I just recently learned that this is a thing that exists. I’ve had a couple audiology tests that use these weird headphones with firm rubber balls where normally expect to see the speakers; the rubber balls sit on your temporal bone, and there’s a metal bar the wraps around your head connecting them and giving them pressure to kinda squeeze your head.
The sound experience was pretty wild - my ears were completely open, so I could still hear ambient noises, but the sounds from the headphones were just kinda there… like it didn’t sound like they were coming from anywhere, but like beamed directly into my brain.
I was curious if these were exclusive for audiology testing or if there were commercial variants for listening to music and such… hit the ol’ search engine, and lo and behold: there are actually quite a few commercial variants!
- TLDR -
Anywho, I’m intrigued as hell, and am curious if anyone here has experience with bone conduction headphones. Lots of questions:
Which brand/model are you using?
How’s the sound quality?
How’s the sound leak?
What kind of music do you use it to listen to? (my poison of choice is symphonic metal, with emphasis on the symphonic bits – looking for that full range hit everything from the flutes to the howler monkeys :P)
Are they comfortable to wear? For how long?
Do you get any skin irritation or even breakdown where it contacts your temple?
Does the hook part wrap around your ears without any pressure points?
Does the behind-the-head band bounce around when you’re walking or running?
How much space is between the band and the back of your head/neck? (I think my noggin is a bit on the smaller side, and I have basically no hair… one of the manufacturers makes one with a smaller sized band, which might be a good selling point for me)
How’s the battery life?
How long have you had it?
When do you use it? (working out, at work, etc)
Do they stay put, or do you need to reposition them frequently?
Anything else to comment on?
AfterShokz is the most notable brand that makes these, but they are called “bone conduction” headphones.
I had a coworker who would swear by these things. We cannot wear double earplugs at work, so that was her solution to listen to music. I did some googling and found that many people stated that the audio quality is decent, but bass can be very lacking on them. It seems like wearing earplugs with them supposedly help things like that. I love bass and can’t stand not having it, so I never bothered to try a pair.
Personally, I have a pair of wireless earbuds instead altho I don’t wear them at work. They have both an “ambient” mode where I can hear stuff around me similar to how you can with bone conduction headphones, and they also have a noise cancelling mode. The battery doesn’t last nearly as long as with something like a pair of AfterShokz tho and you have the discomfort of putting them in your ear canal. But I’ve always been curious about bone conduction headphonesn too! Hope you enjoy them if you get a pair!