[C_Lindbergh]

When do you think we'll see more open back bluetooth headphones? Sure its a niche market, but that haven't stopped audio companies before.

I beilive there's just a single pair of open back bluetooth headphones from a major brand at the present date (Grado GW100). But I would love to see more options.

I might be a minority, but I just use IEMS whenever I got outside my home, I just don't like to wear big headphones out in public. A pair of open back BT headphones would be perfect for every use at your own home.

Is there any indications that any of the major brands are working on this small and mostly unexplored product segment? Especially now when bluetooth technology huge steps in the recent few years.

 

[bronco1015]

Theres the hifiman Ananda BT as well. My initial thoughts are that for the next few years theres probably going to be a larger focus on TWEs ARVR headsets and ANC Headphones. mor especially those first 2 imo. I think there will be new products here and there, but probably several years away from seeing openback BT headphones if they do become mor widely available.
i think theres going to be a large focus on nailing some standards down consistently between manufacturers that sell BT products at every price point. E.G. flagships like the MW07 go and plus that don't support AAC, then a whole slew of products that support APTX, but not it's variants e.G. APTX LL, HD Adaptive etc. A growing number of devices support LDAC, but not many headsets do. There are other codecs of course, Huawei's LHDC, Samsung's scalable codec, plus for all these codec options, whichever codec a manufacturer uses could be implemented to a lesser degree than what is possible with any given codec. To keep it simple and not get into numbers, a headphone could indeed have APTX, which by itself is pretty capable. But if it isn't implemented correctly the headphone could still sound like garbage. There are so many other factors to consider imo, and a host of examples to break them all down, but i didn't intend for this to be a lengthy post; so if your still reading, i'll wrap it up by saying; IMO, if openback BT headphones are gonna take off, theres a mess of stuff on the tech side that still needs to be ironed out, and a lot of it has nothing to do with the headphone design per se. That itself, is a totally different battle.

 

[geardoc]

+1 Much more on this topic in the next year, I'm sure.