Cordless Headphones

The market for cordless headphones alone is absolutely massive but when you start looking at alternative listening devices and media it can become a daunting prospective to fathom it all out.

It is my intention to cast some light on this by going through the various devices and giving a brief explanation as to their use, their design and characteristics.

By doing so you will hopefully have more information at your disposal when you are deciding whether or not to invest in some cordless headphones or otherwise.

Supra-aural Designed Headphones

You will probably be more familiar with this type of device if I said to you that that they were provided with the portable hand held cassette players in the 1980′s.Foam pads are actually sat on top of your ears as opposed to encapsulating them. Due to the fact that there is less material, and they are very lightweight in design they weigh a lot less than circumaural headphones which encompass your ears. Your ears also tend to sweat a lot less as a result.

Earbud Devices

If you are looking for a small and unassuming headphone then earbuds should be your choice.

They are placed directly outside of the ear canal, but without fully enveloping it. The price is comparatively low with some buds under the $10 mark and with them being so small they do not take up much room so they are portable.

Because they do not cup the ear the user can get external noise filtering in to the ear and quite often the volume needs increasing due to this. These devices are commonly supplied with portable MP3 players and started to become popular in the late 1990′s.

Circumaural Headphones

Circumaural headphones are sometimes known as full size headphones, these are the type that you often see used by the superstar DJ’s in the DJ booths at your local nightclub or on TV. They have circular or ellipsoid earpads that encompass the ears. These tend to be quite big and heavy which seems to be quite trendy at the moment, it also gives the manufacturer an opportunity to place their name across the headband and advertise their product.

Headsets

A microphone and headphone combined gives you dual functionality and that is what a headset provides giving you the ability to work in a hands free environment. These are commonly used in call centers and in a gaming environment and other occupations that require you to use your hands on the computer whilst listening and talking. On a technical front these come with a single earpiece or a double and the microphone arm of headsets is either an external microphone type where the microphone is held in front of the user’s mouth, or a voicetube type where the microphone is housed in the earpiece and speech reaches it by means of a hollow tube.

Canal Earphones

These are, uncommonly I have say, also  termed IEM’s or in-ear monitors and are earphones that you place directly into your ear just like you would earbuds to stop hearing noise. Because people have very different size ear canals it is difficult to get a very tight fit so these do tend to drop out on occasion. You can buy custom fitting ones that come with a variety of silicon rubber inserts however these cost a little more than non-custom plugs.

These are very small so they can be transported with ease, noise cancellation varieties are also manufactured by the better known brand makers.

So, these are the alternatives to cordless headphones and each has a degree of functionality that is, generally speaking, in-line with their cost, the technology employed and whether or not that technology is even outdated or not. Having said that you need to focus on these 4 key areas when making your own assessment: Sound quality, cost, comfort and design.

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