I use SONY earbuds and Sunray Gold Pro Gold headphones. The Golds sound beautiful. Very smooth sound quality. But on the other hand, although the SONY earbuds don't have the same isolating ability the enclosed ear design of the Pro Golds have, they too sound good.
Due to the fully enclosed design of the Golds, the Golds get warm to the ears as you don't have the air circulation one has with the open nature of earbuds. If comparing the two for isolating capability and sound quality, the Pro Golds have a much fuller, deep sound quality to them that's isolated from ambient, environmental noise making it much easier to pickup on the nuances.
Maybe Golds with a SONY earbud for emergency backup? Anything is better than a speaker.
As to the question, which headphone are better? Other than recommendations I've received from dealers, I'm clueless but if wanting headphones, based on personal experience, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the Sunray, Pro Gold headphones for build and sound quality. Price, compared to other metal detecting headphones, yes, they're expensive but the quality is there so it becomes a personal decision if one wants to spend this much money for a set of headphones.