pracitally the same 3D soundstage when using DH1 (with mapping as described) as when using nearfield monitors. I like DH3 for very 'dry', closed miked, studio recordings but it can make a bit of a mess of live recordings with some natural ambience. For some reason I've never got on quite so well with DH2. When using headphones with good synergy (Goldring DR150 or NS1000, Senheiser HD580 or HD600 all work well) with Dolby Headphone I perceive a singer, for example, as being out in front of me and not in my head.

Of course, it wouldn't work like that for everyone. I just happen to be extremely suited to the Dolby Headphone algorithm (for me no other HRTF based headphone processing comes close).

It's not really out of choice but I live in a terraced house and have two small children so a lot of my listening these days is via headphones.

I'd love to try a Smyth Realiser, properly calibrated, but don't fancy spending that much on headphone audio any time soon.

I love my hd700 .. and i'm really happy with what I got at home. But having just recently gone to my local audio-t shop and played a few of my blu ray audio disc in the demo room it does show what i'm missing

I love music out loud on speakers and I love the sound of my speakers but of an evening I have to put headphones on and can only game with headphones on.

Headphones resolve better than speakers but I'm not going to lie, speakers are more fun. I personally prefer headphones so I can hear directly into the singers voices and become overtaken, something speakers don't really do for me.

Those wanting a more spacious sound won't be able to find it in headphones unless you go Dolby or similar so a good set of speakers would be better. Preference I guess, I'd personally pick headphones everytime.

Speakers, without a doubt.

Headphones really don't compare - great for gaming/when people are asleep/concentrating though.

When I had a crap HiFi and good headphones... Headphones.
When I got the nice(ish) HiFi - Speakers.

Speakers for me, nothing like filling a room with sound and a good sub adds another dimension, that said I have a 5 month old baby so stuck with headphones atm

Erm, either or. Depends on the mood. I like the itimacy of a good pair of headphones but i like a listening to a good set of speakers just as much. I'm a sucker for sub bass and infrasound aswell, so sometimes there's no replacement for displacement and only a big flappy subwoofer will do the job, so yeah i flick between headphones, monitor and floorstandards+sub quite often.

I nearly always listen through my IEMs as they sound so much better than the speakers that I use.

I like both, but I do prefer speakers. I can listen to speakers for longer periods than I can headphones and there's something about a room filled with sound that is more appealing; at least to me.

Both have their pros and cons.

I prefer speakers of course but really need a sub again

For me its speakers but I think it all depends on how good your setup is and more importantly how acoustically friendly your listening room is. Bang for buck and reduced reverberations means that people may prefer headphones. For myself ive got a pair two Graham Slee Proprius monoblocks with Monitor Audio GX100s attached to a Asus essence STX ii. Sounds amazing, detailed and much more immersive with the soundstage compared to headphones. Plus there not attached to your head.