Bluebeard

There are two factors to consider here: If by wealthy you mean, those who have sufficient disposable income to be able to dedicate it to music, then the answer is that good music quality has always been the privilege of the wealthy. This has been the case since at least the late middle ages – the quality (and size) of a church/cathedral choir or orchestra was directly related to the wealth of the diocese, later when secular courts became the power, ditto for the noble court. (Yes, there were exceptions – Haydn at Esterhazy for example.) This has also gone hand in glove with the development of an audience skilled enough to identify the quality of the performer. Again this capacity is a factor of having wealth sufficient to dedicate time to this pastime. The music may be the same, but there would be a significant difference in late 18th century in the quality and skill of someone performing a Mozart aria in say Vienna at the State Opera House and the same aria at say the York Municipal Theatre. By the time you get to mechanical reproduction in the late 19th Century, the basic tenet remains the same - better performances are a by-product of better reproduction through higher quality, and thus more expensive, equipment. The correlation of disposable income to “good sound quality” has been a constant for an awful long time... The second issue is what do you mean by “good sound quality”. I'd recommend reading Greg Milner's Perfecting Sound Forever, which examines and discusses recorded sound and reproduction from its beginnings in the early 20th Century. Time and again he raises instances in the past where listeners find it impossible to differentiate between recording and reality – and where demos of live artists and their recordings were used to demonstrate the fidelity of the reproduction. His introduction discusses this in the context of an demonstration of an Edison phonograph in 1915. You and I could listen to the same 78 and hear nothing but a distorted, monophonic, range constricted and undynamic sound – the facts remains that in its heyday it was the non-pareil of reproduction and considered the next best thing to reality. Closer to our time compare the cassette to a digital recording and what was good enough for our parents, well...It would seem then that one generation's good sound quality is the next's unlistenable...In all these technologies there have been their own hierachies, someone who owned a Nakamichi Dragon would consider a Yamaha KX360 unlistenable, whilst the Yamaha owner would consider the Realistic to be beneath contempt... I have no doubt that after the 1915 demo Milner discusses, there were earnest discussions amongst a small group of persons as to the merits of the Edison over the Victrola and whether the shellac record was an advance over the wax cylinder... Just two issues to remember when discussing such a nebulous topic. Regards, Giles

Re headphone stands, Sennheiser themself make a nifty device (HH10 Headphone holder)which clamps onto shelves and keeps the 'phones handy but out of the way. A friend of mine uses a glass head for his AKGs which is a somewhat more stylish approach... regards, Giles