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New headphones from Rock Jaw audio are both open and closed
If you’re not entirely sure what the difference is between open and closed back headphones, make sure to check out our headphone buying guide where we go over it. If you’re short on time here’s the TL;DR version: open back headphones leave the drivers exposed to your surroundings while closed back keeps them isolated. Normally if you’re shopping for headphones you’d have to choose between the two, but Rock Jaw audio has a new Kickstarter campaign for their Sentio headphones which let you switch between open and closed on the fly.
Open back headphones are great in situations that allow it, but usually those situations are not in public. Not only do open back headphones let in sound from your surroundings, but they also leak your music into it. So anyone sitting next to you on a train is going to hear what you’re jamming to fairly easily. In these kinds of scenarios, closed back headphones are usually preferred. That said, it’s not uncommon for serious audiophiles to have both open and closed back headphones to better suit the particular listening situation.
What if you didn't have to choose between open or closed?
With the Sentios, you can easily switch between open or closed by rotating the outside of the ear cup. On top of that, there are two different sized drivers per ear cup in order to fill in every gap of the 19Hz – 21kHz frequency range. There’s a 50mm drivers which gives more detail in the low end and a 30mm driver which specializes in the mids and highs. Combining the two means that there shouldn’t be a weak link in the sound quality chain. The build of the headphones are also pretty durable since these are meant to taken with you when you leave the house. They have a solid aluminum build with comfortable padding and you can also swap out the 4m cable meant for home use with a standard 1.2m audio cable while you’re on the go.
They have about $45k of their $69k goal already and there’s still 22 days left to go in the campaign at the time of this post. If this looks like something that you’d be interested definitely check out their Kickstarter page and make sure to grab one for yourself before they’re all gone. Early bird pricing starts at about $134 and goes up to about $260 for two pairs.