Creative Outlier Free Pro+, Shokz Openfit and Huawei Freeclip: open

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Open-ear headphones: Sound transmission through vibrations on the cheekbone or sound transducers outside the ears

Photo: Matthias Kremp / DER SPIEGEL

Listen to music and make phone calls on the go? Many people use so-called in-ear headphones such as Apple's AirPods. But not everyone likes such headsets, which are available in many different versions from just as many manufacturers. Some people are bothered by the pressure that many of these headphones put on their ears. Others are annoyed by the feeling of being isolated from the environment. When doing sports, poorly designed in-ear headsets can be annoying because they transmit every step as a dull roar in your head. And sometimes it would just be better if you could hear your surroundings better while music or podcasts are playing. When cycling in the city, for example.

In such cases, open-ear headphones are the answer: headsets that allow your ears to remain open so you can hear your surroundings. Sounds absurd, but it works. One way to achieve this is with bone conduction headphones. Instead of bringing music to the ears via the eardrums, they create vibrations that are transmitted from the cheekbones to the inner ear and from there to the brain. In another method, small sound transducers are aimed at the ears so that they play music as precisely as possible from the outside into the ear canal. The trick is that people around you can and must hear as little as possible.

For this article, I tested three very different headsets with which you always have an open ear.

Creative Outlier Free Pro+

The Outlier Free Pro+ is the top model from Creative's range of bone conduction headphones. The fact that it is primarily intended for use during sports is evident from the design with a carrying handle on the back of the head and the adjustable brackets for the sound transducers on the ears. The manufacturer promises up to ten hours of battery life. The headphones are also waterproof according to IPX8.

There is a microphone built into the left earpiece for phone calls, which, according to the operating instructions, must be closed with a tiny rubber stopper before it comes into contact with water "to avoid possible water damage." Curious: In its advertising, Creative shows images that show the headset underwater with the microphone opening unlocked. But admittedly, it is also very difficult to maneuver the soft rubber plunger into the small opening.

Actually practical: The Outlier Free Pro+ have a built-in MP3 player with 8 gigabytes of memory. So you can leave your smartphone and smartwatch in the closet while training. However, the player only supports the file formats MP3, FLAC, WAV and APE, but not the modern AAC. This reduces the number of sources from which you can get music.

Completely incomprehensible: The headphone cable has a USB-A plug, for which you cannot find the right socket on every modern computer. USB-C would be the better choice here. But maybe there is an old computer with a suitable socket lying around somewhere. It doesn't have to be fast anyway; transferring music via cable requires a lot of patience and little performance.

Meanwhile, the sound quality of the Creative headphones requires frugality. When I first listened to it, I had to laugh out loud because what was being forced into my auditory bones sounded so bad. Mids, mids, lower mids and more mids can be heard when listening to music with the Outlier Free Pro+. That has consequences.

The bass drum pounding in sixteenth time in the live recording of David Bowie's "Station to Station" becomes a distant memory. Sophie Ellis-Bextor's singing in "Murder on the Dancefloor," which got back into the charts thanks to "Saltburn," sounds like it's being warbled through a tin telephone. The only thing worth noting is that you feel the kick of the bass drum on your cheekbone more than you hear it.

It may be that there are people who are keen on sports and don't mind this while training. Instead, I would rather not listen to music and listen to myself or my fellow athletes panting. Or listen to podcasts, because the center-centered tuning of these headphones helps the intelligibility of voices.

Conclusion

The Outlier Free Pro+ from Creative are stable on the head and can be easily adjusted. Once you've managed to fill them with music that they can also play, they are a completely self-sufficient music system. However, listening to music is not fun because of the lack of sound quality. If you're looking for headphones that are largely water-protected for listening to podcasts while swimming, you might be happier with them. The manufacturer has probably also noticed that the list price of 130 euros is too high and is now offering the bone conduction headphones for 90 euros.

Shokz OpenFit

Shokz is a kind of veteran of bone conduction headphones - and that's what makes the OpenFit so interesting. For the first time, the company is trying to bring music to the ear using acoustic sound transducers rather than through the bones. Because this is somehow part of the company's core, the earphones are positioned above the ear canal rather than in it, so that you can still hear your surroundings acoustically while listening to music.

To make this possible, the earphones with the ear hooks are hung over the ears so that their speaker opening is aligned with the ear canal. While music penetrates inwards in a targeted manner, openings on the side with phase-shifted signals are intended to ensure that the sound penetrating outwards is canceled out, i.e. for peace. Essentially, it's like noise-cancelling headphones, only in reverse. In practice, this works quite well as long as you don't turn the music up loud.

The resulting sound is the best I've ever heard from Shokz headphones - and I've tried many. Up to around 75 percent of the maximum volume, the sound is remarkably round and balanced, somewhat reminiscent of Sony's LinkBuds, which are also open (here our test report). If you turn up the volume, the sound spectrum shifts noticeably towards the upper midrange, which almost hurts your ears during the already very charged chorus of disco punk's "Fuck Around".

However, the open design is of no use at high volume levels. The music drowns out what is happening around you. Conversely, when making a phone call, at least in noisy environments, you have to turn up the volume in order to be able to understand the caller.

You can specify which functions you want to trigger by tapping on the sensor surfaces on the earphones in the Shokz app. What's missing there is an option to turn off the sensors. During the test, I often touched them unintentionally, causing them to play music at inappropriate moments.

Conclusion

Even if their sound seems somewhat indirect due to their design, the OpenFit produce a very pleasant, almost powerful sound. At least as long as you keep the volume under control. They are well suited as office headphones or for sports that are predominantly dry. Its IP54 certification protects against splashing water, nothing more.

Huawei FreeClip

Huawei is daring. At least with the design, which the company calls “C-bridge”. As is often the case, whether you like it is a question of taste. Whether it works, not. You can discover a bit of genius in the fact that the two earphones are designed completely identically. You can determine which of these serves the left and which the right music channel by tilting your head slightly after putting it on.

The FreeClip are basically just as suitable for listening to music while doing sports as the OpenFit from Shokz, as long as you also take into account the limited water resistance according to IP54. Amazing: Although they look more like costume jewelry than sports headphones, they sit firmly on your ears when you're running, for example.

Probably because the sound transducers are more aligned with the ear canal than with the Shokz, the sound of the FreeClip seems more direct, almost like that of in-ear headsets. At least as long as it's not windy or the wind is rubbing against them. It is also important to find the right seat. Huawei wants them to be placed roughly in the middle of the ears so that they are suspended parallel to the floor, but for me they perform best when I hang them further down near the earlobes.

The sound is then quite balanced, at least if you don't turn the volume up to the upper range. But you shouldn't expect strong bass. In Kinga Głyk's "Not Real" with its very central electric bass, this is only annoying insofar as the bass drum only appears as an acoustic supporting player. But the brass staccatos in “Lingus” by Snarky Puppy literally jump on your eardrums.

Conclusion

Great design, Huawei. The fact that you don't have to pay attention to which one is on the right and which one on the left with the FreeClip is worth a round of applause. In terms of sound, they share the fate of all open-ear headphones. Their bass reproduction seems weak compared to in-ears. Music only sounds good when it's quiet around you.

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