These are IEMs. With foam tips. Incredibly comfortable, and block noise VERY well. No amp needed, very efficient...and hey, that there are 3 separate drivers in there with a three way crossover is amazing.
My mom use to borrow my head set when I was living with her and she ended up breaking them so I haven't had a mic since then. And I just let her borrow my 70 dollar DJ headphones and she told me today that sound was only coming out of 1 side.........
Whichever way you dress it up, earphones will always be less comfortable than a pair of headphones. And they're not something for sharing, unlike passing some headphones over to someone so they can appreciate the sound.
I don't share cans. I wear glasses, and most cans are uncomfortable because they clamp down enough to make the frames of my glasses dig in around my ears. Thus, IEMs are more comfortable to me. That, and weight wise, cans cause pressure on the top of the head, again, after hours of listening, uncomfortable. IEMs with the cord wrapped over the top of your ear don't cause that. Foam complys are amazing for comfort for me as well. The Shure foam tips can also be good - it'll really depend on how your ear canal is shaped. Realize, we're talking about IEMs that cost over 300 USD, not some shitty $15 buds. Go look up what an IEM is. Go ahead and keep making blanket statements if you like, but not everyone has the same priorities and likes/dislikes as you. Comfort is relative to the person judging it. As is the preference of the sound. I'd LOVE to see you post this shit over on head-fi - those guys would rip you to shreds, if a moderator didn't first ban your account.
One of my older crappy headsets deformed my skull slightly methinks :V, got a small crevasse on the top of my head, has faded now though.
...if you turn them up too loud. Go look up the OSHA noise exposure warnings. Nothing to do with the type of speaker or headphone being used, everything to do with the amplitude and duration exposed.
ive read a European recommendation saying any prolonged (+1h) usage of earphones always have a long term negative effect, the sound is generated too close to your eardrums, and damaging spikes of sound normally filtered out by the way your ear, hairs inside ear, and ear channel "hears" sounds but yea, you live in america, so you should be fine
I don't give a damn if the speaker is wedged in your ear, or just outside your ear. Turn it up enough, and any sound spike will cause damage. But that depends on: a. Your player not having a limiter/not normalizing the audio. A lot have a feature that smooths out the peaks in audio - raises the level of soft sections, limits how loud the loudest sections can get. b. You turning the volume up too high in the first place. Again, my UM3Xs and SE530s have foam tips that reduce insane amounts of ambient noise: http://graphs.headphone.com/graphCompare.php?graphType=6&graphID[]=2731&graphID[]=853&graphID[]=533 Notice how the 530s isolate you from more noise than ever the HD280s do? That means I don't need to turn the volume up as loud to hear my music, which means I'm at less risk of damage. Period. Every study I've seen that talks about hearing damage is talking about the iPod/iPhone earbuds that just sit in the ear cup, not in the canal, and thus to hear anything you blast the music. And as usual on this forum, I'm talking about actual documents which can be found. You're talking "I've read..." - yeah, how about you link that? Reference the source?
