Auditory processing and headphones

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So I have auditory processing issues, and recently had to buy a cheap pair of earphones because the ones that came with my phone died. I found that these earphones do this split sound thing - some of the sounds of the music will be in one earphone/bud/whatever, and not in the other, and visa versa.
I actually can't hear or interpret the sound when this happens. I discovered this when I had a problem with one blocked ear - even when the other one was working fine, I couldn't hear properly or interpret the sound, unless it is being detected by both ears.
These headphones were just a stop-gap sort of measure until I can get proper headphones (over-ear, active noise cancelling, wireless, etc) but it made me wonder if this split sound thing is going to be a problem with more expensive headphones? Anyone know if the better quality / pricier noise-cancelling headphones do this splitting the sounds? What is that called? I don't want to end up paying hundreds (and good noise-cancellers can definitely be hundreds) on something I then won't be able to hear through.
Why the hell would they do this, anyway? Surely it can't make the sound quality better to split sounds between the ears?

The audio processing you're describing is stereo sound, where the left and right earphones have separate audio channels. It's an industry standard, especially for higher end earphones.

Most devices and some music players have an option to force mono sound included. Check your device's accessibility settings.

If you issues processing outside sounds you should get noise cancelling headphones. I bought the Boss QuiteComfort 35 headphones about a year ago and they really help calm me down.