[Sigmaaa]

I recently visited a dealer and had a wall of headphones at my disposal. I had already known the issue at that time but I needed to renew my impressions and tried them to see how they fit. They were almost all bad or very bad.

My ears are of medium size and they don't stick out at all. I have a small top skull ridge which may weigh in when talking headband design, but even without it, the situation wouldn't have been much different.

What I've found:
Flat headbands, some of them almost with no curve when stretched on the head, just like wearing a straight stick on the head. Even with a flattish head at the top, these models would only make contact for 2cm at the top of the head.

To complement the flat headband (or to destroy the advantage of a curved one), a lot of them had a 2-3mm thick padding. Some Momentus felt like they were digging my head with 2 very narrow and almost un-padded bands. The ATH wing headbands made them slip down my head and the cups didn't rotate vertically because of the headband design. Some AKG had a nice suspended leather headpad, but then it had very hard ridges sticked on it, like put there on purpose, as a torture device.

The earpads on most of them were a disaster. A lot of them were more on ear than over the ear. Some of them had strange shapes. Some of them pressed directly on the ears with the driver grille. Some of them were round and didn't take the shape of the skull and they pressed on 2 points, above and under the ear. Some of them had hard earpads that pressed on the head. On some of them the padding was too little and soft and I could feel the cups edges through them.

From about 35-40 headphones, I could find 3-4 good ones and 3-4 decent but with small issues.

So, why is the headphone design so atrocious towards human anatomy?! There aren't many ways to make comfortable headphones and every manufacturer seems to have found a unique way to destroy the ergonomy.
I've found the Sennheiser HD6xx series, HD700 and HD5xx series to be the only ones that could fit and not have huge issues, although the HD6xx could be better with some softer HD569 memory padding, on the HD700 I could feel a little of the cups edge through the padding, and the HD5xx series should have a more curved headband. The HD6xx seemed the best. With a softer padding material would have been perfect. And maybe deeper cups for those Dumbo types.

Also, who buys them? Who can stand a piece of hard grille pressed on the ears or a piece of almost unpadded plastic pressed on the top of the head? I want to know those people, because they evidently exist, since manufacturers seem to not go out of business that often.

 

[rutter]

Sounds like you're describing cheaper headphones. The stuff I've tried doesn't have a flat headband. As to why headphones continue to be made that way, including the Campfire Cascade, beats me. The earpads remind me of the Oppo PM-3. Still a $400 headphone that I thought sounded like crap too. Unfortunately that is in the "cheaper" range, which is shocking to write.

 

[Sigmaaa]

Some of them were midrange, some even top-range, 100-1000$, most of them centered around 300-500$. The planar magnetics seemed comfortable as shape, but half a kg on the head is a no-no for me.

 

[rutter]

$1000 is barely top range, if it's considered that. But yea, $300-$500 not high range in context. The Audezes are the heavy ones, as for how well they are tolerated you need a little bit of experience with that. All new units come with a different two-piece headband now, leather underneath an outer metal piece, the leather being similar to what Hifiman does. I do agree it's still a travesty for $300-$500 headphones to have dumb headbands and nonsensical earpads.

 

[Preachy1]

Agree to a certain extent. I cannot say that I've sampled 30-40 sets, but out of the ones that I have used, I've found the Focal Elear's to be near perfect, fit-wise. Appropriately curved (at least for my head) band with just the right amount of padding; ear cups fit me perfectly. I routinely wear these for 6-8 hours a day while I work from my home computer.

Audeze, on the other hand, do leave something to desired. I have three different sets (LCD-2, 3, XC) all with the older style headband, and they can create hotspots. I bought and tried the new style headband, but returned it after a week as there was NO GAP between the leather strap and the metal suspension bands. They hurt me after only a few minutes of wear.

 

[ZenErik]

I agree somewhat except that I find A-T wing system stuff very very comfortable. Guess I have the right sized head for it. I find A-T's ADX5000 system to be just as comfortable while also probably working for more people. I also find MrSpeaker's suspension system fairly comfortable. But most headphones cause me to focus on discomfort at times rather than enjoying the music. It's a little annoying.

 

[Preachy1]

Forgot make mention of the A-T wing thing. I had a pair of the ATH-A1000Z. The suspension was so poorly designed, if I barely made any motion while wearing them, they would slide down below my ears. And with nearly no clamp force, I had to squeeze them with my hands to get the full sonic benefit.

They are now living somewhere in Europe, happily I hope!

 

[ZenErik]

Forgot make mention of the A-T wing thing. I had a pair of the ATH-A1000Z. The suspension was so poorly designed, if I barely made any motion while wearing them, they would slide down below my ears. And with nearly no clamp force, I had to squeeze them with my hands to get the full sonic benefit.

They are now living somewhere in Europe, happily I hope!

Sounds like you just needed to bend the metal rods on the headband in a bit. I understand that it's inconvenient to have to do this, but it does work. Fortunately (or unfortunately) my head is pretty big and I never needed to do that on the 4 different wing system A-T cans I've tried.

 

[Preachy1]

Sounds like you just needed to bend the metal rods on the headband in a bit. I understand that it's inconvenient to have to do this, but it does work. Fortunately (or unfortunately) my head is pretty big and I never needed to do that on the 4 different wing system A-T cans I've tried.

I suppose, but they're gone so it's all speculation now.

 

[ZenErik]

I suppose, but they're gone so it's all speculation now.

Oh yea. For sure. Doesn't really matter anymore.

I believe their new system is better, but it's only used on the ADX5000 right now. Hopefully they'll be bringing it to other headphones soon. Might make people more interested in their products.

 

[Preachy1]

I am so pleased with the Focal Elear's, I'm now squirreling away cash (or as a friend says, "stacking Franklins") for a pair of the Utopia's in the next year or so.

But back to headphone design, one of my pet peeves (also focusing on the ATH line) are mid-fi (and up) cans that do not have removable cables. That was another key reason for my parting with the W1000's.

 

[tienbasse]

Simple answer from someone working in R&D = when you don't have anything concrete to sell novelty every year, then aesthetic features take over performance and usability.
It's called cheap innovation for the masses.

Campfire Cascade is the latest iteration of that trend in high-end models. Ergonomy nonsense at its worst. But Campfire was already huge on making non-ergonomic IEMs before, so it's nothing new for them. Anything with a sharp angle should NEVER EVER come close to ears.

 

[rkw]

The most comfortable headphones I've tried are... Bose QC35. This actually makes sense, as it was designed for people to wear on long plane flights and commuting.

I don't get it why people have brought up price, as though it is somehow correlated to comfort. This is about design decisions that have no effect on manufacturing cost.

 

[loopfreak]

Simple answer from someone working in R&D = when you don't have anything concrete to sell novelty every year, then aesthetic features take over performance and usability.
It's called cheap innovation for the masses.

You've nail it, now close the thread

 

[Roderick]

I wouldn't say allmost all headphones are ergonomically bad. I think some people just have zero tolerance for uncomfort and/or poor neck muscles.