Open or closed back headphone for gaming?

[Marika_1]

I have read many articles on the internet and i still couldnt find the answer...I never use a headphone before.
The type of headphone i want is that, it will give me a great realistic ingame experience.

For example:
- When playing horror games. Even though i know the ghost is whispering to me from behind, i want the FEELS that she is whispering to me from behind. Kinda hard to explain but thats it lol...
- When playing fallout4. I can see the monster is charging towards me, i want the FEELS of its heavy footsteps infront of me.

Words cant describe the feels precisely but i tried my best lol.
In short, i want the feels like "im inside the games".

 

[molletts]

You want games that support 3D environmental audio and headphones with accurate phase response to reproduce it.

The brain makes extensive use of the phase relationships between sounds (in addition to differences in frequency spectrum and loudness) to determine where they come from so for realistic reproduction of any sound source that contains positional information (i.e. true stereo as opposed to fake "intensity" stereo which just uses relative loudness to suggest position) you need headphones that reproduce the signals they receive very precisely and without changing the phase between them. (Sadly, many manufacturers of audio equipment seem to have forgotten this in their quest for ever more impressive frequency response numbers - "our new UltraReal™ SensoStereo® HD++ MegaCans give unprecedented 1 Hz - 200 kHz ± 0.00001 dB frequency response!" - but serious manufacturers such as Sennheiser, Shure, Beyer, etc. know what they're doing and what really matters.)

Open-back headphones tend to have better phase response than closed-back ones simply because they don't have to work against air pressure and internal reflections behind the diaphragm that occur in closed cans; unless you game in a noisy environment and need the acoustic isolation provided by closed-back cans, I'd always recommend open-back ones.

I would hope that most modern games can produce convincing 3D audio so that should be a given. Games that use OpenAL should all be fine (if they use it properly rather than just giving it a pre-mixed stereo feed) - it has quite a good HRTF capability built in (although it does sometimes need a bit of manual configuration to get it working) that can be used to add convincing 3D audio to a multitude of games, even Minecraft and older titles such as UT2004.

The simplest (and possibly cheapest) way to get 3D-friendly headphones might be to look at surround-sound gaming headsets that present themselves to the PC as a multi-channel (5.1, 7.1, etc) sound system then do the maths (the so-called Head-Related Transfer Function or HRTF) to convert that into stereo themselves. It might not be quite as accurate as letting the game's sound engine or its "interface" to the PC's sound drivers convert directly from "death approaches behind you, on the ceiling and a bit to the right" to stereo but if the headset is designed to reproduce 3D audio then that should guarantee an acceptable result.

 

[Marika_1]

You want games that support 3D environmental audio and headphones with accurate phase response to reproduce it.

The brain makes extensive use of the phase relationships between sounds (in addition to differences in frequency spectrum and loudness) to determine where they come from so for realistic reproduction of any sound source that contains positional information (i.e. true stereo as opposed to fake "intensity" stereo which just uses relative loudness to suggest position) you need headphones that reproduce the signals they receive very precisely and without changing the phase between them. (Sadly, many manufacturers of audio equipment seem to have forgotten this in their quest for ever more impressive frequency response numbers - "our new UltraReal™ SensoStereo® HD++ MegaCans give unprecedented 1 Hz - 200 kHz ± 0.00001 dB frequency response!" - but serious manufacturers such as Sennheiser, Shure, Beyer, etc. know what they're doing and what really matters.)

Open-back headphones tend to have better phase response than closed-back ones simply because they don't have to work against air pressure and internal reflections behind the diaphragm that occur in closed cans; unless you game in a noisy environment and need the acoustic isolation provided by closed-back cans, I'd always recommend open-back ones.

I would hope that most modern games can produce convincing 3D audio so that should be a given. Games that use OpenAL should all be fine (if they use it properly rather than just giving it a pre-mixed stereo feed) - it has quite a good HRTF capability built in (although it does sometimes need a bit of manual configuration to get it working) that can be used to add convincing 3D audio to a multitude of games, even Minecraft and older titles such as UT2004.

The simplest (and possibly cheapest) way to get 3D-friendly headphones might be to look at surround-sound gaming headsets that present themselves to the PC as a multi-channel (5.1, 7.1, etc) sound system then do the maths (the so-called Head-Related Transfer Function or HRTF) to convert that into stereo themselves. It might not be quite as accurate as letting the game's sound engine or its "interface" to the PC's sound drivers convert directly from "death approaches behind you, on the ceiling and a bit to the right" to stereo but if the headset is designed to reproduce 3D audio then that should guarantee an acceptable result.

Im not an expert so I dont really understand some terms u used, sry.
I saw many/mostly people said 5.1/71 surround sound arent that great, because they are mean to use on loud speaker not headphones, so i will pass this features.

Hmm, u prefer the open back. People said open back headphone has big soundstage so the sound is kinda deep. Since u own one, is that deep sound same as the 3d sound? I dont really understand the deep part...

Is it when someone says "Hey", the deep sound i heard is "Heyyyy" in a low volume??

 

[molletts]

Hmm, u prefer the open back. People said open back headphone has big soundstage so the sound is kinda deep. Since u own one, is that deep sound same as the 3d sound? I dont really understand the deep part...

I guess "deep" is pretty much what you're looking for - like you're "inside" the sound environment.

Unfortunately, just being open-back doesn't guarantee a big soundstage; my old open-back Sennheiser HD445s sound OK (and certainly a lot better than the Beats headphones that seem to be fashionable at the moment) but compared with the HD580s I normally use, they sound very "flat". The sound basically feels like it is somewhere between my ears, whereas with the 580s, it comes from all around me.

When friends try out the 580s, they often say something like, "Oh wow, it sounds as if I'm actually at a concert," which I guess is what you're looking for.

If you can find some reviews of gaming headsets that actually talk about how they handle 3D sound, that would probably be a useful guide. Otherwise, look for a good pair of hi-fi headphones. Ideally, test several pairs in a shop using a good-quality music recording on CD (or a lossless file format like FLAC or Apple Lossless - lossy compression can sometimes do funny things to the soundstage unless the encoder is very good) and see which one is best at making you feel that you are actually there. (That was how I chose the HD580s - they were much more expensive than the ones I had planned to buy but I tried them for comparison and they were so much better that I had to have them!)

Remember, though, that a gaming headset will also give you a microphone so you can talk to other players so might be a better option than general-purpose headphones if you like multiplayer gaming rather than campaign/single-player mode.

 

[ssddx]

putting things more simply..

-open headphones generally have more soundstage, but this is not always true.
-open headphones leak sound in/out, closed headphones muffle audio
-open headphones tend to be less bassy than closed headphones, but this is not always true.
-open headphones can have more clarity, but this is not always true.
-open headphones tend to be cooler to wear since they breathe

any headphone can give you "feels" depending on what you are looking for. many headphones do just fine on front/back/left/right imaging. where high soundstage headphones often shine is depth or perceived distance variation of sound from you.

a good comparision would be..
-open headphones are generally like listening to a band in a park
-closed headphones are generally like listening to a band inside a bar

while one would think that open is always better and larger soundstage is always better that is not always true though. for example i own an ath-m50 which is well known for its incredibly small soundstage. audio quality is good (fits my needs for a portable with v-shaped signature) but everything certainly sounds like it is played right outside my ears. for most music i actually like this as i feel it sounds more intimate/close/relaxing than the airy sound an open can can have.

for gaming however, generally medium to large soundstages are suggested. that does not mean you need it only that many people have found they liked this more (mostly for advantage purposes.. not always for immersion).

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besides open, closed and soundstage another thing to keep in mind is signature.

-bass light cans (mid/treb focused cans) tend towards advantageous for gaming since footsteps and gunshots can be heard easily without being covered up by bass. they can be less than fun sounding however unless you do not like large quantities of bass.
-neutral cans cover the midground. they are good at most things (especially sounding true to recording or flat) but can also sound boring or flat to some (which is how they are supposed to sound... they arent meant to color sound).
-bass heavy cans tend to lack good clarity overall and push bass presence to the maximum.
-v shaped (treb/bass) tend to be the most fun to listen to. big explosions, some vocals and gunshots are all larger than life.
-v shaped (mids) tend to accent mid vocals and instrumentals

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there are tons of decent options available.. i'll just highlight a few

the hd518 or hd558 would be a decent option if you wanted a fairly neutral, cheap, open can.
the dt990 (v-shaped) or dt880 (a bit more flat than the 990) would be good for open cans
the dt770 (heavily v-shaped) is a good closed can with surprisingly decent soundstaging and good bass.