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Comment by mastazi | Hacker News Reader

I can't wear any earphones for more than 5 minutes without them falling off, this is due to the morphology of my ears. I wonder: how large is the percentage of people with the same problem? Anecdotal, but I know personally at least a couple other people that can't wear earphones for the same reason.

Note: I'm talking about earphones/earbuds exclusively, headphones are fine for obvious reasons. Also some types of earphones (designed for sports) that have "ear-hooks" behind the ear are fine since the hooks will keep them in place.

Note 2: my ears don't have the "bump" (not sure what the scientific term is) that is circled in red in this picture https://imgur.com/a/CJv20Zu

Edit: that bump that I don't have is called "Antitragus" https://elementsofmorphology.nih.gov/anatomy-ear.shtml

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You are definitely not alone! I have a very small antitragus, earbuds are not an option for me. They hold so poorly that I can't even walk around without them falling out, much less do any real activity. And if that weren't bad enough, for some reason they cause a significant amount of pain after 10 minutes or so.

If it's an ongoing problem that you really want to solve, check out companies like Etymotic who will take custom molds and make you exactly the earbud you need. I don't have headphones like this but I did get my musician-quality earplugs for live music done this way and it is a 1000% game changer for me.

Does this mean you can't wear in-ear monitor type things, e.g. memory foam tipped earbuds that stay in (I thought) through pressure in the ear canal?

In my experience, many in-ear earphones don't have enough "grip" inside the ear canal and they still rely on that "bump" in order to stay in place. I'm talking about the ones that have a soft rubbery tip, I've never tried earphones with memory foam though.

I lack that same bump! Historically I have only ever bought the kind of earbuds with the behind the ear hooks as well. That being said, the airpod pros stay put for me pretty well out of the box, but even better after I modded them with some memory foam.

You’re not alone, I have trouble keeping earbuds in also. If I keep my head still, they will slowly slip out after about a half hour. Doing any sort of exercise will make them fall out. I have tried many different tip types and sizes for these and other earbuds/IEMs. Outside of expensive custom-fit IEMs, I’m not sure what to do besides resort back to over-ear headphones.

The pros you sort of shove into the ear canal and they're more or less wedged in place, right? Same with other earbuds like jaybirds. They're very different design than the normal airpods in that sense which I could totally see falling out if you were missing this "bump" on your ear.

So as I said in another comment in this thread, in my experience, many in-ear earphones don't have enough "grip" inside the ear canal and while they will stay in place in the short term (5-10 minutes) they still rely on that "bump" in order to stay in place in the long term. The ones I've tried had rubber tips, another user told me that there are some with memory foam, maybe those ones would work

True for me as well, but more importantly, the horrible audio quality literally causes me pain. Something to do with the poor frequency eq curve and limited range, I'm guessing.

(Plus, phones that leak audio seem rude in public places.)

Interesting! Do foam earplugs work for you (expanding in the ear)? If so, Comply makes foam tips to fit various models of earbuds.

Yes the foam earplugs that you wear for noise protection work for me, before reading this thread I didn't know that there were foam tips for earphones, thanks for the tip (pun intended)

I have the same problem with the old airpods, but I have had no problem with other type of in ear ear bud like the pro models.

Unfortunately those don't work for me either. Yes the in-ear ones will stay in place for a longer time, but never more than about 10 minutes, which is not enough to make them viable for me.

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