Well, I do think there's a lot to be said for the quality of the headphone when it's capable scaling well and revealing system changes. That, to me, is a large part of defining quality. That's what a good headphone is supposed to do imo. If a headphone can't show marked improvements moving from, let's say, a decent cd source, to ironbut's killer source, I'd say the headphone quality was either mediocre and/or crazily flavored, not the system.