|
Headphone Heights Welcome to Headphone Heights, the place for all your ear bud discussion |
|
|
|
Headphone Heights Welcome to Headphone Heights, the place for all your ear bud discussion |
|
In Reply to: RE: Aren't Grado's on-ear? posted by Awe-d-o-file on December 24, 2014 at 11:01:50:
I'm sure that you understand the basics of headphone design. But, for the sake of any newbies out there who might be silently lurking and reading these confusing posts of ours, I'd like to try to clear a few things up about "extra-aural" or "outside the ear" headphones."Circum-aural" ("around-ear") headphones usually don't touch the outer ear very much at all (if they do touch the outer ear, it will be as they squeeze past the outermost edges of the outer ear). Instead, they rest on the parts of the skull that surround the outer ear.
"Supra-aural" ("on-ear") headphones usually rest entirely on top of the outer ear, the earpads not being large or deep enough to rest on the parts of the skull that surround the ear. Supra-aural headphones range in size from tiny ("earbuds") to fairly large (almost - but not quite - big enough to surround the outer ear), but so long as they are not designed to clear the outside edges of the outer ear they are considered "supra-aural".
OK, so much for earpad design! The next major thing to consider is earcup design...
Basically, headphones fall into two opposing camps depending on the structure of the earcups: "Sealed" ("closed back"), and "open-backed" ("open" or "unsealed"). There are a few headphones out there that might be considered "hybrid" designs because they are neither completely sealed nor fully vented, but for the most part the majority of headphones fall into one of the two abovementioned categories.
"Closed-back" or sealed headphones have earcups that are not vented for airflow. However, not all closed headphones are equally good at isolating the user's ears from outside noises. The effectiveness of the seal provided by the earpads is probably the most important contributor to good noise isolation in sealed headphones, and even though all closed-back headphones are not equal in this regard they are still considered "sealed" so long as the earcups are not vented for airflow. Headphones with sealed earcups may be either supra-aural or circum-aural in design. Visually, sealed headphones usually appear to have earcups with solid, non-perforated backs.
"Open-backed" or vented headphones have earcups that allow for airflow. They are not designed to isolate the user from outside noises just as they are not designed to isolate bystanders from the music the headphone user is listening to. Some "open" headphones are more open than others are, however, and you can usually tell which headphones are most "open" by the amount of noise you can hear escaping from the earcups when the headphones are being used by another person in the same room as you. Headphones with open-backed earcups may be either supra-aural or circum-aural in design. Visually, you can usually identify open headphones by the perforated grills that cover the outer portion of the earcups.
These "extra-aural" headphones may be either sealed or open style, of course, and they are distinguished from "intra-aural" ("In Ear Monitor", or "IEM") headphones in that they are too big to be inserted into the ear canal without the help of a hydraulic press.
Edits: 12/25/14 12/25/14 12/25/14 12/25/14 12/25/14
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
Follow Ups
- RE: Circum vs. Supra - genungo 00:33:02 12/25/14 (0)
Top of Page ]
[ Contact Us ]
[ Support/Wish List ]
[ Copyright © 2024, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]
