I'm just putting the final touches on assembling a speaker-based system for more casual use. A secondary system, for more "critical" listening sessions, is past the planning stages and awaiting the necessary $$$. This system will be 'phone-based and will possess the dual advantages of allowing for later-night listening and, most importantly to me, will avoid the on-going plague of room acoustics issues I've wrestled with for quite a while. My wife and I rent the house we have lived in, contentedly, for the past 22 years. Unfortunately, remodeling a room to maximize audio playback quality is out of the question.
After having spent a good many hours studying at various websites dedicated to headphone use, I've arrived at the following configuration:
Audeze LCD-2 "orthodynamic" headphones. The current reigning champs of headphone forums, easily surpassing top offerings from Beyerdynamic, Sennheiser, Grado, etc. Orthodynamic designs, while fussier in terms of proper amp matching, are currently considered the most balanced full-range cans. The Audeze is the top ortho design. These are less pricey, at $945, than several top "standard" headphone designs, and like most ALL headphones being sold to consumers, will greatly benefit from after-market cabling upgrades.
http://www.audeze.com/The Centrance DACmini headphone amp. This is getting uniformly positive feedback from LCD-2 users as being a suitable "match" for the orthodynamic design. Plenty of output to drive the phones to satisfying levels and includes both a well-regarded USB DAC and preamp capability for inclusion of speakers into the system. Some time this year Centrance is due to introduce a variant that will also include an onboard speaker amp. The DACmini is currently being sold for a "reasonable" $795.
http://www.centrance.com/products/dacmini/To these two main components I'll add a Mac Mini music server, a pair of small room speakers, and whatever cabling is required. If I stop to consider how much one of the most highly regarded speaker designs might cost me, and compare to the sub $1.5k the very highly rated LCD-2s will cost with cable upgrade, it would appear that headphone-based systems are a much more cost-effective portal to the world of high-end playback quality. I won't argue the relative virtues of speakers vs headphones, NOT when it is readily possible to have the best of both worlds! - String