Are the "SHURE se535 headphones" just that, headphones or are they IEMs?

[Denelz]

SHURE seams to never address them as IEMs, but the community does... it also seems that the term "IEM" is misused a lot of the time by people. I wold be glad to get this clarified

 

[ryanjsoo]

SHURE seams to never address them as IEMs, but the community does... it also seems that the term "IEM" is misused a lot of the time by people. I wold be glad to get this clarified

Headphone refers to the larger ones that go on your head either sitting on your ears (on-ears) or over your ears (over-ears) whereas earphones go in your ears hence they are called in-ears. IEM simply stands for in-ear monitor, from my understanding monitors are usually used in professional scenarios such as on stage or during music production, they often route the cable over the ear like the Shure's to create more stability when moving around on stage for instance. The SE535's are definitely IEMs though there is also a difference between IEMs and plain earphones and it is not such a clear difference as that between on-ear headphones and over-ears.