Headphones - the unfair advantage

I have often mentioned the problems of rooms when wanting a great sound system. The reflections and rebounds, finding the best seating location and placement for your hifi equipment and disturbing others in the pursuit of the escapism often provided by loosing yourself to music.

One way to save this problem is with Headphones, no, not just any headphones... a really good pair of headphones.

Headphones have one district advantage and that is they remove the problems of the room. Simple right! Put headphones on and the room has much less effect. 

What you have is a focused sound system on your head. But the problem with some if not most headphones that is just that, something on your head, and that is just not going to be good enough. You should have the music elevated and beyond the skull, it should not just be in your head, it should be around you, you should be able to close your eyes and be lost in a special place where there are no walls, no boundaries, just you and the music. 

when listening to live music should be like the best row, listening to a great recording you should hear every nuance every beat and every ambient element of magic.

In this video review of the Focal Elear headphones I set out to try and give a visual representation of what I am hearing, hopefully I have achieved this.

So if you want great, actually lets go beyond great. If you want an amazing sound system that is a fraction of the cost of a moderate traditional Speaker / Amp solution and if you are space challenged, have a bad room or can't push your sound system to its glorious limits consider a pair of headphones.