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Hello,

I just wanted to know what do you prefer when you play your DP with headphones, an open or closed model? And why?

Thanks,

SK

I have a pair of Sennheiser HD 25 ALUMINIUM.

I think they're closed headphones and do the job brilliantly.

They are made from solid blocks of aluminium.

I've never tried closed but I know I like the open and that's what I use. This is probably too simplified an overview but "better sound" is the way I read it. Apart from that, I'm unable to separate the idea of 'closed' from claustrophobia. Admitedly a prejudice but I would expect the closed type to err on the side of bass-heavy, which I don't like at all.

Finally, I don't need to be absolutely silent and I'm not bothered by the noise of others, so open it is.

Open, if sound isolation is not an issue, all things being equal, the sound staging is that more pleasing IMO and adds a sense of depth and dimension that closed back designs can rarely reach. Of course, unless you have a really wide wallet they are both capable in every department in both designs, and a lot of software these days one can be piled on top to mimic these effects well anyway.

A cool test of how good you headphones soundstage and mental imaging can be found here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5X9oUNSYyE

notice how you can actually sense the rear/front sounds really well too, as well as left right, freaky

To put it in perspective, but perhaps an exaggeration and a rough generalisation, open back is like listening more like in 3d , closed back in 2d.

For example, I was listening to an interview the other day on youtube, people were talking in the background. Listening on an open back phone it was more like they were actually in the background, a different distance from you, the closed back design just did not give that same sense of depth, as if the crowd and speaker where in the same plane versus the open back design where they were in different planes. That same feature also gives a better surround experience with pianos IMO, versus the more in your head feeling of many closed backs.

While I've not tried, with using phones these days I noticed that Roland, yamahas and Kawai on their latest models have headphone settings, Kawai offers options for open, closed back etc so it is more likely you can dial it in to your liking with whatever you may have anyway.

I have both, and I prefer the open ones because I could wear the open ones longer and therefore practice longer. However, I have noticed that if you have the choice of binaural source for your headphones, the closed headphones sound slightly more realistic for binaural source. The open headphones provide more soundstage and are better than the closed ones with stereo source, but they also work with binaural just not as good as the closed ones.

Either is fine. What you don't want to use is the noise-reduction ones, unless you practice near a construction zone.

I use close because I really only wanted one pair of decent headphones and I wanted to used them for recording. Ideally you'd want both. If sound is the most important thing I'd get open, if you want them to be useful in isolating sound you get closed.

I've had the Senn HD280's for several years, and like them. I was surprised when I tried some open-back phones at a large audio store -- several had bass that was considerably louder than the HD280's.

So whether a headphone has "heavy bass" or not (and I assume, "bright" sound or not) depends on decisions the designers take. And not completely on whether they're closed-back, or open-back.

I've thought about buying a pair of open-back phones for comparison to the HD280's, but have been too cheap to do it.

I don't know if any of this stuff matters a lot. Get something comfortable, that doesn't distort, that doesn't _strongly_ color the sound. [That is, _don't_ get "Dr. Dre" phones!]

Your ears and fingers will manage to correct for a multitude of minor sins.

I think similarly to Charles - there are closed back ones with a very good sound stage and range, and there are open ones that might not satisfy your tastes that well. Maybe it's better to judge them on a per - model basis.
I posted today in a recent thread a long description of some pretty cheap cans that I judge as fantastic value.
Charles, maybe you also want to check that out for open ones. And I'd also add the hd681 to that list (in the other thread), but only in the case where one is willing to perform some mods on them. I wasn't.

Half-open.