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?

  • @PineRune
    13•9 months ago

    I wore some of these at work for a while to listen to music, since earbuds were an OSHA safetey issue.

    • They are horrible in loud environments. I had to turn them up so high thay they would vibrate, which was an unpleasent feeling.
    • However, you can still hear them fine with OSHA approved earplugs, but then the music sounds all muffled.
    • You can find lots of different ones on Amazon and such just by searching for bone conduction headphones, ranging from cheap to expensive.
    • The ones I got cost about $20 at the time, and had an okay sound quality, but not much bass.

    I leaned about these from the Soundband Kickstarter over a decade ago, whoch I backed. None of the backers ever got a product, as it seems the creators dropped the project and ran with the money. Those ones had the bone-conduction wrap around the ear. Instead of sit on the bone in front of the ear.

    Edit, to add a few points:

    • They were comfortable enough to wear for several hours, but the vibration got real annoying if I had to turn up the volume due to a loud environment. The band that wraps around the ears could get uncomfortable after a while.
    • It didn’t irratate my skin, but vibration at loud volumes was uncomfortable.
    • I wore these with glasses no problem.
    • The band that wraps around wasn’t tight, but fit okay enough to not flop around while working. Not sure about for jogging or other work-outs.