What is the Difference Between Headphones and Earbuds?

The term "headphones" applies to a wide variety of audio-to-sound converters. The main difference between headphone types is earbuds and regular headphones.

Before we get started, it's important to note that "headphones" is a catch-all term. However, people usually refer to headphones as over-ear headphones and earbuds as earbuds.

Earplugs: Common in the consumer market; medical market, and professional in-ear monitor market.

Headphones: Also common in the consumer market, but also popular in the pro audio, film, and broadcast industries.

What is the difference between headphones and earbuds? The most obvious difference is the form factor: The earbuds are small and fit in the ear, while regular headphones are larger and designed to fit over the ear. We hear these types differently. Each of these headphone "types" is further divided into "subtypes".

So the terminology is a bit off from the start, but we'll sort that out in this article. We will discuss the differences and similarities between the two.

We noticed two immediate differences between earphones and earphones: size and fit.

Size differences are especially important for driver size. While headphone drivers are typically 20mm to 50mm in size, headphone drivers are typically limited to 8mm to 15mm in size. Driver size refers to the diameter of the driver's diaphragm.

Fitting a 50mm diaphragm in a headphone design to fit the listener's ear canal is physically impossible.

While it's physically possible to fit 8mm drivers into a pair of headphones, the smaller driver size may not be able to effectively push enough air to produce powerful sound. This is especially true for bass frequencies.

To prove it, try slowly pulling the headphones away from your ears, and you'll notice a quick drop in low-end sound. Even if you put your ears on.

Another obvious difference is the way they are dressed.

Headphones require some sort of headband to connect the two ear cups and hold them in place. The ear cups of the headset cannot be inserted into the ear canal.

The headset probably has some kind of headband (especially when combined with the microphone in the headset). However, this is not required, and most earbuds just fit the listener's ear canal.

So the size of the drivers and the way we wear headphones and earphones are different. What are the other differences?

Well, the way they usually interact with our eardrums is different.

As we all know, earphones fit in our ear canals. In addition to making it easier to keep them in place, this also seals the ear canal. This is especially true of properly installed in-ear monitors compared to consumer-grade earbuds that may allow some air in and out. For the sake of argument, let's assume the ear canal is closed.

This seal results in direct coupling between the headphone driver and the eardrum. In this closed system, any movement of the headphone diaphragm should cause the same movement in the eardrum, but in the opposite direction. This means the driver doesn't need to push as much air at all to perceive loudness.

Headphones, on the other hand, are much less airtight, if at all.

Closed-back headphones are designed to be sealed, improving bass response at the expense of stereo width. Having said that, their drivers still need to push quite a bit of air to create "loudness".

Open-back and on-ear headphones allow sound to escape from their shell and require pushing more air to produce the same bass response and loudness.

Another notable difference is that only headphones can have balanced armature drivers. These tiny dynamic drivers (they work electromagnetically) utilize conductive springboards to oscillate their small diaphragms. Several BA drivers are often used in in-ear monitor designs.

After pointing out the differences between headphones and in-ears, let's remind ourselves of the real similarities between them.

Below is a list of similarities between earphones and earphones:

Transducers that convert audio signals (electrical energy) into sound waves (mechanical wave energy).

Positioned close to the ear.

Moving coil dynamic, planar magnetic, or electrostatic drive options.

Wireless and active noise cancellation.

Wide range of sound quality differences between models.

Headphones are headphones, and they are all designed to take an audio signal and turn it into sound for our enjoyment (or sometimes unpleasantness). They even utilize many of the same driver types (transducer designs) to convert audio into sound.

The most common type of driver in headphones and earphones is dynamic. However, planar magnetic and electrostatic drives are also used to perform the same conversion in different ways. Planar magnetic and electrostatic drivers can be found in headphones and earphones.

In the modern age of headphone design, we have a plethora of wireless headphones and earphones to choose from. Active noise cancellation, which used to be exclusive to over-ear closed-back headphones, is now also available in headphones.

Finally, it's important to point out that neither earphone nor earphone is better than the other. It's incredibly application-specific, not to mention subjective.

The above describes the difference between headphones and earplugs in detail. If you want to buy headphones or earplugs, please contact us.

JunYe is a professional custom earphone manufacturer, we provide one-stop service, design-development-production, and shipment. With more than 400 employees, 60000㎡ factories, specializing in OEM/ODM. We can complete bare metal tests and package tests according to customers' requirements, such as headband tensile test, drop test, low temperature/high-temperature test, and fogging test.