Open back or closed back headphones?

[alvarogalloway]

Hello,
I’ve been looking for a new gaming headset and I was wondering if I should get an open back or closed back headset. I have never owned a pair of open back headphones, so I have been searching around the internet to see how they differ from closed back headphones. More specifically, I have mainly been looking at the open back and closed back versions of the Epos H6Pro.

I heard that open back is better for story driven or open world games, and closed back headphones are better for competitive games..
slope game
Does anyone have experience with the open back headphones and have any insight?

 

[Revolutions]

Use open back if you want room ambience, closed back if you don’t. I’m not a gamer, so presume that’s where the dichotomy comes from?

Unless you specifically want to hear things going on outside of the headphones, I’d recommend closed back for your purpose.

 

[cubeover]

Not sure if open-back matters for gaming. It does matter for music though. Buy open-back if you listen in your own space, nobody complains about your stuff leaking out and you do not mind surround noise come in.

 

[Simon_E]

I'm considering this question too - for music though, not gaming. How bad is the leakage with an open back set? Would it disturb someone reading in the same room?

 

[Al ears]

I'm considering this question too - for music though, not gaming. How bad is the leakage with an open back set? Would it disturb someone reading in the same room?

Probably, depending on how loud you are playing, and how far apart you are of course....

 

[DCarmi]

I own open and closed back and also active headphones with ANC (ANC can work in wired mode). It depends on the time and place of usage which I go for. In order of best quality of audio experience:

• On my own, particularly when listening upstairs at night, I always use open-backed
• Downstairs when others are around closed-backed no ANC
• Downstairs when e.g. the TV is on, ANC (not always but often, because I don't want to play too loud and deafen myself)

With open-backed, which sounds by far the best for music, it can annoy others because they leak high frequencies.

In this case, it might be an idea to look at the rtings website, where they have graphs for leakage and also some example sound files of leakage to compare.