[m12345]

Hi, let's assume sound quality is not deciding, and I am to choose between

(a) medium-sized sealed phones (such as the senn hd-25 or 25 sp) and

(b) in-ear phones (with or without custom made fitting parts), what differences exist in respect to

(1) disturbing others, and
(2) damaging one's ears when using them on the bus/noisy environment, listening to equally loud sounding music, respectively?

Thank you for help or for pointing me to threads, I'm sorry didn't find any.

M

 

[austonia]

different cans for different purposes. get both.

 

[lekguan]

(1) disturbing others <-- depends on how loud you listen, which may depend on actually how much isolation it provides. if someone can hear your closed cans playing, something is real wrong.

(2) damaging one's ears when using them on the bus/noisy environment, listening to equally loud sounding music, respectively? <-- In-ear buds should be a better choice as they provide tonnes of details leading to(usually) a much lower listening volume. Besides they provides lots of isolation (especially foamies) leading to needing a lower listening volume to hear all the details. OTOH if you have a weak headphone out, you may want to consider a super-inefficient phones so you are forced to listen at low volumes

 

[Oddball]

I agree with lekguan, though I believe in-ear canalphones are ultimately better. More isolation, no leaking (unless something is drastically wrong) and less ear damage over time since the phones block out other noise you won't be as tempted to crank them out. But beware fiddling with volume on canalphones. Since you don't have a reference, you don't know how loud they are. Canalphones, in the end, allow for more enjoyment at lower volumes.

Or you could always do as austonia says and get both.

 

[ampgalore]

If you listen to music so loud that others around you can hear your music, you are already damaging regardless of what type of headphone you are using.

Of course if you are using open type headphones, it's a different story.

 

[Damage]

Making sure that the store you're purchasing has a liberal return policy:

I couldn't use Shure E2cs, not without a great discomfort (The overall design of those things were like medival ear torture device to me, they'd hurt my ears proper as well as the canal way, foamies or otherwise). Having a store that will take those back even after you use them is very nice, and may be worth that extra few bucks.

Too bad too, I really enjoyed those E2cs (and yeah, they sound much more detailed than the EXs).

 

[pic9809]

i use sealed at the gym and in-ear otherwise

 

[m12345]

Thank you all.

It will be a tough job if one wants to
test an er6, er4s/p, e3 and an e2... and in europe... and with the option to send them back (using payed-for foams etc that will be discarded afterwards of course), and testing a variety of sleeves/foams/etc. combinations. Oh dear. :-/

Thank you for your input!