K712 PRO

I have a few headphones with varying levels of openness: * Sennheiser HD650 - open back, but not the best airflow * Hifiman Edition XS - more open than the HD650 and you can add a massive bass shelf with EQ if you want, without distortion * AKG K712 Pro - these are the most open of the 3 and I mostly use them if I've just come out of the shower and my ears are still not completely dry. In fact I end up using these a lot just for comfort reasons, even though the other 2 both sound better. There's also the K701/702 which is cheaper and supposedly more "correct" sounding, as the tuning is more neutral, though I tried one and found it a bit dull. It's the same basic design though so from an airflow perspective either one would be the same. I think for a single, everyday headphone that actually sounds good, with good bass (especially with EQ) and has reasonable airflow the Edition XS is a good balance, especially now that the price has fallen a lot since I bought mine. If you want no ear canal occlusion whatsoever then you could look at Shokz bone conduction headphones. But the trouble with these is that music does not sound good on them. And the drivers tend to tickle a bit at higher volume. I used to have the Aeropex (now renamed OpenRun I think) which is quite bassy. But I prefer the OpenComm for calls, podcasts, audiobooks, etc., because it has less bass and doesn't tickle as much. Plus music doesn't sound amazing on either of them. AFAIK there are no bone conduction headphones that really sound *good* yet, and they probably never will. Then you have so-called "air conduction" sometimes called "clip ons" which are basically a speaker that clips onto your ear but doesn't go into it. So these are also almost fully open (although they're still on your ear, unlike bone conduction which sits on your temple and doesn't cover the ear at all). I've only tried one of these but it has no bass at all really. From what I've heard, they're all like that, which isn't surprising from a physics standpoint. There are some newer Shokz models that use both bone conduction and air conduction, so they might sound better, but I haven't tried them. In any case, I suspect that going all the way to bone conduction or something is likely too extreme and not really necessary, as long as you're not using them all the time. You could also look into flatheads, especially for use on the go. They do sit in the ear, but they allow a lot more airflow than IEMs because they don't block off the ear canal. They can get a bit damp over time though, so you may want to limit how long you use them for. I recommend starting with either the Yincrow X6 (about $15) or the Faaeal Iris 2.0 (can sometimes be found as low as $5) because they're really good for the price, and cheap enough to give it a try and see if they work for you or not. What you may also want to do is buy some extra foam covers and replace those more frequently than most people would. You can get cheap ones from the Trig Rain store on Aliexpress, but stick to the plain black or white ones as the different colours can bleed the dyes. Also you might want to look into sprays/drops for swimmer's ear - maybe ask your ENT about that since it's not *just* a question of how wet/dry your ear is, it's also about the pH balance. What happens to people who over-clean their ears, and swimmers, is they knock the pH out of balance which is then leads to infections. Here's a good [video from an ENT](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qos5xwAfTOI) that talks about earwax, ear drop, and some of the things people do wrong when it comes to ear cleaning etc.