Open Back Headphones vs Closed Back Headphones

There are only really 2 types of headphones and if you are in the market to make a decision it’s a good idea to understand the basic differences between the two, so there is closed back headphones and open back headphones.

The most headphones we see are closed back, and that’s because most of us listen to headphones to just hear our music and not anything else. So whether we are on a computer, working out or whatever doing, listening music, we just want to hear the audio and not our environment. Closed back headphones do this by creating a seal around your ear to isolate the noise and separate the inside from the outside.

But in a studio or some other quiet solo listening environment, you don’t need that isolation between yourself and the outside noise, because there is no outside noise, so that we might explore open back headphones.

Open back, as the name implies, means the backup headphones are literally open, there is no barrier between the drivers and the outside world. And there are Pros and Cons, the main Pro is normally the way it sounds, you typically have a much more natural sounds, where sounds like music is coming from the room around you instead of being played in your head, this is what’s called a wider soundstage, where essentially the stronger this affect is the moral sound like the sound is coming from further away from you the more separation there is, (it might sound like the guitars are back there, the drums are over here, the basses are over there and vocals are up there) it can be really immersive and it’s pretty cool.

And another thing that can be considered either Pro or Con is that real world sound gets mixed in with your audio, since it’s open back you get room noise as opposed to just totally silent isolated noise from closed back, so you can have a conversation with the person next to you as if they are sitting in the room, and they can hear your music but you can still hear them if they talk to you, it’s pretty interesting.

The real downside of open back is definitely sound leak, because there is no barrier between the inside and the outside, the vibration of the diaphragm pushes audio both inward and outward, if someone is sitting next to you it will sound like you’re wearing mini speakers on head.

In a studio or alone this might not be such big deal, but if you are trying to listen to music in a public place like a gym or on a bus, that’s going to be a little weird that everyone can hear exactly what song you’re listening to.

So now you basically know all the differences between open back and close back.