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I Tried the Weirdest “Open” Headphones
Dec 6, 2024
Headphones. Headphones are a way for you to hear some audio and then no one else can. So you put them on, boom, mission accomplished. I can hear the audio, but you can. Open back headphones are a specific type of headphones that let the air go through them, which allow you to also hear the environment of the room you're in. So this is what a normal pair of open back headphones looks like, just so you have some context.
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Headphones
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Headphones are a way for you to hear some audio and then no one else can
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So you put them on, boom, mission accomplished. I can hear the audio, but you can't
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Open back headphones are a specific type of headphones that let the air go through them
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which allow you to also hear the environment of the room you're in
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So this is what a normal pair of open back headphones looks like, just so you have some context
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This is my daily driver pair of Senizer, HD650. I wear these at my desk, I use them to edit, and so if someone in the studio wants to get my attention
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they don't have to tap me on the shoulder, they can just say something and I can still hear them
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So this is what they normally look like. But over the past couple weeks, I started getting some emails with some very different-looking open-back headphones
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which to me is exciting because I wanted to check them out, but also kind of weird because they're not that common of a type of headphone
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Why am I getting all these emails all of a sudden? But I just started saying yes to all of them, and they all started showing up
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up and they're just as weird as I thought they would be. So first up is these. These are the Sony
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link buds open. The link buds actually have been around for a little while but this is the newest
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generation and they're called the link buds open for a reason. They are open back earbuds and they
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basically accomplish the same thing by having this little ring, this little circle. The wingtip
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helps it fit into the rest of your ear and so it just kind of goes in your ear like this
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and you can probably already tell it's a little bit inset into the ear but the ring
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with a hole in the middle lets the sound get through but it still plays sound
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and it's kind of trippy these were basically the first non-traditional open back thing to show up in my inbox
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they've existed since like 2022 I've had link buds for a while now
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essentially the rest of them works the same way as normal earbuds there's still an app there's still controls on the bulb
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so you can double tap the bulb to play pause uh USB type C on this little
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sandwich-looking case thing here. And honestly, the circle sits so far into your ear when you put
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them in that I think you wouldn't even notice that if I walked by that I'm wearing open-back
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earbuds, even though I can totally hear everything as if I'm not wearing headphones. So I think
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that's probably an upside that they don't look that weird. You only have to use these earbuds
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for a short amount of time before you get really good at just putting them in your ears, just like
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normal earbuds. You get totally used to the way they feel in the ear. And honestly, out the box
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They sound decent. The thing about these open-back headphones is they're never going to create the same seal in your ear as closed back
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So they will never have the same base response, especially. But, you know, Sony's app has this really interesting feature where you can blind test yourself through a bunch of different EQs to pick
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And I naturally picked one with a bit more bass to compensate. So they sound closer to regular headphones
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Overall, really the only downside for me is long listening comfort. I'm just like not comfortable wearing them for a couple hours
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So I'm giving these a three out of five for sound and a four out of five for how transparent they are
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So then next up you have these. These are a lot less normal looking
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These are the bows ultra open. And that's what they look like
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Now they look like they're in a normal earbuds case, but then you take the butt out and right off the bat, it's different looking
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I don't know if it looks like a lapel mic or what exactly it looks like. It definitely doesn't look like earbuds
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But the point here is this section is flexible. And if you wondering why it because when you put it on your ear the back part goes behind your ear and the front part goes in it like that and that how you wear it So if you have like a piercing or an earring up there you can wear these like the way they supposed to But now the earbud part is technically in my ear And in the back section that would be the button
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the battery, the microphones, and the rest. And so yeah, it looks a little different
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It looks like you're wearing a not so traditional thing on your head and I don't know
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It's kind of not that weird actually. From that point on though, they really get treated like normal earbuds
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They also have an app. You can change EQ stuff. They have immersive audio support where you can move your head around and hear the different instruments
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kind of stay fixed in place, spatial audio, if you want to call it that. And they do feel very unobtrusive
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Like I really, after just a few minutes, kind of, I can actually forget I'm wearing them
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They're not like squeezing very hard. They're not very heavy. I bet if I did a run or shook my head around a lot, they would fall out, but it would take a lot
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They're actually pretty secure. So this one I ended up liking a lot for. for two reasons. One, it's the most comfortable to wear for long periods of time and just forget
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that they're in your ears, which is awesome. And they sound just as good as the link buds with a little
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EQ adjustment, but two, these are the pair that I think people looking at you might actually
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understand the easiest that when they talk to you, you can still hear them, which is worth
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something. A downside, though, they do lack multipoint Bluetooth for the price, which is crazy
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But yeah, I find myself really enjoying how comfortable these are as far as open back earbuds go
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the angle that they are at the back of the ear means they don't really block as much from the real
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world getting in. So again, almost no seal. They can't compete with the sound of normal earbuds
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but I'm going to give these also a three for sound, but a five for transparency, because you can hear
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everything. Also, pro tip, the battery lasts way longer if you turn immersive sound off. So then we
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have the nothing ear open. And these have a bigger case than the others, but they still get treated
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like earbuds. You might have seen these because nothing does all kinds of marketing and they're kind of everywhere, but you've got the transparency look, you've got the right size, the red dot
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which is a nice touch. But these are, again, different. And there are a bunch of other earbuds
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just like it, but this is the kind that gets curled behind your ear. So here's how it works. You
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curl this back section behind, and then it goes over the top and sort of floats in your ear
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like that. So there's definitely an air gap between my ear and the bud, which is floating
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And it also looks different, I would say. I mean, this is not gonna trick anybody
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in thinking it's a normal earbud, especially because they're white, so they're contrasty on my skin
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but that's what the nothing ear open looks like. And this one, I just, I feel like I don't like it as much
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It doesn't feel as secure in my ear. I don't know if that's because there's so much play
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in how much it can move around, or if it's just that it doesn't fit my ear shape particularly well
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but it feels the most likely to fall out by far. And of course, yep, there you go
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You still have on-bud controls though. You can actually squeeze this stem here and play a little
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click sound and that controls the media and answers phone calls and everything. It gets treated
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the same way as normal earbuds. There's also an app where you can control EQ and mess with sound
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and compensate and add bass and sort of mess with the way it actually sounds, but there's always
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going to be that air gap. And it's always, there's always going to be this sort of dangling feeling
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I've never worn earrings before, but it kind of feels with the dangling, kind of like I imagine earrings feel like. I don't know
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These get the specs right They just happen to be in this form factor that pretty common that I just don like as much with the whole hook behind the ear thing This is though a bigger driver covering more of the opening to the ear
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so you actually do get a bit more bass and a closer sound to normal earbuds
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I will say, too, nothing's X app has the most advanced equalizer of any of the ones that I've tried
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Tons of detail you can get into with specific frequency response ranges and everything
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The downside, though, has turned out to be these have a lot of bleak
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like even more than the usual in the open back segment. And they also just feel like they're always going to fall off my ears
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I don't know if it's just me, but it just feels like they're never quite secure. And they also may be the most dorky looking
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Kind of depends on who you are, but the transparency motif is cool for open bag headphones
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but also the white colors and accents are a bit much. So I'm going to reward the sound department with a four out of five
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and transparency is also a four. Good price tag, too. So next up is the NWM OpenBack
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headphones. And these, now they're not earbuds anymore. They're really headphones and
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maybe the most open back that you could possibly have. So you put them on and they look a
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little something like this. The band goes over the top like normal and then the driver in
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the middle sits floating but obviously is not sealed at all with your ear and I can just
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hear everything else in the room like normal. It kind of sounds like there's a speaker
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floating next to my head, which I think is actually a success. And actually, personally, I'm a
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I'm a big fan of this design. So the cushion here is, is pretty small. It doesn't have this huge
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ear cushion, because again, it's trying to be thin. They're not trying to create this seal with
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your ear. It doesn't have to be some amazing cushion, but it's pretty soft. And then when you put
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it on your ear, it's super lightweight. Like, this is the lightest pair of head. I mean, they look
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lightweight, but this is the lightest pair of headphones I think I've ever worn. And so because of that
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you can also kind of start to forget you're wearing them, but they are wireless. And then
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they have this interesting feature and I've been trying to figure out why they did this and it's still
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not super clear to me but they can pivot like that and that sort of tilts the driver backwards
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when you're listening to music or when you have a phone call going and you tilt the drivers
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it tilts them away from your ear and so it becomes really muffled and I don't hear it very
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well anymore but if that's supposed to be some sort of like conversational feature where I'm talking
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to someone so I'll just turn them like this I don't think the person I'm talking talking to is going to know what's happening. All that being said, I think this is my favorite set of
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weird open back headphones. Super light, super open. There's still controls on the left side and a
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volume rocker. It supports multi-point Bluetooth. It has a 20-hour battery life on a single charge
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And the bonus is you can also still wear these with behind-the-ear hearing aids underneath them
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Fun fact. I did also play with the pivoting thing a little bit more. Turns out you can kind of put the
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headphones right over the middle of your ears and point them straight in, or kind of move them
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forward a bit and then pivot them back into your ears. So both work, and you can play with the
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height too to kind of get them just right. So that's probably the point of the pivot. So what's not to
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like? Well, they just feel kind of cheaply built for the price you're paying. And this is also the case
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that it comes with here. It's just packaging. There really is no carrying case. So that could be a worry
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for people trying to travel with these things. But overall, they're well done
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and they're getting my highest rating yet. This is a four for sound and a five for transparency
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So then last but not least, there's these which are not officially out yet
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but I did get an email from I believe the founder who sent these out These are the Move Engine UM 600 And they are also open back headphones but you can see that they look a little bit different
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because of the hole through the middle of them. They serve the exact same purpose in the exact same way
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When I put them over my ears, they are also pretty lightweight
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And they look actually from most angles, kind of like normal headphones
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until you see them from the side, and then you may notice that you can see the
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ear of the person wearing them. But they're pretty comfortable. They're also still lighter than
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normal headphones. And I imagine they're trying to make them look like this so that they're not as
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unusual as the other sort of non-traditional ones. So I felt like initially these might have had the
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most potential to have the best combination of sound quality and transparency. Because when you look
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inside here, like you have all this room for these big drivers and all the sound can come in here
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but the issue is basically that your ear is in the middle
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and you want the sound to come through the middle and it doesn't which is why these end up sounding better
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which is crazy but it's because they point the audio directly into your ear so these they have this interesting look
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and it's still cool because yes it works I can hear the outside world
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when I put them on but it's also now a little bit more muffled
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because there's still this cavity around my ear and it actually suffered for that
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So as much as these look like they'd be better and more like real headphones
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these were better at almost everything. I wanted to give these the benefit of the doubts so bad
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just from being brand new, almost not really even a product yet
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There is no app. There is no EQ adjustment. The sound quality is really bad
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and they're just kind of built like a 3D printed prototype. But hey, the upside is they are a proof of concept
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a proof that the ring design with the hole in the middle is actually worse than the driver in the middle with the air all around it
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Sound quality, two. Transparency, two. Now, I got to end with this
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Look, these are fun. Open back headphones are fun, but modern-day headphones have sort of tackled this niche directly
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Because you can put in today's modern earbuds or headphones, and then the microphones on the outside will pass through the sound of the outside world
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straight through into your ears. It'll sound like you're not even wearing headphones at all
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because of transparency mode. And then they build features on top of that, like automatically
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attenuating super loud, damaging noises, or even being able to turn your earbuds into hearing aids
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like Apple just did with the AirPods Pro 2. And then you can just hit a single button and turn them into noise-canceling headphones also, which none of these could ever do. So that makes the modern
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headphone much more versatile. It's literally two pairs of headphones in one. But I will say the thing
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about transparency mode is not all transparency modes are created equal. So if you really wanted to
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argue for these, you could say, you know, AirPods have really good transparency mode, and I've
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heard some others get close to as good. But some others, which this requires compute, some
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others aren't as accurate. Some others are a little bit muffled. They have a tiny bit of a delay
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They don't sound as good as like a normal pair of transparent headphones. So you could argue that
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if you want the best transparency mode possible, then you'd want something like that
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like this because nothing beats actually hearing the real world around you. So if transparency mode is virtual reality headset, then open back headphones are AR glasses
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Think about it. It makes sense. Thanks for watching. Check on another headphone video right here
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And I'll catch you guys in the next one. Peace
#Audio Equipment