Closed Back Pros and Cons?

I have not owned a pair of closed backs for about 15-20 years now. I’ve never had any need or worry about sound leaking. I don’t visit quiet places very often.
With that said, what would be the audio advantages of a closed-back? Aside from staying quiet, why would one purchase closed-backs? What are the pros and cons?

Commence thread hijack; Think my next set of cans will be closed, my wife is not liking my late night listening sessions with open backed planars. Fun and loud listening is the goal not looking to break the bank.

Another advantage I hear closed backs having improved imaging.

Definitely one of the more useful thread hijacks as of late :wink:

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I think open backs have better imaging usually.
Here’s my thoughts.
Pros:
Isolation.
No bothering other people.
Fun bass.
Great for travel on airplanes and needing to focus.
Immersive?
Cons:
Isolation.
Other people need to yell at you or be physical to get your attention.
Not as accurate as open-backs usually.
Get hot much more quickly than open backs, no airflow.

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IDK tbh, I don’t really see a case where that would be true

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Yeah open backs generally have better imaging.

maybe a trait of the ones I’ve used? I’m talking imaging not staging. I guess there’s going to be exceptions to every generalization we can come up with. So we start with the pro/con and then move onto the specifics examples in various ranges?

So imaging can still be great on closed backs, but I don’t think the fact of it being closed increases it’s imaging performance

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Which are you talking about? There are certainly lots of exceptions to this rule.
And yes, we are talking about imaging not staging too.

Mr. Speakers Ether C was my marker, not much experience with closed at all. This was the only pair I got to listen to through a few songs on my test reference playlist.

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Yeah the ether had pretty good imaging, pretty precise but did lack in stage for sure

Oh well those are certainly nice! :smile:

Aeon 2 closed have a better stage?

Imo yes, pretty improved actually

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For me, the only reason to go with closed is if you want to isolate yourself from your environment.

Either it be, you don’t want others to hear what you are listening or you don’t want to hear what’s going on around you…

Opens are just so much more open sounding! (Pun intended…)

Closed = at work (open space)
Open = Home use

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On the list the AKG 371 and the DT770, could throw a mike on them to make em gamers. other than the obvious isolation, not hearing much in the way of pros from our resident expertise.

The 371 are pretty great, well tuned and have good detail for the price, the 371 special sauce is pretty much it’s harman tuning. It also is very comfortable and my pairs have very solid build at least lol. The 770 250 ohm is very nice for a good v shaped closed back with great comfort and bass, pretty enjoyable (but if you can the 880 600 ohm is my pick for sure over them)

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If you want a DT770 that has a detachable cable already the Custom Studio is pretty decent.

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I’d not looked at the 880 because of the semi-open. Is it close enough? I don’t need to get rid of all sound, just the bulk of it.

I would say so imo, the 880 600 ohm doesn’t really leak that much at moderate volumes. I think you could get away with it in an office at lower volumes, and if you had a dynamic mic it shouldn’t pick up much