Bone Conduction Headphones VS Normal
Is bone conduction headphone amazing technology? No, it won’t make you faster and stronger, it’s just to make you more comfortable. If you are concerned about bone conduction headphones before, or if you are interested in trying out the new technology of sound equipment, or if you want to know the advantages and disadvantages of bone conduction and then you want to know if you are suitable for bone conduction headphones, this article may be helpful to you.
I will explain the bone conduction headphones in detail from various aspects, including bone conduction headphone pros and cons, so this will be a long post, If there is any incorrect info appeared on the post or you have any thoughts, welcome to comment below.
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Who may need bone conduction headphones?
What is bone conduction and how it works?
Advantages of bone conduction headphones
Disadvantage analysis
Is bone conduction headphones harmful to human health?
Why bone conduction headphones are suitable for sports scenes?
Why bone conduction headphones are suitable for people with hearing loss?
The benefits of bone conduction headphones for the elderly
Why bone conduction headphones are suitable for people who are allergic to or affected by earplugs?
Why bone conduction headphones are suitable for musicians?
Why bone conduction headphone is suitable for people who like to listen to audiobooks, news?
Who may need bone conduction headphones
- A deaf or person with a hearing loss in a single ear.
- People who need to listen to music in a sports scene and also need to pay attention to the surrounding environment.
- People who experience pain when wearing in-ear earphones.
- The elderly.
- Musicians who need to get feedback from the scene.
- People who like to listen to audio books and news.
What is Bone conduction and how it works?
Before introducing the principle of bone conduction, let’s do a small experiment. Please use your hands to cover your ears and then talk to yourself as quietly as possible, but you will find that even if your voice is small, you can still hear what you are saying. This is the result of bone conduction. When we scratch our heads, brush our teeth, and eat potato chips, most of the sounds we hear are transmitted to the brain through bone conduction.
For those who are not familiar with bone conduction technology, they may not understand how it works. Let’s further explore how bone conduction headphones work. In a normal environment, the sound is mainly transmitted through the air or through other related media. Our traditional in-ear or external headphones transmit sound through air vibration (the sound is transmitted to the eardrum through the air, and then reaches the auditory nerve through the eardrum) But bone conduction headphones are different, it uses the bones of our head to directly transmit sound to our auditory nerve. In short, bone conduction is a way of sound transmission. By transforming sound into mechanical vibration of different frequencies, through the human skull, bones lost, the inner ear lymph is transmitted to the cochlea, and then the auditory nerve converts the sound into the electrical signal transmission. Give the brain and hear the sound.
Advantages of bone conduction headphones
After testing a variety of bone conduction headphones, its advantages are obvious, mainly focused on sports scenes, health, and comfort.
Nothing in, on, cover your ears
When we use earbuds or external headphones to listen to music, we may have encountered such a situation: when you listen to the loud music with headphones, someone greets you behind, or there is a motorized horn to warn you, but you are completely not aware of it. Or do you miss the time to get off the bus with your headphones? That is not only embarrassing but also dangerous in some cases. The biggest advantage of bone conduction is that it does not block your ears, your ears are open, you can hear the warning sounds of the outside world, and this will not affect your enjoyment of music.
Keep your ears healthy
Any doctor will not advise you to listen to loud music for a long time, because excessive noise will directly accelerate the loss of the cochlea. Research shows that cochlear loss is always present, and its loss is directly related to age and excessive noise. So, can bone conduction headphones directly avoid cochlear loss? The answer is no. The sound we hear is transmitted through the cochlea into a nerve signal, no matter how it is transmitted. This process will deplete the cochlea. The use of bone conduction headphones can not avoid this situation, but why bone conduction headphones are good for ears healthy? In fact, it is easy to know from the conduction principle, the bone conduction method does not need to use the eardrum, so long-term use will not damage the eardrum! In addition, the ear canal is not blocked and it will be more hygienic. It will not cause otitis media due to bacterial infection of the eardrum (experience).
It can make you look different
Compared with the current variety of earphones, bone conduction is still an emerging product. If you want to have a different wearing experience and enjoy a different style, bone conduction headphones can be a good choice.
It can make you listen to music more comfortably
Have you met such a situation, after wearing in-ear headphones for a period of time, your ear holes have a feeling of pain? This is an annoying situation, is it? If you like to put the earplugs tightly into the ear holes like I do to hear more shocking sounds, then I recommend not doing this because it will make your ear holes uncomfortable after a while. The bone conduction earphones do not have such a problem, basing on the design of the bone conduction, it does not block your ear hole, it simply sticks to your ear, and it is very light, so even if you wear it for a long time, the ear area will not feel uncomfortable.
It won’t break your haircut
I have a date, I take care of my hairstyle, I don’t want anything to ruin my hairstyle, obviously, the plug-in headphones are not a wise choice, but the bone conduction headphones can be. The bone conduction earphones hook the entire earphone to the ear with a very thin titanium alloy, which is light and does not affect the hairstyle.
Moisture and sweat resistance
Is the moisture and sweat resistance of the headphones important? Yes, if you need to wear it for a sport. Most earphones neglect the waterproof feature of the earphones for aesthetic design, but you have to know that the sweat will gradually corrode the silicone that is in contact with the skin. After a long time, the appearance of the earphones will be damaged, and even functional problems may occur. If it rains, the situation may be even worse. The bone conduction earphone does not have any mesh holes, and its waterproof can be IPX6 level, which can effectively prevent water and sweat.
Disadvantage analysis
Sound quality
For users accustomed to traditional headphones, the acoustic fidelity of bone conduction headphones may be somewhat disappointing. Why do we think that the acoustic fidelity of bone conduction headphones will be worse than that of traditional earphones?
Due to the different media, the bone conduction earphones are incomparable to the traditional earphones in terms of tone quality. This is because the sound transmitted through the air will be affected by the surrounding environment, its energy will be greatly attenuated, causing a great change in the tone, and after the sound reaches the inner ear of other people through the air, it also passes through the outer ear, the eardrum, and the middle ear. The process affects the energy and tone effects of the sound. The sound transmitted through the skull passes directly through the bone between the throat and the ear to the inner ear. The attenuation and change of the sound energy and tone are naturally relatively small. Therefore, the effects of these two kinds of sound propagation will be different.
From the acoustic characteristics of the human skull, the human skull is equivalent to an equalizer, low frequency -10dB, intermediate frequency +5dB, and a slight drop between the intermediate frequency and the high frequency. Therefore, the performance of the bone conduction earphone in the three-frequency separation and the bass effect is not obvious, and the sound effect cannot be fully expressed. The three-frequency distribution of the traditional Bluetooth earphones are relatively balanced, the sound is full and thick, the layering is distinct, and the sound surround is strong.
Compared with the traditional earphones, the bass effect of the bone conduction headphones are not shocking enough, but as far as I know, the reason why the bone conduction bass is not good is mainly due to the natural defects of the bone conduction headphones technology. For example, Leaglee will artificially adjust the low-frequency part when tuning, the purpose of doing this is to enhance the comfort of the headphones, because the human bone is sensitive to low frequencies of 100 to 200 Hz, if the amplitude of the bone conduction earphone is slightly stronger, the bone near the ear will be uncomfortable. At the same time, due to the ears are open when the bone conduction headphones are worn, the sound cannot form a resonant cavity in the ear canal, so the low-frequency effect similar to the in-ear headphones cannot be released. But for the earbuds, they are relatively easy to make good sound quality because of their masking effect.
Overall, we are used to the sound of air conduction. In contrast, the sound quality of bone conduction headphones will look different, so the first attempt to bone conduction headphones does feel that it is less expressive in terms of sound quality.
In fact, I do not recommend comparing the sound quality of traditional headphones with the sound quality of bone conduction headphones, because bone conduction is completely different from the traditional earphones in terms of hearing, it’s just that human adopts for the way of gas conduction. This is not a technical issue, it is an adaptive issue. Another point, the fatness of the person and the brittleness of the bones are all factors that affect the sound quality of the bone conduction headphones. Because the medium is different, the sound is different.
Sound leakage
Due to the different internal structure and wearing method of the bone conduction earphone, the bone conduction earphones will have certain sound leakage problems. If you turn the bone conduction earphones loudly, people around you can almost hear content played by your bone conduction headphones. The traditional Bluetooth headsets have an in-ear design, and the soft earplugs have a good seal, which can well prevent the problem of sound leakage.
Disadvantage summary:
If the sound quality is important to you, and you don’t have the need to use headphones in a sports scene, or if you want to listen to private music in a quiet environment, the bone conduction headphones is not your good choice.
Is bone conduction headphones harmful to human health?
We are happy to see new technologies, and we are afraid of new technologies because of the unknown. Is the bone conduction earphone harmful to the human body? We analyze it from two parts: “the structure of the bone conduction earphone” and “the electromagnetic wave radiation”.
First of all, due to the particularity of the wear and sound transmission of bone conduction headphones, it generally does not cause damage to the external ear and the eardrum, in contrast, traditional in-ear headphones have more damage to the ear canal. But no matter which kind of music equipment, the auditory hair cells on the cochlea are subject to irreversible permanent damage when the volume is excessive. Meanwhile, when in outside, especially listen to music in buses or trains, the background noise is as high as 85 to 100 decibels, the human will unconsciously increase the volume to make music more clear, this will cause damage to hearing. So no matter what kind of headphones you use, the music volume should be under control.
Secondly, regarding the electromagnetic radiation of the bone conduction earphone, does it cause harm to human health? In fact, you don’t need to worry at all. We conducted an objective comparison test on the radiation volume of bone conduction headphones and mobile phones through a professional radiation monitoring instrument. The results show that when the bone conduction earphone and the mobile phone work simultaneously at the maximum transmission power, the amount of electromagnetic radiation at the bone conduction earphone is less than 100 times that of the antenna position of the mobile phone. And the electromagnetic wave of the bone conduction earphone belongs to low-frequency radiation, and such electromagnetic wave is completely harmless to the human body. Instead of worrying about the amount of radiation from the bone conduction headphones, it is better to worry about the radiation problem of the mobile phone.
Therefore, at present, bone conduction headphones do not have obvious harm. In contrast, in some respects, bone conduction headphones are more suitable for the human body than in-ear headphones.
The benefit of bone conduction in sports scenes
The design of the bone conduction earphones was also aimed at sports enthusiasts, it’s lighter, more wearable, and more waterproof, all in keeping with the needs of sports enthusiasts.
Comfortable
It is very important to wear a pair of strong and comfortable Bluetooth headphones during exercise, which will determine the quality of your exercise. Bone conduction headphones with rear-mounted design, it is ergonomically designed and does not cause any pressure on the ears, so it is more comfortable and firm when worn. But for the traditional Bluetooth in-ear headphones, it adopts an in-ear design in a wearing manner, and is fixed by earplugs when worn, if the size of the earplugs is too large, it will cause a painful feeling to the ear, and if it is too small, it will be unstable, unless you choose the professional sport earbuds, otherwise it won’t stay comfortable during exercise. Therefore, bone conduction headphones are more suitable for use in sports than traditional Bluetooth headphones in terms of wearing comfort.
Safety
When the bone conduction headphones are worn, the left and right vibration units of the bone conduction earphone are nearby the top of ears, your ear hole will not be covered, we can be aware of the alerts in the surrounding environment, such as the sound of motor vehicles, this can prevent some sudden dangers.
Swear-assistant
In order to make the in-ear headphones get more realistic sound, its sounding unit will not be designed to be waterproof, so if the sounding unit is wet, the whole earphone will not work. The bone conduction earphone transmits sound through vibration. It does not require any holes, so its waterproof level can reach IP55 waterproof level. This means we don’t need to worry about bone conduction headphones being damaged by sweat. After the exercise, we can easily clean the sweat on the bone conduction headphones, that is really convenient.
Why bone conduction headphones are suitable for people with hearing loss?
According to the data, the earliest bone conduction earphone appeared in 1935. Dr. Edgar Hand first provided bone conduction headphones to help his patients hear the surrounding sound. Subsequently, bone conduction technology was gradually incorporated into the medical research field. The bone conduction earphone is also widely used in the field of military and police, until the beginning of the 21st century, bone conduction headphones are known to the world as electronic consumer products.
A large amount of experimental data shows that bone conduction technology can indeed make people who are physically deaf heard the sound. Please note that this is only for physical deafness, such as ear canal damage, in this case, the human body does not lose its perception of sound, just the way to listen to the sound is hindered. If it is physiological deafness, Bone conduction headphones are not a good choice, because it’s not helpful for physiological deafness patients to resume hearing, Looking for the guidance of a professional doctor is the right thing to do.
The benefits of bone conduction headphones for the elderly
As the body functions decline, some older people will experience varying degrees of hearing loss, they have to use hearing aids to enhance hearing. In order to make the ears hear more clearly, hearing aids are often designed to be in the shape of earplugs, this has made it impossible for people wearing hearing aids to use in-ear headphones. The bone conduction earphone can perfectly solve this case, it is worn near the top of the ear and it works with the hearing aid without interfering with each other.
Why bone conduction headphones are suitable for people who are allergic to or affected by earplugs?
When wearing earplugs, we tend to unconsciously push it into the ear to make sure it doesn’t fall, but this is often the main cause of ear pain. In addition, if the quality of the soft plug of the headphones is poorly made, some people may also be allergic to it. If you have met this problem, you can try with external headphones or bone conduction headphones, and for bone conduction headphone, it’s lighter and more comfortable.
Why bone conduction headphones are suitable for musicians?
As far as I know, a considerable number of drummers say they need a device that can listen to music but doesn’t have to cover their ears. They often encounter this situation: If earplugs are used during rehearsal, they can hear other instruments but can’t hear the metronome. If you use in-ear or head-mounted headphones, they can’t hear the surrounding environment. After understanding bone conduction headphones, 90 percent of drummers believe that bone conduction headphones can solve these problems perfectly.
Why bone conduction is suitable for people who like to listen to audio books, news?
Compared to music, audiobooks or news do not require too much sound quality for headphones. If you like listening to audio books or news channels in various places, all the advantages of that bone conduction will be perfectly reflected. You can listen to audiobooks on the bus without worrying about missing a bus stop. You can walk while listening to the news without worrying about not being able to hear the alarms around you.
Finally, I make a recommendation:
So many kinds of bone conduction headphones sold on the market and the price can be from 30 to 200 dollars. If you have doubts about bone conduction technology but would like to give it a try, you may wish to try this cost-effective bone conduction earphone, it’s made by Leaglee and it has the same quality as the expensive bone conduction headphones on the market at a lower price. Learn about this SoundLurker bone conduction headphones from Leaglee.
As a lightweight bone conduction headset, SoundLurker looks more practical. Compared to other bone conduction headphones that look good in appearance, SoundLurker focuses on quality and its cost-effective. The selection of materials is based on the principle of comfort and durability, all designs are based on ergonomics, all for comfort. In addition, SoundLurker supports 6 hours playing time, IPX5 waterproof and so on. The technical team in Leaglee has been in the video and audio field for 7 years, since 2012. They very concern the sound quality of SoundLurker, with 11 procedures and commissioning, more than 20 acoustic experts were invited to tune, all is for improving its sound quality and make sure its sound quality can be comparable to thousands of bone conduction headphones. In terms of quality control, they adopt military-grade process standards to ensure reliable quality and comfortable. So why not try?
Check out the SoundLurker here:
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Heleco1981
I bought one from Amazon, now a happy customer.