Closed versus Open Studio Headphones Please Explain the Differences
Hopefully someone can explain the difference to me between closed and open studio headphones- i.e. headphones that you'd connect to your receiver as opposed to say an ipod.
I just bought and raved in another post, Ultrasone HFI 700 Home Theater Surround Sound Headphones. The sound on these were incredible, like I was hearing 5.1 sound through speakers but they weren't comfortable at all on my ears due I think to the rubber padding & basically felt like they were suffocating my ears. These were closed headphones & they blocked out external noise. Anyway, I called up Ultrasone & asked them if they had more comfortable headphones with just as good or better sound. The guy I spoke to suggested their HFI 2200 ULE phone which was listed at $299. I managed to get this new on Ebay for $250 including shipping & meanwhile sold my 700 model at a $30 loss. Anyway, the 2200 is an open headphone and is very comfortable, perhaps due to its velvet earpadding but I think the 700 sounded a little better. Given the choice, very good comfort is preferable to better sound & lousy comfort. Anyway, will all closed headphones tend to feel uncomfortable or if I was able to get the same velvet padding with it would the discomfort level go away?
Just a quick note on SPL with headphones
It's very easy to damage your hearing with headphones. Since headphones give you no other stimulus except sound waves entering you ear, it's very hard to judge how loud they are playing.
I did this test with my daughter; I measured what she thought was a pretty good listening level with her headphones. It was 85dB A weighted. She thought that this was a correct level.
I brought my stereo to 85dB and asked her which she thought was louder. and she said it was easily twice as loud. "you can feel it in your body" she said. Headphones can't do this so it's much easier to play them much too loud.
Be aware; your hearing once lost cannot be recovered.