I know the main difference of closed cans and open cans are the amount of sound it leaks and also the amount of outside noise you can hear whilst using the cans...

and if im not mistaken, i was reading some posts, and someone mentioned that generally it takes a very good (expensive?) closed cans in order to have the sound quality of open cans..

so does that mean that generally closed cans dont sound as good as open ones (with exception of CD3000) within the same price range ?

or is there any good points in terms of audio quality that closed cans can do better than open ones ? and vice versa ?

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If by CD3000 you mean the Sony CD3000s, I always thought those were more open than closed....

This topic has been discussed to death, but I have a comment about one thing you said: Quote:



IMO, FWIW, whether a headphone is open vs. closed is one of the least important design factors there is in determining sound quality. I think you would be hard pressed to reach *any* conclusions about how a particular headphone will sound knowing only that it's either open or closed. A $50 closed headphones with a basic sound you like, a driver that is voiced well will always sound better than a $300 open headphone that has a crummy driver voiced badly, and vice-versa.

I think in order to decide which system is "better" in general open vs. closed, you would have to look at the high-end cans to decide in order to take the best examples of the headphone arts, the best that can be done currently with headphone sound and see if there's any correlation between enclosure type and sound quality, see if you tend to prefer the open or the closed cans. However, at the top end we have so few choices of cans that it's hard to draw any firm conclusions that are statistically significant about which is "better" open or closed, I think all we can do is *speculate* about our own preferences.

The problem with comparing the cans at the low end, where if we stretched it a little we might be able to find the necessary 21 examples of each kind of headphone to try to draw conclusions, but then you're comparing headphones with inherent design compromises designed to hit a very low street price and to appeal to people who aren't audiophiles and to be used on crappy low-end gear. You won't be looking at the most that these types of cans can be so it's potentially a less meaningful comparison.

In the end, I don't believe there's a definitive answer to this: if we look at the high-end, we find both open and closed cans, even the manufacturers don't agree which is "better" or they'd all be closed or all be open. All we can have are our own suspicions (my suspicion is that I prefer closed cans in general, but I can't "prove" it). I would worry more about the sound of the driver than the type of enclosure in choosing a set of cans.

Mark

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Just out of curiosity, what do you consider a high-end closed can? I don't see too much mention of closed headphones over $250(ATH900, Beyer 250-250/770/831, AKG K271s, etc.) Not sure about the Sony CD3000...taking a quick look at Headroom, I see they list the Stax SR-001 as sealed, but there isn't much of a description (or picture) there...

I agree with markl in theory, though in practice I do think there are price points were current open models beat any closed models pretty easily. I can't think of any closed phones that compete in the sub $100 category against the Sony CD780, Grado SR60/80, Alessandro MS1, Senn HD497, etc. And no I don't think the sole real competitor, the Sony Eggos, makes it either.

High-end (as used in general parlance on this site, may vary from person to person, even me) closed cans:

Sony MDR-R10/CD3000

Audio Technica ATHW100/W1000/W2002/L3000 "Leatherhead" ($2500 flagship of their line)

Stax closed headphone (forget model # it costs about as much as Omega 2)

Ultrasone Edition 7 (new $2500 closed can very few reports on it yet)

Manufacturers without a high-end closed phone:

Sennheiser
Grado
AKG

So we have half the manufactueres with several models of high-end closed cans, several without. I don't where to put Beyer if people generally consider their closed phones "high end" or not.

The old argument use to be that it was easier to design open headphones because it was easy to get rid of and diffuse resonance and reflections. A closed enclosure like in a closed headphone reflects all the sound back which creates a complex system that may create distortions, resonances, and dead spaces.

Open head phones sound airy and I guess people like the airy feel. Another complaint about closed headphones is comfort and heat. Heat has a tendancy to get trapped with a pair of tight closed headphones. I think the companies ended up concentrating their design efforts on open headphones because of customer preferences, not necessarily because they thought open headphones were outright superior.

The Beyer DT-150 is an excellent closed headphone, I use it on my home rig.

as sound quality has been discussed pretty thoroughly already, one point about comfort. you might sweat a little bit more in closed cans. well that's pretty obvious.. and especially regarding mid end closed cans (beyer 250, beyer770, ultrasones, senn hd25), these have more clamping force than because they are supposed to isolate from outside noise (thereby very good for portable use). this might add too discomfort. again generalizations are hard to make.

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the beyerdynamic dt 231, which for 60 bucks gets 5 stars at headroom... seem to be roundly ignored around here.

i'm 90% sure these or the eggos will be my next purchase. but i haven't heard the 231s... and apparently no one else has either? anyone?

I'm going to have to disagree with markl on this one. IMHO AKG does make a "high end" closed headphone. The AKG 271s is a great closed alternative to the Senn HD 580/600. It's nice and laid back with great, deep bass and a fabulous soundstage. It's hard to beat when you have 4 kids at home and a noisy officemate at work. Don't take my word for it though. Todd the Vinyl Junkie and Tyll from HeadRoom both consider the 271 a great/favorite closed headphone. In addition, why would Stefan AudioArt and ZU cable make a replacement cable for the 271 if it weren't great to begin with?