Even with active noise cancelling switched off, closed circumaural headphones attenuate 20 to 30 dB of outside sound above 1,000 Hz (Mueller et al., Frontiers in Built Environment 2022). That passive seal is the core trade of the closed cup: it also makes the bass depend on fit, and a closed Beyerdynamic DT770 varied by up to 4.5 dB toward 90 Hz across refits, while open headphones showed slightly lower variability from 70 to 5000 Hz (Kohnen et al., Acta Acustica 2021). Open cups are not acoustically invisible either: wearing open headphones cut the azimuth gain for real loudspeakers from 0.95 to 0.82 (Riedel et al., Acta Acustica 2025). The tuning debate is a separate question, covered in our Harman target curve preference statistics; this roundup is about the cup itself. We aggregated data from Acta Acustica, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Frontiers in Built Environment, Noise and Health, the RTINGS.com test lab, and several hearing-screening and occupational-safety studies.
TL;DR
- Hearing-test standards allow 47 dB SPL of room noise at 1,000 Hz with sealed insert earphones but only 26 dB SPL with supra-aural earphones (Behar, IJERPH 2021).
- At full laptop volume, an open-back music headphone and an in-ear model reached 81.4 to 85.4 dB, versus 75.2 to 81.7 dB for a closed-back model and an open-back messenger headset (CIOP-PIB, IJERPH 2022).
- A closed DT770 varied by up to 4.5 dB toward 90 Hz across 8 fittings, while open headphones refit slightly more consistently (Kohnen et al., Acta Acustica 2021).
- Perceived externalization decreased as ear occlusion increased across open-back, closed-back and insert headphones (Faber and O’Modhrain, JASA 2026).
- Open headphones raised the vertical local confusion rate to 28% from 10% with open ears (Riedel et al., Acta Acustica 2025).
- A medium-quality closed headphone produced 30.2% front-back confusions in a spatial audio test (Gutierrez-Parera and Lopez, Applied Sciences 2016).
- Preferred listening level rose about 0.23 dB for every 1 dB of ambient noise (Kim and Han, Noise and Health 2026).
- Only 9.48% of 211 online study participants used over-ear headphones (HALT Part II, Behavior Research Methods 2023).
- In 50 dB(A) background noise, tablet hearing screening with the closed HD 280 PRO matched the gold-standard test in all 35 adults (Aquino et al., International Archives of Otorhinolaryngology 2026).
1. Passive Isolation: What a Closed Cup Blocks
Closed cups do not block sound evenly. Closed circumaural ANC headphones already provide 20 to 30 dB of passive attenuation above 1,000 Hz even with the ANC switched off (Mueller et al., Frontiers in Built Environment 2022), which is why voices and keyboard clatter fade while traffic rumble often gets through. An open-back cup gives up most of that by design: RTINGS.com notes that open-back headphones usually offer little noise isolation, and that semi-open models such as the Beyerdynamic DT 880 behave like open-backs.
The clearest way to see what a seal is worth comes from hearing tests, where the “ambient noise limit” (the loudest room noise allowed before it corrupts the result) depends on how well the earphone shuts the room out. At 1,000 Hz the limit is 26 dB SPL with supra-aural earphones and 47 dB SPL with sealed insert earphones, as tabulated by Behar in IJERPH 2021. At that frequency the tighter seal buys 21 dB more tolerance for room noise (47 minus 26), and an open-back cup sits at the far, leaky end of that scale.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Passive attenuation of closed circumaural ANC headphones above 1,000 Hz, with ANC switched off | 20 to 30 dB | Mueller et al., Frontiers in Built Environment 2022 |
| Maximum room noise allowed at 1,000 Hz for hearing tests with supra-aural (on-ear) earphones | 26 dB SPL | CSA Z107.6 and ANSI S3.1 limits, tabulated in Behar, IJERPH 2021 |
| Maximum room noise allowed at 1,000 Hz for hearing tests with sealed insert earphones | 47 dB SPL | CSA Z107.6 and ANSI S3.1 limits, tabulated in Behar, IJERPH 2021 |
| Maximum room noise allowed at 500 Hz, supra-aural earphones vs insert earphones | 21 dB SPL vs 50 dB SPL | CSA Z107.6 and ANSI S3.1 limits, tabulated in Behar, IJERPH 2021 |
| Extra attenuation from enclosing a supra-aural audiometric earphone in a closed cup, 250 Hz to 8 kHz | About 10 dB | Coles 1967, as reported in Behar, IJERPH 2021 |
| Ambient noise isolation listed for the closed Beyerdynamic DT 770 PRO | 20 dB (manufacturer’s own specification) | Vendor claim, as tabulated in Tananuchittikul et al., JMIR mHealth and uHealth 2023 |
| Ambient noise isolation listed for TDH39 audiometric earphones mounted in earmuffs | 30 dB (manufacturer’s own specification) | Vendor claim, as tabulated in Tananuchittikul et al., JMIR mHealth and uHealth 2023 |
Context: the enclosure figure is old. Most recent available data: Coles, Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 1967, as cited by Behar in 2021. We found no peer-reviewed dB figure for the passive isolation of a typical open-back hi-fi headphone, so the open-back side of this comparison rests on qualitative lab statements.
2. Sound Leakage and Privacy
Leakage is the cost an open cup passes on to everyone else in the room. RTINGS.com states that of two headphones with the exact same design except the enclosure, “the one with the open-back will leak considerably more”, and that open-back planar magnetic models tend to leak more from the back, especially above 5 kHz. Its lab quantifies this with a fixed protocol described on its Sound Leakage test page, which is why its thresholds below are useful as a common yardstick even though individual scores now sit behind a membership wall. For anyone monitoring through headphones while a microphone is live, for example while streaming with real-time voice effects, that leak is exactly what a nearby mic can pick up.
Privacy also runs the other way. In a lab office, wearing closed ANC headphones with the noise cancelling switched off already made a talking loudspeaker seem significantly farther away than with no headphones (t = -4.33, p < 0.01, d = -0.83), while switching the ANC on added no significant further change (p = 0.168) (Mueller et al., Frontiers in Built Environment 2022). Much of the privacy benefit people credit to electronics comes from the closed cup itself. Open-ear designs, which leak by a different mechanism, are covered in our open-ear dipole cancellation statistics.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Playback level used for the leakage test (pink noise calibration, 250 Hz to 2 kHz) | 100 dB SPL | RTINGS.com Sound Leakage test |
| Listening distance simulated for leakage (microphone at half a foot, minus 6 dB) | 1 foot | RTINGS.com Sound Leakage test |
| Overall leakage at 1 foot rated as a good result | Below 35 dB | RTINGS.com Sound Leakage test |
| Smallest leakage difference treated as noticeable | 1 dB | RTINGS.com Sound Leakage test |
| Perceived distance to a talker, no headphones vs closed ANC headphones with ANC on | 1.80 m vs 4.50 m | Mueller et al., Frontiers in Built Environment 2022 |
Context: the perceived-distance results come from Experiment 1 of that study, the only one that tested the ANC-off condition. Most recent available data: Mueller et al., 2022.
3. Seal and Fit Consistency: Open Cups Refit More Predictably
The seal that gives closed cups their isolation also makes their sound depend on fit. In a two-lab study, the closed Beyerdynamic DT770 varied by up to 4.5 dB toward 90 Hz across 8 fittings per listener, while the open Sennheiser HD650 stayed under 1.4 dB from 90 to 2500 Hz, and across both labs “the open headphones consistently yield a slightly lower variability in the range from 70 to 5000 Hz than the closed one” (Kohnen et al., Acta Acustica 2021). The study measured 14 listeners at two labs (Aachen and Oldenburg), refitting each headphone 8 times. The authors attribute the closed model’s low-frequency spread to the fact that “the closed fit is more sensitive to fitting”, and they found the open HD650 had the flattest response and the smallest repositioning variations.
Small level errors matter for spatial perception. In listening tests at the Universitat Politècnica de València, a left/right level mismatch of just 1 dB already affected where listeners placed a sound source (Gutierrez-Parera and Lopez, Applied Sciences 2016). A closed cup that seals slightly differently on each ear is a plausible source of that kind of mismatch. How much the same model varies between individual units is a separate question, covered in our headphone unit-to-unit variation statistics.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Repositioning variability from 70 to 5000 Hz, open vs closed circumaural headphones | Open slightly lower, consistently across both labs | Kohnen et al., Acta Acustica 2021 |
| Upper bound of refit differences, open Sennheiser HD650, 90 to 2500 Hz | Less than 1.4 dB | Kohnen et al., Acta Acustica 2021 |
| Upper bound of refit differences, closed Beyerdynamic DT770, about 500 to 2300 Hz | Below 1.5 dB (median below 0.8 dB) | Kohnen et al., Acta Acustica 2021 |
| Upper bound of refit differences, closed Beyerdynamic DT770, toward 90 Hz | Up to 4.5 dB | Kohnen et al., Acta Acustica 2021 |
| Left/right level mismatch at which sound localization was already affected | From 1 dB (F = 27.338, df = 3, p< 0.001) | Gutierrez-Parera and Lopez, Applied Sciences 2016 |
Context: both studies predate our three-year window. Most recent available data: Kohnen et al., 2021, and Gutierrez-Parera and Lopez, 2016. Each tested one open and one closed model, so they show a mechanism, not a rule for every headphone.
4. Soundstage, Externalization and Localization
“Soundstage” is the main reason people give for buying open-back, and a 2026 study offers partial support. Comparing open-back, closed-back and insert headphones, perceived externalization (hearing a sound as coming from outside the head) decreased as ear occlusion increased, and low-pass filtering the stimuli did not significantly change the ratings, which led the authors to conclude that ear canal occlusion is a primary factor (Faber and O’Modhrain, JASA 2026). The open cup’s advantage, on this evidence, is less about treble detail and more about not sealing the ear.
Open does not mean transparent, though. In localization tests at IEM Graz with 16 participants, open headphones built for maximum acoustic transparency lowered the azimuth gain for real loudspeakers (how closely perceived angles track actual angles, where 1.0 is perfect) from 0.95 to 0.82, and with head movement the vertical “local confusion rate” (answers closer to a neighbouring loudspeaker than to the target) was 28% vs 10% with open ears (Riedel et al., Acta Acustica 2025). With virtual surround, headphone quality also matters: in one test a medium-quality closed model produced 30.2% front-back confusions. Software-based spatialization is covered in our gaming headset HRTF virtual surround statistics.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Headphone types compared for perceived externalization | 3 (open-back, closed-back, insert); externalization decreased as occlusion increased | Faber and O’Modhrain, JASA 2026 |
| Effect of low-pass filtering the test sounds on externalization ratings | Not significant | Faber and O’Modhrain, JASA 2026 |
| Azimuth gain for real loudspeakers, open ears vs wearing open headphones (1.0 = perfect) | 0.95 vs 0.82 | Riedel et al., Acta Acustica 2025 |
| Average vertical local confusion rate, frontal median plane, with head movement, open headphones vs open ears | 28% vs 10% | Riedel et al., Acta Acustica 2025 |
| Participants per localization experiment | 16 | Riedel et al., Acta Acustica 2025 |
| Front-back confusions with a medium-quality closed circumaural headphone (binaural audio test) | 30.2% | Gutierrez-Parera and Lopez, Applied Sciences 2016 |
| Front-back confusions with an airline headphone and a low-cost supra-aural headphone | Nearly 50% on average | Gutierrez-Parera and Lopez, Applied Sciences 2016 |
| Correlation between rated headphone quality and spatial impression | r = 0.648 | Gutierrez-Parera and Lopez, Applied Sciences 2016 |
Context: the 2026 externalization result is a conference abstract published in JASA, so effect sizes are not yet public. In the Gutierrez-Parera study, 8 headphones were tested and brand names were withheld.
5. Isolation, Listening Level and Exposure
Isolation is also a hearing-safety variable, because people turn the volume up to beat the room. In a 2026 field study with 51 young adults, preferred listening level rose by about 0.23 dB for every 1 dB increase in ambient noise (β = 0.225, 95% CI [0.184, 0.266], P < 0.001), and 48 of 51 listeners showed that pattern (Kim and Han, Noise and Health 2026). Every decibel a cup keeps out is a fraction of a decibel the listener does not add back.
Cup type alone does not predict level, however. At full laptop volume, a Polish occupational-safety institute measured 75.2 to 81.7 dB with a closed-back low-budget model and an open-back messenger headset, but 81.4 to 85.4 dB with an open-back music headphone and an in-ear model, and concluded that structure alone does not explain the difference (CIOP-PIB, IJERPH 2022). Sensitivity and the playback chain matter as much as the back of the cup.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Rise in preferred listening level per 1 dB of ambient noise | About 0.23 dB (β = 0.225, 95% CI [0.184, 0.266], P < 0.001) | Kim and Han, Noise and Health 2026 |
| Listeners whose level rose with ambient noise | 48 of 51 (94.1%) | Kim and Han, Noise and Health 2026 |
| Shift in preferred level between the quietest (library) and noisiest (gym) setting | About 7.82 dB | Kim and Han, Noise and Health 2026 |
| Typical rise in preferred level with background noise reported in earlier studies | About 7 to 10 dB | Prior literature cited in Kim and Han, Noise and Health 2026 |
| A-weighted level at full laptop volume, closed-back low-budget and open-back messenger headphones | 75.2 to 81.7 dB | CIOP-PIB, IJERPH 2022 |
| A-weighted level at full laptop volume, open-back music headphones and in-ear headphones | 81.4 to 85.4 dB | CIOP-PIB, IJERPH 2022 |
| Worst-case listening time limit in the same tests (rock music) | 2 h 18 min | CIOP-PIB, IJERPH 2022 |
| Unevenness of laptop onboard sound cards feeding the headphones | Up to 23 dB | CIOP-PIB, IJERPH 2022 |
Context: Kim and Han used one standard earphone model for everyone, so their slope describes ambient noise, not cup type. Most recent available data for the cup comparison: CIOP-PIB, 2022.
6. Who Uses Which Cup: Everyday, Gaming, Office and Testing Contexts
Open-back is an enthusiast format, and the general population barely touches over-ear headphones at all. Of 211 participants in an online listening study, only 20 (9.48%) used circumaural (over-ear) headphones, against 37 (17.54%) on earbuds or in-ears and 102 (48.34%) on a laptop (HALT Part II, Behavior Research Methods 2023). We found no independent, methodology-backed figure for the open-back share of headphone sales.
The contexts that do appear in research mostly reward isolation. In a small gamer survey, 59% said they use headphones to block out external distractions (Iveson, University of Huddersfield 2018); participants in a lab office rated the acoustic situation better with closed ANC cups on (the same office study as in Section 2); and in tablet hearing screening against 50 dB(A) background noise, the closed Sennheiser HD 280 PRO matched the gold-standard test in all 35 adults (Aquino et al., International Archives of Otorhinolaryngology 2026).
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Online study participants playing audio through circumaural (over-ear) headphones | 20 of 211 (9.48%) | HALT Part II, Behavior Research Methods 2023 |
| Online study participants using intra-aural headphones (earbuds and in-ears) | 37 of 211 (17.54%) | HALT Part II, Behavior Research Methods 2023 |
| Online study participants using a laptop | 102 of 211 (48.34%) | HALT Part II, Behavior Research Methods 2023 |
| Gamers who use headphones to block out external distractions | 59% (19% disagree; 59 respondents) | Iveson, University of Huddersfield 2018 |
| Gamers who feel more involved in the game with headphones | 88% | Iveson, University of Huddersfield 2018 |
| Rating of the office acoustic situation, closed ANC headphones on vs no headphones | Significantly better (t(56) = -3.24, p < 0.01, d = -0.52; 57 participants) | Mueller et al., Frontiers in Built Environment 2022 |
| Tablet hearing screening in 50 dB(A) background noise with the closed Sennheiser HD 280 PRO | 100% sensitivity, specificity and accuracy (35 adults) | Aquino et al., International Archives of Otorhinolaryngology 2026 |
| Specificity of the same screening in white noise with TDH 39 audiometric earphones | 97.06% | Aquino et al., International Archives of Otorhinolaryngology 2026 |
Context: the HALT survey ran in November and December 2020, and the gamer survey dates from 2018 with 59 respondents. Most recent available data: HALT Part II, 2023, and Iveson, 2018. Neither study recorded open vs closed backs, so the split inside the over-ear group remains unknown.
Summary: Open-Back vs Closed-Back Headphone Preference by the Numbers
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Passive attenuation of closed ANC headphones above 1,000 Hz, ANC off | 20 to 30 dB | Mueller et al., Frontiers in Built Environment 2022 |
| Room noise allowed at 1,000 Hz for hearing tests, supra-aural vs insert earphones | 26 dB SPL vs 47 dB SPL | Behar, IJERPH 2021 |
| Leakage at 1 foot rated good, from a 100 dB SPL signal | Below 35 dB | RTINGS.com Sound Leakage test |
| Refit differences, closed DT770 toward 90 Hz | Up to 4.5 dB | Kohnen et al., Acta Acustica 2021 |
| Left/right level mismatch that already affected localization | From 1 dB | Gutierrez-Parera and Lopez, Applied Sciences 2016 |
| Externalization across open-back, closed-back and insert headphones | Decreased as occlusion increased | Faber and O’Modhrain, JASA 2026 |
| Azimuth gain, open ears vs open headphones | 0.95 vs 0.82 | Riedel et al., Acta Acustica 2025 |
| Vertical local confusion rate with head movement, open headphones vs open ears | 28% vs 10% | Riedel et al., Acta Acustica 2025 |
| Front-back confusions, medium-quality closed headphone | 30.2% | Gutierrez-Parera and Lopez, Applied Sciences 2016 |
| Preferred level rise per 1 dB of ambient noise | About 0.23 dB | Kim and Han, Noise and Health 2026 |
| Listeners whose level rose with ambient noise | 48 of 51 (94.1%) | Kim and Han, Noise and Health 2026 |
| Level at full laptop volume, open-back music and in-ear headphones | 81.4 to 85.4 dB | CIOP-PIB, IJERPH 2022 |
| Level at full laptop volume, closed-back low-budget and open-back messenger headphones | 75.2 to 81.7 dB | CIOP-PIB, IJERPH 2022 |
| Online study participants using over-ear headphones | 9.48% (20 of 211) | HALT Part II, Behavior Research Methods 2023 |
| Online study participants using a laptop | 48.34% (102 of 211) | HALT Part II, Behavior Research Methods 2023 |
| Gamers using headphones to block external distractions | 59% | Iveson, University of Huddersfield 2018 |
| Hearing screening accuracy in 50 dB(A) noise, closed HD 280 PRO | 100% | Aquino et al., International Archives of Otorhinolaryngology 2026 |
Methodology and Sources
- Mueller, Liebl, Herget, Kohler and Leistner, Using active noise-cancelling headphones in open-plan offices, Frontiers in Built Environment 2022: two lab experiments (21 and 57 participants) with closed circumaural ANC headphones, including an ANC-off condition.
- Behar, Audiometric Tests without Booths, IJERPH 2021: tabulates CSA Z107.6 and ANSI S3.1 maximum permissible ambient noise levels and cites Coles (1967) on enclosed earphones.
- Tananuchittikul et al., App-Based Hearing Screenings in Preschool Children With Different Types of Headphones, JMIR mHealth and uHealth 2023: source of the manufacturer isolation specifications quoted in Section 1.
- RTINGS.com, Sound Leakage test methodology and RTINGS.com, Open-Back vs Closed-Back Headphones: independent lab methods and qualitative comparisons.
- Kohnen, Denk, Llorca-Bofí, Vorländer and Kollmeier, Cross-site investigation on head-related and headphone transfer functions, Acta Acustica 2021: open HD650, closed DT770 and insert ER4 measured on 14 listeners at two sites.
- Gutierrez-Parera and Lopez, Influence of the Quality of Consumer Headphones in the Perception of Spatial Audio, Applied Sciences 2016: 8 headphones, listening tests with 11 to 20 participants per test.
- Faber and O’Modhrain, The impact of headphone choice on perceived externalization, JASA 159(4) Supplement A150, 2026: meeting abstract comparing open-back, closed-back and insert headphones.
- Riedel et al., Effect of HRTFs and head motion on auditory-visual localization in real and virtual studio environments, Acta Acustica 2025: IEM Graz localization experiments with transparency-optimized open headphones.
- Kim and Han, Real-Time Synchronized Measurement of Preferred Listening Levels, Noise and Health 2026: 51 young adults across everyday environments.
- Central Institute for Labour Protection - National Research Institute (CIOP-PIB), Headphone Audio in Training Systems or Systems That Convey Important Sound Information, IJERPH 2022: head and torso simulator measurements of four headphone types.
- The Headphone and Loudspeaker Test (HALT) Part II, Behavior Research Methods 2023: online panel survey of playback devices, 211 valid participants.
- Iveson, Exploring the Concepts of Immersion and why Headphones Enhance the Player Experience, University of Huddersfield MA thesis 2018: survey of 59 video game players.
- Aquino et al., Assessment of Two Types of Headphones Used in a Tablet-Based Automated Hearing Screening Method, International Archives of Otorhinolaryngology 2026: 35 adults screened in silence, white noise and cafeteria noise.
- Data watch: independent passive-isolation and leakage figures for named open-back models now sit behind the RTINGS.com membership wall, and we found no peer-reviewed dB value for a typical open-back hi-fi headphone, so Section 1 compares closed cups against sealed and supra-aural references rather than against open-backs directly. The DT 770 PRO and TDH39 isolation values are manufacturer specifications reproduced in a study, not independent measurements. Market-research pages on open-back headphones do not disclose their methods, so we excluded them; no independent open-back share of sales is available. Several key studies are older than three years (Coles 1967, Gutierrez-Parera and Lopez 2016, Iveson 2018, Kohnen et al. 2021, Mueller et al. 2022, CIOP-PIB 2022, and HALT survey data from 2020). The Faber and O’Modhrain result is a meeting abstract, and a full paper with effect sizes is the most likely new data point.
Last updated: November 7, 2026. We update this roundup quarterly, and the next refresh is expected when Faber and O’Modhrain publish the full paper behind their 2026 JASA abstract on headphone choice and perceived externalization.