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We’re likely to get some old-timey audiophile flack for this but …

We believe the high-end of audio resolution is now on headphones, NOT room speakers. Sure, headphones don’t image quite as well as speakers (you’d be surprised at how well they do image with our own HeadRoom 'crossfeed circuit' though!), and they are not able to provide chest-pounding visceral bass impact (but can still make your eyes blink). However, when it comes to musical detail resolution, reference headphones will trounce speakers. It’s not all that hard to believe when you think about it. There are usually multiple drivers in room speakers, plus the sound has to get through the room itself with all its acoustic interference before it gets to your ears. Also, room speakers are large power-hungry boxes requiring fairly high-power amplifiers to drive big speakers with precision & finesse. With headphones, there's one single small driver (usually, although some in-ear canal earphones have three or more), they function close to the ear as a pure near-field listening experience, and most headphones are fairly easy to power correctly (compared to speakers, anyway).

So when you listen on high-end headphone systems you'll regularly pick up on subtle things you’ve never heard on your excellent speakers. You can often hear the damper pedal action on a piano, for example, or a musician's background exhortations in the studio. We once had a customer call from an airport layover all excited, “It was amazing!," he said. "I could not only hear the cellist breathing through his nose, I could tell he needed to clip his nose hairs!” ... That’s resolution, folks. We believe a high-end audiophile listening system isn’t truly complete without similarly accurate headphone capability.

Our Home Amp or Home Balanced amp will provide extraordinary resolving power to your listening sessions. Add a Sennheiser HD650 for a warm, laid back sound; a beyerdynamic DT880 for a lively and precise listen; or an AKG K701 for clean textured sound straight down the middle. Our new HeadRoom Ultra Micro Amp and Ultra Micro DAC bring the very best audio performance formerly available in our uber-pricey big 'Max' series to the tiny HeadRoom Micro products. It's still hard for us to believe we actually managed to shoehorn phenomenal "Class-A" bias parts and sound quality into our miniscule HeadRoom Ultra Micro chassis!

The audiologist-customized Ultimate Ears UE11 also performs at this reference level though ear canal headphones aren’t very convenient for use at home or office where you may want to be aware of conversation. Also please don’t forget the cable upgrades available on the high-end audiophile headphones. It does render a big audio improvement at this demanding level of reference-grade headphone performance. Other cans near the top of the reference headphone heap are the Sennheiser HD600, and HD595, AKG K601, Grado RS1, Ultimate Ears UE10, and the superb Shure 'universal-fit' [no audiologist needed] ear canal headphones SE530.

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