Generally speaking, the audiophile world falls into two camps.  Those that think particular makes and models of audio electronics and speakers are somehow &quot;magic&quot; and those that simply want their systems to measure &quot;flat&quot;.  The first camp are the ones that used to put weights on their speakers, used &quot;magic&quot; green markers to color the vertical edge around the outside of a compact disc, and would spend tens of thousands of dollars on a plinth for their turntable or a magic tube driven preamp.<p>The rest are simply concerned with scientific measurement of the system.  Does it produce a reasonably flat sound in frequency and phase that remains undistorted at volumes at which they listen to music.<p>The latter camp will highly rate headphones (or any other piece of audio equipment) that can produce a the full bandwidth of human hearing while keeping distortion low over a useful range of amplitude.<p>Comfort, cost, and construction quality would also be considered in the ranking.