Lasivian,
In my experience the $300 audio-phile headphones are made with several speakers in them allowing a person, with good ears, to hear from about 18 hz to 22,000 hz signals. Metal detector headphones really only need to cover a much smaller hz range and therefore usually only have a single speaker in each cup.
I have a set of Killer Bee's (Wasp's actually) that would make it through an A bomb blast, have separate volume control for each ear, a switch to match it to most all detectors, even the cord is strong and in the summer you'd think you were wearing a toaster oven and not earphones, man are they hot. I also purchased a pair of wireless TDK headphones, model WR700HP, so it is a headphone without wires and a sender unit that plugs into the detector (after I purchased a 90 degree adapter plug from Radio Shack) and they work great! Still not in the summer. No I can detect without the headphone wires getting all tangled up. The 700HP's were built of high end music listening, they are made of plastic so I treat them tenderly and have a hard carry box for them but not having the cord hang up on everything that is out there is a truly wonderful thing. Also, when one goes to search for a target the cord is not in the way. I got them at egghead for under $100 and if you go to purchase a pair check for coupons as they have them on sale every so often. The TDK WR700HP phones do not have any lag between where one hears the signal and where the coil is. The signal comes across when the coil is over the target.
Good luck with your purchase.............63bkpkr
