Consumer Electronics

TYPES OF HEADPHONES

Headphones are available in a vast assortment of shapes, sizes and types. Advertisements emphasize distinctive features even further, to the point where it is understandable that consumers get a little confused about the importance of features and forms.

In headphones, as in almost anything else, most of the differences exist merely as evidence of the manufacturer's struggle to be distinctive, to market unique products.

One can identify three basic classes of headphones: (1) supra-aural (2) circum-aural, and (3) intraaural.

(1) Supra-aural (Fig. 3.3): Those that sit on the ears, usually pressing the external ear to the side of the head. Old versions of supra-aural headphones presented an uncomfortably hard bakelite or hard ...