It's primarily for safety, like walking outside so you're aware of your surroundings. As for critical listening, an open soundstage is more accurate to the original sound than closed headphones.
People keep saying that, but wearing earphones while walking outside is a niche usage. It's mostly an excuse because no one knows how to do total noise cancellation. Being able to work in quiet while others are yammering around you is priceless.
There’s a difference between using closed-back noise-cancelling headphones in an office or plane and using open-back headphones or bone-conduction while riding a bike or running so you can hear vehicles and other runners/cyclists around you.
Open-back headphones are not just niche usage. They are also used for music production, watching movies at home (feels like you’re listening to speakers in the room with you instead of small headphones), and gaming (open soundstage makes pinpointing sound around you like footsteps more accurate).
Yes, it's walking around outside while listening to music that is a niche usage. I know that some people do it and can't live without it, but I tend to feel that is unusual. It's annoying to see "these earphones let you keep hearing other people's conversations around you" as if that was a desirable feature, which it almost never is.
Yup. I used to bike with headphones hanging around my neck so i could hear some music but also the world. Its much better now with passthrough, I can put them in my ears to hear both the audio and world normally.
These look even better than the active passthrough, as they would use way less power for the same benefit. Im exactly the market for these "open" headphones.
For what it’s worth, I’ve quite enjoyed my aftershokz, on my second pair. The one downside I have is that the wind going over them makes a noise in my ear, and the furry things you clip to your bike helmet straps don’t help enough. don’t get me wrong, you have the wind noise in your ears regardless, but the aftershocks make it worse.
On the plus side, I don’t have to worry about them ever falling off, unlike these, strapped underneath my helmet like they are.
Being able to work in quiet while others are yammering around you is priceless.
And they make headphones for that.
But if you're out walking around in the city you absolutely want to be aware of whats around you, and it's absolutely not a niche usage. That's why the airpods, and lots of other headphone offer both. Transparency for when you want to be aware, noise cancelation for when you don't.
Hmm ok, I do see some that no longer advertise outside sound as a feature, and I haven't tried the latest ones, but I've never tried any so far that work as well as acoustic hearing protectors from the hardware store. If you have a model to recommend I might check it out.
Full blown hearing protection and headphones with ANC are completely different beasts. Unless that hearing pro also has Active Noise Cancelation.
Hearing protection reduces the audio level by X decibels. They're great for if you're at a job sight with a lot of loud shit, or the shooting range where there's extremely loud things that will destroy you hearing.
ANC tries to actively cancel it out so if done right you don't hear anything at all. Airpods pro with well fitting ear tips work extremely well for blocking out office noises. They're not so great for sudden super loud noises. My friend swears by the comply foam tips. Just know you'll need to replace them often because the foam absorbs ear wax like crazy.
I haven't experienced any ANC headphones that block noise as well as hearing protectors do, but I haven't tried the newest ones, and it's hard to test them in a relatively quiet environment (office level rather than retail store level). I wonder if it's possible to try Airpods Pro. Do you have suggestions of over the ear ANC headphones that block out office noise? I prefer those to sticking things in my ear. It is possible that this stuff has gotten better since last time I looked into it.
Reducing the audio by X decibels is exactly what I want, if I can get X=100. The best I've been able to find is around X=30. That helps but if there are ANC devices with higher X, then I'd like to try them. Thanks.
How big is this niche? Whenever I'm out walking or riding my bike with my earphones, more than half the people I see walking or biking are wearing earphones. Maybe you live in car land but over here such activities are common.
Dude, there are people with earbuds EVERYWHERE on the street. It's actually a problem on the bike lanes because the ones that are noise cancelling can't hear when someone is right behind them ringing a bike bell.
As a person, no. Most people maybe. It's incredibly liberating to not feel like you are missing out on the world around you sometimes (and safer). Sure sometimes I want to duck out and place my big puffy over ear speakers on and block everything out, but for day to day use for navigation, podcasts, phone conversations, AI interactions, and some stereo background music - this is exactly what this person wants.
As a fellow human, I enjoy being bipedal and metabolizing oxygen. Purchasing luxury products such as these Bose headphones is also an enjoyable human behavior.
Additional anecdote from me, but I specifically seek out good sound pass-thru over good noise cancelling because I use music to help focus but need to hear at the same time like, say, at work when a call comes in.
I don't need it to be particularly loud, either, as I also have audio processing disorder so some concerns I see in this thread such as (paraphrasing) "probably poor bass" isn't as much of a concern.
I currently use Sony's Latest LinkBud S earbuds, and I'm pretty happy with it. But if I were still looking for a pair, something like what's being offered here is exactly the sort of thing that would appeal to me.
These will undoubtedly appeal to a niche audience vs mass appeal, but so long as production doesn't outpace demand I could see such a line of ear buds becoming quite popular among those who want that feature specifically.
(Edit: oops, my instance got all weird and posted 4 times. Fixed.)
I work delivering food on a bicycle. I need to be able to hear things. Would be nice if I could listing to my playlists and not drown out the car coming my way.
The bose quietcomfort ones do that and more. You can choose if you want to block out external sounds with ANC or enable pass-through so you can hear the world around you. Not sure why they needed to make this product.
Not affiliated, just like mine for when I need to keep my ears completely open. Audio quality is surprisingly good, but also never going to compete with something whose sole purpose is to sound good i.e. non-sporty headphones.
Bike riding is perfect for these bone conducting headphones, you can listen to tunes while hearing absolutely everything.
I use the shockz (another open ear headset) daily with my job. Work on equipment, a lot of tedious opening up a machine and fixing it. I don't have a singular place but move around a lot. Going from earbuds that I have to take out just to have a conversation if someone comes up and asks questions vs the open ear allows me to be able to know what's happening around me, keeps from annoying those around me with whatever I'm listening to, and I've chewed through so many audiobooks which has kept me from losing my mind.
The amount of people in the comments not understanding why open buds are relevant to some people / the concept of earbuds overall is quite funny. I guess there's some truth in stereotypical Lemmy user rarely showing up outside 🙃
You haven't even heard them and are making grand assumptions. The bass is great at low to medium listening levels but rolls off as you increase the volume due to physical limitations.
Do we know they're bone conducting? or is this like the head phones on the Valve Index, highly directional and focused speakers which only project sound in a very narrow band spaciously?
These actually look like something I could see people wearing all day. Other wireless earbuds make you look like a dork, but these actually look pretty stylish IMO
Norm from Tested recently reviewed the "Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses". The most interesting use case for him was to have good, non obtrusive earphones that allow you to hear normally without blocking people out.
Huh? If I wear headphones outside, they will literally be drenched in sweat when I take them off. And you can't exactly put headphones in a washing machine to remove sweat from the foam padding either. They'll start to stink in no time.