Aside from the usual advantages of this design, these models also have other qualities that open-back headphones can barely achieve……..
Room-filling sound resonances, merging of room acoustics, seemingly endless reverberation, and of course, the powerful bass reproduction.
All qualities that make listening a pleasure, but which are often acoustically lost in open-back headphones and are therefore a good argument in favor of closed-back headphones.
Dan Clark and Zach in particular have managed to combine these sound qualities with a certain natural charisma, creating headphones that have addictive potential.
I’m not “skeptical.” Closed headphones routinely make my ears ring, feel like being underwater or in an airplane (ear pressure and popping), and give me a headache. They sound fine or fantastic for up to 1 hour, but are intolerable after 2 hours.
“Skeptical?”, he echoed @generic the pink frog wholeheartedly. I tried to have an open mind and a closed ear. @tmarshl was gracious enough to lend me his ZMF Verite closed to try, one of those top headphones you mention.
Objectively there was nothing wonky about the sound streaming high res through the Schiit true multibit DAC into the seductively tubed Eufonika H7m OTL amplifier. The first few minutes were really okay.
Then, like the best of nightmares, the walls started closing in. The room acoustics of recorded venues shimmered with those of a discarded seashell. My ears strained to make it right but the attached cerebral cortex, wise in the ways of the world knew that it was not so. Fatigue, fatigue and annoyance.
And as Billy Joel sings, pressure.
No, these, some of the best closed backs I’d yet heard, are not for me.
Proof by listening, not skepticism.
I’ve got the DCA E3, Aeon RT, Sennheiser GSP600, ATH WS1100, AKG K371, and tried all kinds of other closed backs at Canjam and Japan. To me the closed vs open debate boils down to each user’s requirements.
For me personally where I normally use headphones, there’s a tiny bit of background noise, and my preference is a lot of bass, so for me, my favorite closed back is easily as enjoyable as my favorite open back. I don’t find any correlation between closed back and ear pain like some do.
If there’s no need for isolation or if I’m not going to bother anyone with noise leakage, then my favorite open back does have a slight edge in sound quality.
