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I have always hated wearing headphones. They make me uncomfortable and sweaty and usually give me a headache. Earbuds are a lot better, although I still don’t like to wear them. However, there are lots of situations where I need headphones to play music – late at night, at work, out jogging. I would like to find a way to make headphones more comfortable, so that it isn’t such a chore to use them when I need to. I suspect that the underlying problem is a combination of ventilation, weight, pressure points, and volume (perhaps in specific frequency bands). What can help?

Ideally, I would like it if I could wear both closed, noise-canceling headphones (for work) and lightweight, open headphones (for jogging). However, there are a lot of circumstances where any headphones or earbuds would help, if only I could wear them comfortably.

Bradd Szonye
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  • I don't think this relevant here and its better to post it on lifehacks – Ram Feb 25 '15 at 20:37
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    There is a meta question about the act of listening to music, such as the other headphones question. Consensus appears to be that it is on-topic, so if you disagree, you should probably weigh in on that post. Also, I am not looking for a lateral-thinking solution, so [lifehacks.se] would not be an appropriate place to ask this. – Bradd Szonye Feb 25 '15 at 20:42
  • I have seen that meta question. I personally think that the questions listed there have something to do with music like one talks about listening to loud music damaging ears, other about quality equipment providing quality music and other about music as a factor for buying equipment. Your post is about comfort which is subjective and might even come under the "primarily opinion based" flag and has nothing to do with music. This my personal opinion. Lets wait and see what the community decides. – Ram Feb 25 '15 at 20:55
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    Related: How can I know if I'm damaging my hearing when listening to headphones? – but I am concerned here about short-term discomfort rather than long-term health. – Bradd Szonye Feb 25 '15 at 21:00
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    No this is not a music related question. Same as if I asked "Which speakers would look best in my living room?" – user3169 Feb 25 '15 at 22:45
  • @user3169 Appearance doesn’t affect my ability to appreciate music. Discomfort certainly does. – Bradd Szonye Feb 25 '15 at 22:49
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    But any answer given will be regarding such discomfort, not about any music being listened to. – user3169 Feb 25 '15 at 23:05
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    Sadly this is off topic, for sure. If not because it is not directly related to music, then because it is a very broad subject. Also more comfortable is fairly opinion based. So yes, off topic. I agree with you though that making headphones more comfortable would be nice. Maybe don't buy crappy cheap ones :/ You get what you pay for, professional headphones can cost hundreds of dollars. – J Sargent Feb 26 '15 at 12:14
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    I think this question has the same usefulness as How can I know if I'm damaging my hearing when listening to headphones? in regards to music appreciation. I think it should stay open. – Darrick Herwehe Feb 26 '15 at 13:48
  • @BraddSzonye I think its better to define why you hate wearing them and what comfort and means to you like the headphones shouldn't make wearing your glasses painful (based on your profile pic), the headphones are tight, the earbuds fall off when running. Its also better to mention what type of headphones you are referring to. – Ram Feb 26 '15 at 20:47
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    It occurred to me that the question isn’t about comfort (which is very subjective) so much as discomfort (which is much more concrete). Updated the title to reflect this, and edited in some more specific details. – Bradd Szonye Feb 26 '15 at 21:47
  • @NoviceInDisguise I have to disagree, that's a common misconception. In some fields this definitely is true (e.g. computer hardware) but especially for headphones this just isn't true. For example beats by Dr. Dre. These cost way to much that the specs and manufacturing are bad. All you pay for is the red b on the side - you don't get what you pay for. I own some Phillips over-ear headphones that cost something about 40 bucks. They have a greater frequency range than most beats and only get uncomfortable after a long time of wearing them. But I guess this is a usual thing for headphones. – Alex Feb 27 '15 at 08:36

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These devices are based on statistical dimensions collected from various age-group/gender/activity based studies. Of course there are always outliers if the commercial risk is acceptable for the company to leave individuals like you. They also try to introduce some mechanical degrees of freedom however you don't get a lot of over-ear cover shape modification options.

What might be happening is that your ear shape lies somewhere in between two standard sizes of over-ear pieces. Moreover as I have witnessed with a few friends, your ear canal might also be shaped in a way that in-ear headphones don't stay but tend to fall.

Either way, I think you can consider the combo ones which were available in the late 90s (I think Sony had a few) but apparently they are getting hip again and I don't know how to call them, e.g.,

enter image description here

This is particularly useful because it doesn't have the in ear or over ear piece problems. It made the friends mentioned above quite happy.

As a personal note, I would also prefer using ear plugs instead of noise cancelling headphones and not listening to anything. And using headphones just for listening not cancelling the noise around you.

percusse
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