Veiled 'wet blanket' sound from tweeters

No speaker can approach the level of inner detail of good headphones for several reasons, among them:

1. The diaphragm in headphones is much smaller and lighter and can have properties which are impractical in normal driver diaphragms.

2. The power handling requirements for headphone drivers is many many times less which further contributes to how light the moving mass can be.

3. Headphones are free from room reflections which can degrade clarity.

4. The air path itself can attenuate very high frequencies, and the air path is many times shorter with headphones.  (I'm not sure that this plays a significant role in headphones vs normal stereo, but it does play a role in normal stereo vs live performances at some distance, like halfway back in a concert hall).

5. Circumaural headphones block outside noise and therefore improve the signal-to-noise ratio, which unmasks low-level detail.

Duke

@russ69, I'm not advocating for headphones as being "better" than loudspeakers.  But good headphones can do some things better, and good loudspeakers can do other things better.  In my opinion good loudspeakers do a far better job of allowing the listener to suspend disbelief and get lost in the music. 

What I was trying to do was offer one possible explanation for gmckay1960's observations.  

Duke