Intro

Hi guys this is Raghav here from headphone Zone. If you're someone who's juststarting off your audiophile journey and you're looking at purchasing your firstserious pair of headphones something that really allows you to start and I meanreally start listening to music in high quality, one of the things that you have tobe thinking about and asking yourself is whether to go for a closed pack or anopen back headphone and the two of them are very very different with differentpros and cons. I want to very briefly try and help you decide the right one foryou. 

Closed Back vs Open Back Headphones 

Now a closed back headphone is the traditional kind of headphone that you andI would have put on a couple hundred times until now. Just put them onto yourears, the larger cups that would go over your ear and you'll find it blocks theoutside sound and the environment around you allowing you to listen to themusic that you want without disturbing you and at the same time it gives youthe privacy of listening to whatever you're listening to without anyone elsehearing it. So it's very convenient. Everyone uses it. The only problem withclosed back headphones are that while they are perfect for you to listen to onthe go, they don't sound very lifelike and very believable. There's a very simplereason for that. Good sound is about fooling your brain into believing that themusic you're listening to is being performed by the artist in front of you, in thesame room and that's ultimately what all headphones are trying to do. They'retrying to give you that experience and sensation of making it into a lifelikelistening experience and you'll find that close back headphones struggle to dothat because the minute you put them on you're telling your brain that it'sinside a box of one feet by one feet. It's very hard to fool your brain intobelieving that the artist is in front of you when that's happening. Todemonstrate it, here's a very simple exercise right, just take your two hands andmake them into tight ear cups and now place them over your ears and you'llinstantly hear a sensation that's the air vibrating inside the ear cup over yourears and your brain is telling you that your head is now put inside a tiny little room. You're making the job off the headphone, off your equipment, off themusic that's been recorded so much harder because you've put your headinside this box and open back headphone overcomes that challenge it givesyou a much more lifelike, immersive, open and Airy presentation of music soyou gotta keep in mind that this becomes so much more believable when youput the headphones on that you're standing in the same room as the artistwho's performing it. To give you an idea, again let's do the same exercise whereyou take your hands and you make them into your cups but now you leave yourfingers loose and the minute you put it on you find that the air is flowing in andout but you no longer have that boxed in sensation. That's what an open backheadphone does. Now there are disadvantages to open back headphones. Thefirst is that you have to listen to this music in a quiet room that's because youcan hear everything that's happening around you even after you've put theheadphones on. The second disadvantage is you obviously cannot take theseheadphones and listen to music on the go because you'll find that you'll bedisturbing everybody around you with the music you're listening to. The musicis going to leak out, it's just a natural byproduct of an open back headphonebut you'll find that the disadvantages are more than compensated by the lifelikeairy immersive listening experience that you're going to get with these openback headphones but you've got to make sure you're listening to it at home in aquiet environment with nobody around you to disturb you. It's well worth it. Ican tell you from experience.