This feels WRONG - Sony Linkbuds
ShortCircuit
·ShortCircuit
·2022-05-05
·
2,309 words · ~11 min read
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- I'm really excited for these that the- - [Jono] Oh no, it broke.
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- [Brandon] Jono broke the press kit it's not Sony's fault. (Jono laughing)
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- Way to go Jono. (Jono laughing) - [Jono] It wasn't my fault.
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- [Brandon] It kinda was though. - Oh, there's goo on it.
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The conventional wisdom has always been that in ear headphones isolate you from the outside world.
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And we've used technology to get around that to a degree
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with things like transparent modes that use microphones to pass through ambient sounds.
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But the LinkBuds take a far more holistic approach to this problem with a shape
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that I would've actually never imagined ever seeing in an earphone.
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Unfortunately, I have no idea how to open this box.
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- [Jono] Check that little cap on your right. (indistinct) - This paper.
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- [Jono] Yeah that part. - [Brandon] Sheer brute force. - [Jono] Oh, he forced it.
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- Okay.
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Oh, please tell me it's not an NFT. YouTube sent this cringe NFT display thing to me
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a little a while ago. Just didn't know what to say.
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Sustainability is extremely important to us at Sony which is why the LinkBuds and their charging case
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are made using recycled plastic materials and have plastic free packaging.
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Not the press version apparently.
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I swear to you, this thing's really cool.
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I can't get the box open. And then I can't get the other box open.
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But trust me, it's really cool. Oh, all right.
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Okay. This is actually pretty cool. It's all just cardboard padding. Like it.
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Very compact charging case. No wireless charging on the charging case,
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but it has a lot of other redeeming qualities. USB-C charging.
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There's your pairing button so nice, simple pairing process.
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It's really small. Here actually hold on. I've got my AirPods Pros in my pocket.
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So you can see it's thicker than the AirPods Pros, right?
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But in both other dimensions it's actually substantially smaller.
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Like other wireless earphones. The case acts as a charger, holding 12 hours worth of juice
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while the earphones themselves hold five and a half for a total of seventeen and a half.
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That should be good enough for most people's long day.
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And if you want to top up the earphones quickly, Sony quotes, 90 minutes of use
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off of a 10 minute quick charge. And then I believe it's 90 minutes total
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to fully charge the assembly. Now this is where the similarities to other earphones
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pretty much die in a fire.
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Look at these things, Brandon. - [Brandon] That's so cool. - They've got kind of this bulbous
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almost figure eight shape. And you can see the analogous components, right?
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Like here's the part that goes into the canal. And here's the part that sits in the little, like,
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you know concave spot in your ear, right?
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So relative to the AirPod you can kind of see how it's gonna sit.
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But it's got a hole in it.
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- [Jono] It's a donut. - This is what I meant when I said they've taken a much more holistic approach.
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Get it? Pun very much intended. To making it so that you can hear your surroundings.
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The driver is actually a ring shaped driver
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around the outside here. So what they've done is they've created a completely
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actually open backed in ear headphone.
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Okay, I'm gonna put it in. They've got these little silicone loops
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to help hold them into place. Hopefully my ears aren't too waxy today.
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So it kind of sits like that. One of their priorities for this product was all day comfort
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with the being that because they're not cutting you off from the rest of the world,
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you are able to wear them all day while still carrying on normal conversations
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or safely walking around in the city and not getting, you know, run over by a car or a train
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or whatever the case may be. I believe they've actually partnered with Niantic.
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And they've talked about Pokemon go as a specific use case for these headphones.
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They've also boasted that they have excellent ambient noise rejection
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for the microphone. So if you wanna carry on a conversation with someone, we'll have to do a test call with Jono.
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You gotta way to record it real quick. Actually okay, I guess I'm not gonna use this phone.
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I'll use the one that is preloaded with their application because these aren't released yet
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so you can't just grab it from the app store or the play store. Thanks to Vessi footwear for sponsoring this video.
4:19
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4:23
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4:28
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4:32
It's also got a pull tab to make taking them off and putting them on super easy and they're made creature free.
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So you don't have to worry about that. You'll wanna wear them everywhere. So keep your dry and save $ 25 by visiting the link
4:43
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Crap, Jono, you gotta sign into your Apple ID. I gotta say these typing sounds
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are tripping me the crap out. Because I don't feel like I'm wearing headphones.
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So you know how with some headphones you get that like inside your skull sensation.
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- [Brandon] Yeah. - I'm definitely getting that a little bit.
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They're very comfortable. I mean, obviously I haven't spent an entire day with them
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and I actually sleep with my AirPods Pros and my Tone Free FP8.
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But they're extremely comfortable for me. I don't know if I could say that about these yet.
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The XM4's from Sony I found were a little bit too bulky for that.
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And the touch would often get activated by lying down on my pillow.
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So I wasn't able to do that with those, But these seem at least on first glance,
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extremely comfortable cause they don't put pressure on the canal.
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It's all up here. They're really light too. Like extremely light.
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- [Jono] How are you doing today? - That's really weird.
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Just how, how do I describe this?
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- [Jono] Is it like I'm right there? - With the typing sounds and with this phone call.
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It sounds like you're coming from
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like in between my ears. (Jono laughs) - [Jono] I'm in your head
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- Now this is interesting. The press deck for this talks about wide area tap.
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Whatever that means. And it seems like the guy in the picture
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is like tapping his head. Whoa
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- [Brandon] That's cool. - [Jono] Whoa - Could you hear that?
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- [Jono] Yeah, I can hear that.
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(group laughing) - [Jono] I can hear that from here though.
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- That's crazy. Yeah. So that was one of the things we asked Sony about.
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If I'm on the bus or if I'm in a quiet room, will people be able to hear my music?
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The answer is sort of. Because they're in ears,
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what sounds loud to you is gonna be pretty quiet for everyone around you,
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but because they're open backed there's no isolating layer that will prevent sounds
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from leaking out of them. So yes, it's possible.
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They're also ridiculously loud right now. This is just the default.
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- [Brandon] Then it's not that bad probably. - [Jono] Yeah. - You definitely have to tap with intent.
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This is what I would consider to be a reasonable listening volume for me
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when I'm not like jamming out, but I'm sitting and working.
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Can you guys hear it? - [Jono] No. - [Brandon] No.
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- No, okay. This is like, I'm cleaning the house and I need energy.
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- [Jono] I think like a little bit. (indistinct) - These sound great.
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- [Brandon] Better than the XM4's? - They're different from the XM4's.
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So the thing about the XM4's is that like most earphones they're a closed back design.
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So even though you can run them in a transparent mode, right?
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That's always gonna be artificial sounding and there's always gonna added background hiss
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or added artifacts from doing it that way.
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Whereas these are allowing ambient sound
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so I can hear the person who opened the door over there. Hi, how you doing?
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- [Denniss] Hello. - [Jono] Denniss. - But the music also has a more open and natural sound.
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That's one of the key benefits of open backed headphones when we're talking about full size headphones as well.
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So if you like an open back sound
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these are just gonna completely change your world.
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They sound really good. Oh, for crying out loud,
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you will not be able to listen to music while I go for through the app here.
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Speak to chat. You can start conversations while wearing the headphones
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simply by starting to talk. Yeah. I wanna experience that.
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Try saying things like hello while music is, oh, okay. So it pauses your music.
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Oh, that's really cool. It will resume while you are speaking
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and will close if approximately 15 seconds passes after you finish speaking or you've operated the headphones.
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I would make it less than 15 seconds. That seems like a lot.
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Although I guess if you're going back and forth with someone. They've got some EQ presets here.
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Pretty cool. And then I believe you can also edit it.
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Very nice. I wouldn't mind if these were a little more granular.
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This is cool. The ear shape analysis thing, I've run this with previous Sony products before.
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It actually does appear to make a small difference.
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- [Brandon] You know honestly I almost can't tell your wearing headphones, with your hat.
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- Yeah. Cool, right? And they actually have what, I think a really cool look to them.
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Like I could see these being a conversation starter when someone does notice that you're wearing them.
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They've got support for adaptive volume control. So if the ambient sound gets louder,
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they will try to overpower it, If you're into that. Personally I think you should always
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control volume yourself to keep it at a safe level.
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Wide area tap. Super cool. That was on by default. And you can actually configure the tap operations.
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So there's no single tap because obviously that would cause problems, right?
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If you just, you know, accidentally slapped yourself
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for example, that might start playing music. So it's only double and triple tap.
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That is one drawback could see to this product is that you can't have as many different functions,
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but because you can program the left and the right individually I think you can kind of overcome that.
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Four functions is a fair bit. I'm gonna turn the screen recording off now
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cause I wanna listen to a little bit more music on this puppy.
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Man. Other earphones try to get this sound.
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With if like digital sound processors and you know
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adding like an auditorium effect or like a open sound stage wide sound stage effect.
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Nothing is ever quite right. But an open backed earphone.
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Now to be clear there are far more open back earphones.
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The regular AirPods, for example have a much more open back sound than the AirPods Pros.
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But this is more open than I've ever experienced before. I can say that definitively.
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There's a hole in it. It's open. I'm just talking to you.
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And what's interesting about that. Is that actually carrying on a conversation with you
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is not as easy as an earphone like this
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in a specific transparent mode because they're using like voice detection
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to find voices around you and amplify them for you and they're plumbing them right into your ears.
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But this is more natural. These sound great for $179.99.
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- [Brandon] 179 US? - Yeah. They're like reasonable actually
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- [Brandon] Oh Man, I'm tempted. - Man, I'm not gonna be able to daily drive them.
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Because ANC is actually a lot of what I use my earphones for.
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A lot of the time I'm not even listening to anything. I just have the ANC on
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because I find my life a little overwhelming.
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But if it was just about the music, boy are these ever cool?
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- [Brandon] What about gaming? - Gaming's a tough one because I would say that gaming is more about immersion
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than a lot of the other things that I do. But the funny thing is that
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I actually use open back headphones for gaming. I use Sennheiser HD 600's
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because when I'm gaming, when I'm in my computer room
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I don't have to worry about distractions or anything like that. I want the best possible sound.
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And for me, open backed is a more natural, better sound.
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So I would absolutely use them for gaming
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but maybe when I'm out in public where there's distractions all over the place
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where I want to dial in. Your mileage may vary though.
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Maybe you're on the bus and you like, need to hear the next stop or the train, right?
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So you guys can check them out. We're gonna have the link down below and you can subscribe to ShortCircuit
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where we do first impressions videos just like this one.