I have a good Yamaha system and good speakers, music sounds great from it.
I also have these Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones. I was listening to the Dinah Washington "After Hours With Miss D" CD last night: I listened to it twice: First, when I was doing some computer work without the headphones, then later, in my chair with the headphones on.
Listening with the headphones is such a more pleasurable experience it's remarkable. I know I was also giving it undivided attention, but even taking that into consideration - the headphone experience is just superb.

Headphones eliminate cross-talk distortion so you get much better stereo separation...not to mention outside noise.

I've got some big old Polk Audio SDA-2B speakers I bought about 20 years ago. They have a third cord that connects the two speakers, and have special drivers that send out cancelling sound waves so sound for the right ear doesn't bleed into the left.

Listen to an song like Money and you'd think there were clocks going off behind your head.

-spence