Quote:
|
Originally Posted by halcyon
In general, it is IMHO, very difficult to make a world class closed headphone that competes with fully open designs.
|
halcyon,
I have always felt that it was just the other way around. Whenever there is a choice bewtenn a fully open or a closed/ported design in a manufacturer's range, I prefer the closed version. All my favourite headphones are closed ones. I have never heard an open headphone that got the upper bass and lower mids right, that offered instrumental sounds with palbability, that reproduced the fundamentals region with dynamic presence.
Each design approach has inherent difficulties it has to deal with. How many open baffle speakers do you know that offer as much dynamic drive and palpabilty, that really put meat on the sound's bone as convincingly as closed or ported speakers do? I am not aware of any. Better phase response in the higher frequency range might provide a superior soundstage, but that's about the last thing I listen for when I listen to music.
