The Sennheiser HD560S has become my go-to Switch 2 headphone. It sounds perfect with the console’s virtual surround mode. Photo taken by the author.

Have You Truly Experienced Headphones?

The eternal debate: closed versus open ear cups

I’ve spent almost a decade as a diehard defender of closed back, isolating headphones. I wanted all the leatherette and active noise cancelling that my budget could muster. I gently acknowledged that open back pairs could provide better sound, but for years I mostly shunned them outside of a few specific circumstances.

I used to spend a lot of time writing text in different loud places just to escape the drudgery of seeing my apartment walls over and over again. Yes, I was that stereotypical coffee shop writer guy. Why should I take in the ambience and music of the local cafe when I can shut all that out for the same playlists I’ve already heard a hundred different times? Closed back headphones just made the most sense for my lifestyle.

That intense isolation is also great for gaming, and I do a fair bit of that. You can hone in on specific details when it’s just you and the sound, and your family doesn’t have to hear all the explosions or your chat group. Closed headphones offer a relentless little environment to pump audio into your head.

They’re also kind of bad?

That’s right, I’ve turned a big corner. I now see the light. Just as I’ve started leaning away from crisp graphics in favor of more…