What Are the Different Types of Headphones?
Personal Listening Devices (PLDs) include personal amplification devices, bone-anchored hearing aids, middle-ear implants, and many other categories of devices, some medical and some private. This article is interested specifically in headphones, earbuds, and similar consumer audio devices, which have a market value of USD 10 billion.
There are five main types of consumer audio devices, each with its own impact on hearing safety:
Over-ear headphones provide the strongest noise isolation, which allows users to listen to audio at lower levels without sacrificing quality.
On-ear headphones rest on the ears, often leading to slightly higher listening volumes due to increased sound leakage.
In-ear headphones have a snug fit inside the ear canal and deliver a direct and intense sound, which can inadvertently lead users to listen at unsafe volumes.
Earbuds rest outside the ear canal, offering less isolation and often resulting in unsafe practices, especially in noisy surroundings.
Bone-conduction headphones rest on the cheekbones or behind the ear. They bypass the eardrum to send sound directly to the inner ear, allowing users to still hear ambient sounds.
Source: https://www.market.com/headphones-speakers/headphones/guides/headphones-hearing-loss-safety-guide/