Cannot find perfect sound

@jim204 

I don't play loud enough to cause damage.

Your explanation doesn't sound right 

The room acoustics of these hifi stores is horrific. It makes no sense to have a demo room with 500k of equipment and such bad acoustics. The staff don't seem to hear the difference. 

But that doesn't explain what I'm hearing. The room mainly affects the bass. 
What I'm talking about is the midrange.

@folkfreak 

Not in my experience. It's the complete opposite. 

Bass is the hardest to fix. Mids are easy to absorb.

I think there are two problems. Firstly you don't get much sound quality for your money. Secondly the level of sound quality is just nowhere near perfect even when you spend $100k.

Is that basically the problem I'm facing?

@tomcy6 

Because I'm talking about a specific part of the sound not the overall sound.

The earbuds may get the time cohesion correct but may suffer from high distortion or other unwanted features.

On the other hand, high end speakers may have a super flat response and low distortion but the timing is all wrong.

I think this is why I'm hearing differences.

Earbuds may also have less coloration than a big box which can vibrate.

Earbuds do not have a crossover. They are time perfect. 

This could the key difference but there's no way to prove it.

The kef blades are based on trying to achieve a perfect point source. Maybe that's why they sounded closest to the earbuds?

@bache 

No I'm not.

Green mountain audio are not worth being mentioned in this discussion. The green mountain audio speakers were the most recent speakers I bought and they were nowhere near the level of speakers like the kefs.

The green mountains sound cold, there's no bass and I hear midrange resonances. I'm surprised some people can't hear these things.

@shadorne 

I think you're misinterpreting what I said. I did not say I preferred cheap earbuds over expensive speakers. If that was the case, there would be no need to buy speakers and I could just continue using the cheap earbuds. 

What I did say is that I could not hear the timing accuracy I hear from earbuds in these speakers. And it's not just earbuds I've tried other cheap headphones and I hear the exact same timing accuracy despite differences in frequency response.

I also hear major resonances from many high end speakers which the reviewers seem to ignore. Even my PMC speakers have horrific resonances. Despite this, they were highly regarded by all the studio engineers. 

There is some logic in saying that earbuds do not suffer cabinet resonances the same way speakers do since there is no cabinet or huge vibrations from headphones. 

Hearing loss is a valid point but it's not the answer I'm looking for. My hearing is not perfect but I'm not completely deaf either. I can still appreciate certain differences that are real. 

What about the fact that I enjoyed the kef blades?  If you check stereophile you'll see that they're super flat both on and off axis and near state of the art measurements and some of the lowest cabinet resonances I've seen. Hearing loss does not explain my preference for that.
And by the way the kefs were good but not perfect.

Of course the room is important however if you hear problems in the mids that only occur with one speaker but not others no matter what room you're in, then it must be the speaker itself. 

@enliten 

Of course I've done that already. I can still hear all the same problems it's actually easier to hear without the room now.

@twoleftears 

It's unfortunately various frequencies all the way from bass up to 1.5khz.

By resonance I mean certain notes will have too much energy which will be heard when you play a track that has that note on it. It's basically coloration.

The transmission line is supposed to magically absorb all the mids leaving just the bass according to PMC.

I don't believe it.

I have the PMC TB2. Different model to your floorstanders.

But based on my experience with these I'm not inclined to try any other models. I think they all suffer the same issues. 

Thats partly what hifi is about. Different people like different coloration hence there are hundreds of options out there.

I can't live with any kind of coloration. Thats the problem. 

What do you mean by timing Accuracy

Transient response and the way notes start, stop and decay 

having the opinion cheap ear buds sound better I find incredibly odd.

I never said earbuds sound better. I already said before that :

 I did not say I preferred cheap earbuds over expensive speakers. If that was the case, there would be no need to buy speakers and I could just continue using the cheap earbuds.

What I did say is that I could not hear the timing accuracy I hear from earbuds in these speakers. And it's not just earbuds I've tried other cheap headphones and I hear the exact same timing accuracy despite differences in frequency response.

@yeti42 

Have you heard the eclipse?