Okay, maybe there was a reason for that. My point is that one of these things is better than the other. Why would you eat a nasty McDonald's hamburger when you could have a delicious, balanced steak dinner? Why would you try to find the 20,000th Fibonacci number on a relic of the '70s when a modern computer is so much better? Why would you listen to your favorite music through the earbuds that came with your iPod rather than through some high-quality headphones? I hope my point is clear.
A quick aside on how I got into high-quality headphones. A guy who lived down the hall from me freshman year had brought his hulking desktop computer to college, and used some seriously big headphones with it. They were Sennheiser HD-555s, the (significantly less cool-looking) predecessor of the 558s pictured above. I always thought they'd looked pretty cool, and eventually in early March I wondered if I could listen to my music library...better. I asked to test-drive his headphones. Being incredibly careful not to damage them, I carried them to my room and fired them up.
I don't recall exactly what happened, but I'm pretty sure my jaw dropped. I don't know how to describe how different my music sounded, felt, but I was gripped by a desire to go back and listen to everything. The headphones really changed my music, added new dimensions to it I'd never heard before. I immediately knew I had to have a pair of my own. The withdrawal while waiting for them to come was not fun. It's like trying to describe art to a blind person; all I can advise is to find someone with good headphones and ask to try them out, like I did. I would be happy to loan anything from my collection out.
Now obviously the other possible conclusion that can be reached from the pictures is that one of these things is many times more expensive than the other. And for something consumable like a meal, it's a valid point. But if you take care of them, a good pair of headphones can last decades. (I don't have firsthand experience on this, but I've had my HD-555s almost two years, put them through plenty, and they sound better than when I got them) It's a one-time investment that keeps on paying off. If you don't have the money, I don't recommend sampling high-quality headphones as I did, because once you hear them, you never go back. There are plenty of affordable headphones that are a huge improvement over what the majority of people listen on, though; Sennheiser's HD-201s are barely $20 and have the best sound-to-price ratio I've ever heard. A top-of-the-line pair of headphones like the HD-800s isn't for everyone, but I suspect that many, many people would find a marginal improvement to their listening experience well worth it.
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