These types are over-ear, on-ear, in-ear, and open-ear. The over-ear headphones cover the whole surface of your ear, and the cushions actually press on the area around the ear—the skull, neck, and jaw. The on-ear design, as the name suggests, sits on the auricle, squeezing the ear to your head.
In-ear headphones normally have a tip that goes inside the ear canal, and there’s some gray area between in-ear headphones, open-ear headphones, and earbuds. Sometimes they’re all classified in the same group, but there’s a clear difference between the three.
Image courtesy of top10gears
As we already mentioned, in-ear headphones have a tip that goes inside your ear canal. Earbuds don’t have such, and they normally lay on top of the entrance to your ear canal or slightly protrude inside (think of first- and second-generation AirPods).
Open-ear headphones are technically bone-conduction headphones, and they are usually worn on the cheekbones in front of the ear or on any other nearby bone. To make this easier (and because bone-conducting headphones are pretty rare), we’ll divide these into three groups: in-ear, over-ear, and on-ear.
Which of these types is your favorite? Personally, I can only tolerate over-the-ear headphones. In-ear headphones either fall out or cause ear pain after a couple of minutes, and on-ear ones are downright painful from the get-go. Vote in our poll and share your thoughts in the comment section below.
