open back how much sound leakage?

[lokiguesty]

Hi all

I'm looking for new headphones or a headset and open reviews and forums say open back gives the best sound.

However my wife and daughter will be asleep a room away while I game and I'm wondering just how much sound leakage there is from open backs my name will be mud if it's like having speakers on and wake either of them up.

Any advice appreciated

 

[Marsman]

Depends on varying factors. Are the walls paper thin; are doors left open; do you like insanely loud volume.

Open headphones are certainly not like speakers, but you can easily hear what's being played if the volume is loud and in the same room. Having said that though, I remember one guy who had to get closed Headphones because his wife complained when he used his open back headphones. She was 2 rooms away apparently. :/

Maybe his house is made of cardboard.

I've got open back headphones that are as open as you can get and even with what would be uncomfortable level of volume, with doors closed and in the next room, I hear nothing from them. Even my desktop speakers are only faintly heard with what I'd call quiet, but easily listenable amount of volume.

Experiences vary.

 

[hyperseven]

Depends at what volume you watch pornhub at

What are they primarily to be used for, music, films, gaming?

 

[lokiguesty]

Primarily for gaming I don't tend to blast the volume as I'm half listening for baby monitor

 

[Marsman]

I don't think there will be a problem then, as you won't hear any outside noise if the headphones are too loud. Unless maybe you live in a paper house and you're wife has the hearing of an elf.

There are some good closed back options though, and it does depend on what you are looking to spend and whether you're looking at headphones or a headset.

 

[rids57]

I've tried both my HD650s and AKG K702s at my normal listening levels, which is quite loud (my ears are old) and with them lying on the desk I could easily hear them from around 20ft away. However, when I fitted them around a box, so more like they were being worn, I could hear almost nothing. So even though they are open backed, the vast majority of the sound comes from the front of the speakers, so the difference from closed back isn't that huge.

 

[EsaT]

Primarily for gaming I don't tend to blast the volume as I'm half listening for baby monitor

In that case sound reaching next room behind closed door shouldn't be much of a danger.
And closed headphones wouldn't be that good anyway:
Because they muffle external sounds considerably.
So unless you either listened at really modest volume or had baby monitor's volume high you wouldn't hear it.

For modest volume listening headphones with above strong bass and also good treble (like DT990 Beyer) would be likely best choise:
Human hearing has variable frequency response which changes with sound pressure.
And sensitivity for bass and treble being relatively worser at low sound pressures compared to mids.
"Loudness compensation" was designed to counter that.

Depends at what volume you watch pornhub at

Or more really about how much and fast listener wants hearing loss.
With headphone's element some ~2cm from ear sound pressure is awfully lot higher than some 2m away.