I have always admired the philosophy of the audiophile. This creature's devotion to such a simple goal, the accurate reproduction of music, seems so zen-like, but the way they follow it and the arguments they make are almost insane. I decided I wanted to have a really good set of equipment to represent two-channel music. I wanted the most accurate system I could get, but I wanted to follow my own advice of putting the right amount of resources into the right area. I came to the conclusion that the most cost-effective method would be with headphones.
Headphones offer many advantages over speakers.
With a small set of single drivers, you can send signals from the lowest to the highest octave for relatively cheap. You don't have to worry about any room acoustical treatment or any external noise. You don't even have to worry about aesthetics. For very little money you can purchase a portable CD Player as your source, maybe a headphone amp if you want some external device to handle more than the typical 1-10 range on the player, and a set of nice headphones. I know audiophiles who would spend this on different feet for their components to sit on to avoid any nasty vibrations.