Headphones

Whether you’re trying to rid of external noise while studying or listening to your favourite music in a crowded place, noise-cancelling headphones are a superb product to help you hear what you want to hear and eliminate what you don’t. If you’ve ever used a pair of noise-cancelling headphones, you may have wondered exactly how…

It’s easy to plug your headphones (and other devices) into their proper jacks or ports and have them work… until it’s not. Learning how headphone jacks and plugs work electrically will help tremendously in our comprehension of signal flow and device compatibility while also improving our troubleshooting skills. How do headphone jacks and plugs work?…

As we may know, headphones convert audio signals into sound waves that we can listen to. Without a proper driver, headphones would not be able to function. What is a headphone driver? A driver is the headphone’s transducer element responsible for converting audio (electrical energy) into sound (mechanical wave energy). Each pair of headphones has…

We often take wired headphones for granted: plug them in, and voila, we have sound. As an audio engineer, I find it fascinating to understand exactly how audio is carried through headphone cables. I’ve created this article for those who share my curiosity and would like to understand audio signal flow and headphones better. How…

Over-the-ear headphones come in two distinct types: open-back and close-back. Depending on the naturalness of sound and the level of isolation, we may choose one over the other. What are open-back and closed-back headphones? Open-back and closed-back are the two predominant types of over-the-ear headphones. Open-back headphones have a perforated or open shell that allows…

If you’ve been searching the web or looking around your local shop for headphones, you’ve likely heard about active noise-cancelling (ANC) headphones and perhaps about the lesser-marketed passive noise-cancelling (PNC) headphones. Whether you’re in an office, on a plane, or in a noisy apartment, noise-cancelling headphones can provide the isolation required to focus on the…

The term “headphones” applies to a great variety of audio-to-sound transducers. A major difference in headphone types is between earbuds and regular headphones. Before we begin, it’s critical to note that “headphones” is an all-encompassing term. However, people often call headphones the ear-covering type of headphones while they call earbuds the ear-inserted type of headphones….

So you’re looking into getting a pair of active noise-cancelling headphones/earplugs, and you’re wondering if you can still listen to music or if these headphones will provide a good listening experience. Do noise-cancelling headphones work with or without music? Active noise-cancelling (ANC) headphones, by the meaning of their name, allow us to listen to music…

If you’ve ever taken apart a pair of headphones or researched how headphones work, you’ve likely seen (or read about) headphone drivers. These drivers are the transducer elements in headphones responsible for converting audio signals into sound waves and come in a wide variety of sizes. What Is A Good Driver Size For Headphones? The…

If you’ve ever plugged an older smartphone or portable music player into a car stereo, you’ve likely used an aux (auxiliary) cord to make the connection from the device’s headphone jack to the car’s aux input. If you’ve ever wondered if the names of these connectors are interchangeable, this article is for you. Are AUX…

If you’ve ever wondered how your headphones or earbuds work, you’ve likely researched and learned that they have magnets in their design that help to convert audio signals into sound. Are the magnets in headphones/earbuds bad for you? There are no studies suggesting that the magnets and the relatively small magnetic fields in headphones negatively…

If you’re like the many people who use headphones each and every day, you’ve likely wondered how they produce sound. In this beginners’ guide, we’ll discuss the inner workings of headphones simply before diving into the more technical details. How Do Headphones Make Sound? Headphones act as transducers and convert audio signals (electrical energy) into…