Hacker News Reader

Comment by clolege | Hacker News Reader

> A $400 Sennheiser 650 will no doubt blow them away while still being $150 cheaper.

Of course they will. But it's not fair to compare open backs with closed backs without a huge asterisk [0]

> If you want the best sound quality for the buck, you usually need to go with open-backed (or simply “open”) headphones. The open (but uncomfortable) SR60 is probably the best value in the business, followed by the awesome DT-880, which is far better than everything in this review in both comfort and sound quality. But open headphones are like screen doors: they let all exterior noise in, and more importantly, they let all of your music out. This will annoy anyone around you, so it’s extremely inconsiderate to use open headphones in buses, trains, airplanes, shared offices, or anywhere else near other people, and it’s irresponsible to recommend them without this huge warning.

[0] https://marco.org/headphones-closed-portable

View on HN

Serious question. If open headphones (which I've never used) let everyone else hear what you're listening to, why would anybody ever use them? Isn't it better just to have decent speakers and not use headphones at all?

Not everyone has the space for a decent speaker setup. An open back pair of headphones will work anywhere as long as the environment isn't too loud. Another reason could be if you are living in an apartment with neighbors who won't be very happy with your speaker setup blasting sound through the walls into their apartment. Open back headphones do leak sound but in a much more localized area. Also, you can get a great pair of open back headphones for $200 or less and then with a $50-$100 amp have amazing sound. I haven't looked closely into speaker setups but I feel like a good speaker setup is going to cost more than that.

By an order of magnitude or two, yeah. In addition to the very pricey speakers and receiver, you also, at that point, need fine control over room shape and acoustics, as well as more space than any apartment is likely to provide, in order to get the benefit of what you're paying for. Headphones are a much more controlled and thus easily engineered environment, so it's a lot cheaper and easier to get equivalent quality, albeit with a necessarily narrower soundstage in almost all cases.

The $450 I paid for my endgame headphone/amp/DAC wouldn't even get you in the door of an audiophile speaker place.

$450 endgame? What do you have?

HD 6XX, a Magni/Modi pair, and no real interest in hearing anyone else's opinion about what I should've gone with instead.

Haha fair enough. I ran an HD 6XX with a Jotunheim for a while, but ended up preferring a pair of JBL LSR305s with an SVS sub a lot more.

I think the main reasons were being able to experience the sub frequencies with my entire body (they're too big to fit in your ears!), and share the experience with my friends.

I actually compared my Sony MDR7506 with my Anker Soundcore Motion+ this morning and the Soundcore blew away the Sonys to my ear. Yes, the Soundcore is an unrepairable bluetooth speaker, but they both cost ~$80

At any sane price point, headphones blow away speakers.

It's hard and expensive to move a lot of air precisely, and speakers are influenced by room acoustics. $5 headphones beat $50 speakers. $80 headphones beat $200 speakers. And $200 headphones beat $400 speakers.

I can't afford to find out beyond that, but I suspect things get more nuanced on the ultra-high-end.

For me, for music, I'm happy with something like a Sony MDRV6 studio monitor, which sells for under $100. I don't know of speakers I like under $200.

Headphones are also nice for teleconferencing, where speakers aren't.

While not telling which way is superior sounds produced by the speakers are also felt by your whole body even if subtle. That makes for a noticeably different listening experience.

I think the comparison is far more drastic than that. I would compare $100 headphones (like your Sonys) to amplifier speaker set up of at least $2000. That depth of bass response and accuracy is quite an achievement for speakers.

I say this as someone with both Sony MDRV6 headphones and a home borderline audiophile stereo setup retailing for over $3k.

This is anecdotal and I mentioned this somewhere else in this thread, but I did a quick shootout between my Sony MDR7506 and a $80 Soundcore Motion+ bluetooth speaker and the Soundcore actually blew the 7506 away.

TBF I was powering the headphones with just my Pixel 3, but it's not a particularly hard to drive headphone.

There's been quite a bit of advancement recently with bluetooth speakers, and we'll probably see some more disruption in the affordable hi-fi space soon with what Purifi is doing with Class D amps.

... I'm not so sure about that. I suspect you might have liked the way the speaker changed the sound, but you could have gotten the same effect (with greater control) with the headphones and digital preprocessing.

The headphones will give a more faithful reproduction of the original recording.

Making a nearly-perfect class D amp isn't hard (which is not to say a lot of people haven't messed it up; there are a lot of pretty bad amps out there).

The hard part is the speaker itself. The mechanicals of moving a lot of air accurately are hard. You need a physically large woofer which moves over a long distance. If you do that, your woofer and tweater won't be in the same place, so your phase response will be wonky. You don't want the air cavity acting as a spring overpowering your driver, so you need a large box. Etc. By the end of it, it's super-complex. Headphones are super-easy in comparison.

They know their target consumer. You can get two colors with one stimulus check. Brilliant.

While everybody can hear, they won't hear it anywhere near as loud. So you can listen to music as loud as you want without disturbing your neighbors or even the people in the next room.

Secondly, you arguably get more bang for your buck. For a budget of say $300-400 split between open headphones and a DAC you'll get much better sound quality than similar money spent on speakers and an amp. Finally to get the most out of speakers you need space to set them up correctly and a room with decent acoustics. Headphones avoid all of that.

People need to be really close to hear what you are hearing. Open back headphones are not for the metro or bus.

But you can certainly wear them in your cubicle or home office without any issues for other people around you.

Especially if you work from home and have an office that is a room on its own (i.e. garage or basement) open-back are a no brainer for me.

That "everyone else" hearing may include other people close by in the same room, not from other rooms or other apartments. In addition, getting the same audio quality from speakers costs a multiple of the price of a high-end headphone pair, and even then it's very difficult (think room reveb and positioning).

Sennheiser HD650 + an empirically incredible amp and dac will run you between 1 and 2 grand. For speakers multiply that by 10 at least. And they still won't sound as clear and intimate as something pressed up against your head.

And also open backs just bleed noise, they don't shake the room, so unless someone is next to you they aren't gonna hear anything anyways.

> For speakers multiply that by 10 at least.

I put together a ~$3k system recently that has blown away any headphone experience I've had [0] [1] [2].

I guess for me, the experience goes beyond just what the music sounds like. Being able to dance without having to worry about anything falling off of my head or out of my ears, and being able to share the experience with my girlfriend and others effectively multiplies the joy I get by an order of magnitude.

[0] https://www.minidsp.com/products/streaming-hd-series/shd

[1] https://vtvamplifier.com/product/vtv-amplifier-stereo-purifi...

[2] https://www.parts-express.com/solstice-mltl-reference-tower-...

Oh, don't get me wrong, I love speakers, and I adore filling a room with noise, I just think headphones make more sense to someone interested in getting more depth and clarity out of their music.

Edit: For their dollar that is. With unlimited money I would probably take speakers.

Headphones don’t require a treated room to sound excellent. Speakers will engage the natural acoustics of whatever space they live in and comb filtering will result. Almost always a great pair of headphones will beat a great pair of speakers in a listening test.

It lets everyone hears but the sound is not that loud, e.g. manageable even in a room with bad sound insulation. Beside, a comparable speaker setup in term of sound quality takes a lot of space and cost a lot more which may not be desirable.

Totally valid point. In most cases, I think the layman will generally find an equivalently priced speaker setup over $600 sounds better.

Reasons that I can think that someone might still go with open backs are:

• Portability - You can move around your house or go running without leaving the music.

• Less dependent of environment - they basically sound the same in a small, big, or acoustically reflective rooms.

• Leak less sound than speakers - you can blast music without waking up your kids or downstairs neighbors.

• Better high frequency reproduction - whereas full sound systems will generally do better with lower.

EDIT: Added price stipulation to where speakers start to sound better. Agreed that if you're not willing to spend much and want to listen alone, headphones are the better choice.

Because you have kids (or a spouse) sleeping in the adjacent room.

TLDR sound bleed can be ok.

With headphones, I can still hear my music at a loud volume with high quality while the noise outside of my home office is none. The only time someone would be affected would be if they walked into my home office.

If I set my speakers to the same volume level, it'll disturb most nearby rooms in the house.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com