For online classes, Headphones or Earphones?(3 keys)

what is good for online classes headphones or earphones. Researches have shown that headphones and earphones can produce more than 100 dB which can cause loss of hearing.

So what is the good for wearing and can be helpful doing online classes and keep the health safe at the same time?

In this article were going to list the pros and cons of using headphones and earphones in online classes.

also, give a recommendation of what students should pick studying or even teaching online.

headphones are better than eaerphones for online classes

In this paragraph we’re going to discuss the top 5 advantages that headphones have for online classes:

  • Big drivers
  • long time listening
  • realistic sounds
  • headphones are healthier
  • canceling noise

Driver sizes

Headphones are bigger in everything they have, but what is the most important in headphones is their drivers. Headphones drivers are bigger 6 to 7 times than earphones, which makes them better at producing good and higher sound quality.

the range of headphone size drivers is between 20 to 50mm while earphones don’t exceed 15mm. As result headphones offer broad sound surfaces versus earphones that have wide drivers.

This reflects the comfort of listening, especially for students who study classes online for long hours.

In online classes, students focus on two things, have a good ability to listen well without getting disturbed, secondly communicate with their instructors. So bigger drivers give a sound impression like you are in class.

That means the distribution of sound is uniform not too much concentrated like earphones.

listen for a long time

specialists advise to not listen more than 60 minutes a day using headphones or earphones. But headphones users say that listening for long minutes or even hours using headphones is more comfortable and less tiring.

This is why gamers tend to use headphones and not earphones because they stay for long hours in front of the computer.

earphones sound are more exhausting for ears, they concentrate a sound in a small spot of ears which unhealthier for the long run. For students or online teachers, it is hard to keep this sound in the core of ears like earphones do.

At least, with headphones drivers are not close that much to ears which makes the sound less sharp and smooth to support for long hours of online teaching.

They have more realistic sound

Headphones have more realistic sound, listening from 10mm drivers is not like 50mm. That is to say, the sound is broad, it gives an impression of student who is doing online classes such as being in real classrooms.

with headphones, your ear can catch a lot of sound details, meaning low frequencies sounds and smoother sounds.

for online classes having a realistic sound ensures more harmony and correlations between students and instructors. Students will take less energy and be more comfortable understanding lectures.

Or hear reactions and feedback from students as an online teacher.

Headphoes are healthier

According to Chicagotribune headphones and earphones are producing between 85 to 110 dB as maximum intensity, this intensity is detrimental for ears. So students shouldn’t exceed 75dB as maximum to preserve their ears.

Doctors advise keeping or staying in the range between 25 to 75 dB, which means students should not raise the volume of sound at maximum.

But what makes headphones healthier than earphones?.

headphones have to interesting advantages that make them healthier than earphones for online classes or general uses:

  • big drivers
  • good sound isolators
  • Big drivers: the sound surface that headphones offer is almost 10 times bigger than earphones could provide. So a student or user doesn’t have to keep the driver close to his ear which is more damaging. In addition, headphones don’t require to rise sounds volume and risk damaging the ear to understand well, like earphones.
  • Good sound isolators: headphones are great sound isolators, it’s enough to wear them only, without running them and feel how much of sound they isolate. They came with a rubber loop that isolate well the sound. All that makes users listen in the safe volume sound ranges and not damage their ears.

canceling noise

According to Hearlife, Using the active noise cancellation option in headphones can reduce incoming sound by up to 45 decibels, they say that the average is 30 dB. So headphones canceling noise option help to reduce a lot of noise in our daily life.

reducing noise means more concentration and less draining effort, this option is ideal for INTJ students are who too sensitive and get drained easily.

Canceling noise option eliminates the big portion of exterior sounds, and allow students or teachers to concentrate on their online lectures. This is crucially important when students are outside the home in busy environments such as coffee shops or libraries.

The healthier thing about this concept is a headphone user, use only 50% of sound intensity or less which keeps his ear safe.

Using earphones, in this case, is impossible, in crowded environments users tend to rise the sound 90% or more, they don’t have the voice canceling option.

Thus going out of the range that doctors recommend and damaging their ears for the long run.

Earphones are better than Headphones for online classes

after discovering the pros of headphones for online classes, is time to discover the 5 advantages of earphones for online classes:

  • portability
  • don’t require much power to run
  • your ear get heated up
  • price
  • style

Portability

Earphones are 10 times smaller than headphones, also they can weigh 15 times to 45 times less than headphones.

The headphone weight range is between 150g to 450g, this is different from earphones. The maximum weight that earphones can be is 50g (those who hold batteries). While the famous ones don’t exceed 20g.

earphones have one of the best things that students and online teachers love is portability. They take tiny space to store them, you can keep them in the pocket or everywhere you want. There is no problem and no one will notice that.

The portability side makes earphones useful to use for unexpected situations without having to plan for that. They can be with you where you are.

Don’t require much power to run

Earphones consume 200 times less than headphones which makes them more durable and flexible to use with any device. With headphones this is not possible, headphones require between 4 to 8 watts while earphones do overcome 40 milliwatts.

This importance resides in that earphones could be used with any device, for instance, if you do online classes and use a phone for filming thus, the only tool that you can use is an earphone, not a headphone.

if you are want to use a headphone you will likely need an amplifier to do that, because the power that headphones require is 100 times bigger than a phone can supply.

Earphone could be used for any device that students use for online classes:

  • phone
  • tablets iPad and surface pro etc
  • desktop computer
  • laptops
  • voice recorders

Your ear will heat up

The downside that a headphone has is aeration, which means after a couple of minutes of using headphones ears get warm and could easily sweat in hotter times or environments. wearing headphones cold easily warms your ears to 27 or 30 C.

This temperature is enough to start making your ears sweat, which is very annoying and many users don’t like that.

A lot of online class users give up the whole advantage that we noticed above for this single reason. When it possible to have a cold in winter times.

Price

on average headphones are 3 times more expensive than earphones, if we take a regular and acceptable quality of both earphones and headphones we find that the average cost of earphones is $30 while for $100 for headphones.

you can find cheaper headphones or earphones than the price we noticed above, but if talk about the good and reasonable quality this is the correct range price.

Especially for people who think to do or participate in online classes and wonder about earphones or headphones.

The earphone is the best beginning for online classes lovers or interested people to have a good quality earphone. Having an earphone for $30 is better than having a garbage headphone at the same price.

The style

for stylish users, earphones look more elegant and professional than earphones. it is like using a normal pen vs a fountain pen.

There is a big difference between wearing 15g in your ears and a heavier and big helmet that could extend your head for an additional 100mm(just for fun).

the heaviest headphone like 300g or 400g version tiring quickly a neck, it simply because you are exerting 20 times bigger of force than earphone would do.

Moreover, if we compare them with wireless earphones the difference is bigger and bigger.

So what should you choose for online classes earphones or headphones ?

according to the 10 insights that we listed in detail above, and online classes experience you shud choose headphones if:

  • you care more about your ear health
  • look for a detailed and high-quality sound
  • you will work for long hours
  • flexible management of sound(using amplifiers)
  • you work in busy environments
  • have the ability to afford it $100 or more
  • you’re mostly filming from home

and use earphones if you:

  • stylist person
  • can’t afford higher budgets
  • film outside the house like vlogging videos
  • use a phone to do online classes
  • ears sweat or get warm quickly
  • moving a lot
  • use different devices to record online classes

for people who have a little extra budget investing in both earphones and headphones to make online classes will be helpful. If they can devote $150 as the total budget to invest it will be a wise decision.

For people who love taking notes using the iPad is hugely important. you can learn more about this topic

yassin.ajanif

Yassin ajanif is a physics graduate and electromechanical engineer width more than 5 years in the field. My goal and my team are to share our experience to help you succeed in your career as a stem major. we talk about all tips, problems, and struggle STEM students face in their career and how to overcome them.