Listening to music can be an intensely personal experience: that’s why no two people’s collection of music is the same. But one thing
in common is the desire to listen to music without being interrupted or
bothered by the “outside world.” It’s
for that reason that headphones are so useful. At their core, headphones are
two speakers, one each for each ear, providing audio up close and personal.
Today the audio doesn’t have to come through a cable from
the headphones that is connected to the audio source: that’s
where technologies like Bluetooth come into play as they enable the music to “stream” wirelessly.
But it can get confusing with so many choices of how to listen to music, let’s
concentrate on something that definitely affects how it is being heard: the
shape of the headphones themselves.
Over the Ear
These are the headphones that date back to “antiquity” in
that we’ve all seen people wearing what looks like cups placed over
the ears. Obviously they are comfortable because they don’t
pinch against the flesh and they provide a strong seal against outside noise. Their large size also allows for large “drivers” (i.e.,
speakers) to be installed in the chassis for greater sound depth and
clarity. This type of headphones traditionally
has a high quality of sound reproduction.
On The Ear
These headphones take a more compact route because the
ear cups don’t have to be so large. That’s because the
headphones are placed against the ears, rather than having them going over
them. There’s room in the cups for all kinds of technologies as
well as fairly large speakers too. And the lesser weight of these type of
headphones means wearing them for longer periods of time becomes possible.
Prices for these type of headphones vary, depending on what the brand makes
available in them.
In The Ear
These are the type of headphones that the digital age has made us
used to: they are often called earbuds because they fit inside the ear canal and
so there’s no outer seal between the listener and the world as there
is with a pair of over- or on-the-ear headphones. There are many advantages to
using these type of headphones; the most obvious being they are the least
obtrusive to the eye. These type of headphones often come with varying types of interchangeable ear-tips that make
for a better fit, since not each person’s ears are the same as the next. Often
used with smartphones (and tablets too), in-line tabs for controlling
the music being played, along with taking/answering phone calls
through a built-in microphone, can be found attached to the cord. Or accessed
from the headphones directly if wireless. The quality of these type of
headphones affect the price, with the range being from super affordable to professional-grade.
Which type of headphones will best suit you will depend on what
you want to listen to and where you want to listen. But it’s
great having so many choices.
