How loud is the HD6xx to the person sitting beside you?

[JackaBoss]

I know the HD6xx/HD650 is an open back headphone and people around you can hear your music. But to what extent? Can they hear every beat and tone coming from your headphone or they will just hear a slight beat of noise?

Sorry for bad english, cheers from Malaysia.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

At my normal listening level in a very quiet room (ie my room at 9pm onwards, windows closed, A/C at very low power), if I hold my HD600 at 0.33m away from my head, I can barely hear anything.

However that's in a very quiet room. Add noise and your listening level will be higher, so the noise coming out of them will be louder.

If I'm home on weekends and set my headphone down on the table, despite all the noise from outside, I'd hear the music coming out of the headphone.

 

[JackaBoss]

Alright thanks dude, currently figuring out which is the best headphone to get first and which will suit my daily life the most.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

Alright thanks dude, currently figuring out which is the best headphone to get first and which will suit my daily life the most.

If you need isolation and portability look into IEMs or CIEMs. As long as you get one with minimum 105dB/1mW sensitivity and 32ohm (lowest 16ohm) to 64ohm impedance any decent smartphone will drive it well enough that you won't need an amp. It will also be compact enough to coil up into its case and pack into a bag. Isolation is as good as it gets as long as you get a proper seal around the eartip/bore.

 

[l0stkn0wledge]

Alright thanks dude, currently figuring out which is the best headphone to get first and which will suit my daily life the most.

If you are using them in a shared office environment, closed back is probably the way to go if you want more breadth of sound then most IEMs are going to provide. I don't mind a good set of IEMs but they can be uncomfortable to me for long periods and you can get some seriously nice cans by the time you start talking about CIEMs.

My current regulars are:

Hifiman HE4xx from Massdrop (open Planars)
Massdrop X Nuforce EDC (IEMs)
AKG K545 (closed back)
Koss Pro DJ200 (closed back)

The Koss were some of my first cans and while they don't sound near as good as my AKG they are a great pair that can handle a beating. I swapped the ear pads on them for some M50 'leather' pads I purchased, which helped with sound isolation and comfort. They are not a bad can if you can still find them for less than the 100USD.

Really, I think you need to answer three questions:

1. What will your source device(s) be? This will determine how much impedance your phones can really be.
2. What are your listening environments like? This will likely answer the open vs. closed question
3. How portable do you want to be? This will determine size. Some cans will be pretty portable, others won't. IEMs can really go anywhere.

 

[squee116]

If my room is dead quiet, I can put my 6xx's up to normal listening volume, go to my bed about 4.5 feet away and still hear the music. But it gets DEAD quiet here at night.