How Bone Conduction Headphones Work (and When You Should Use Them)

I love my bone conduction headphones. I wear them while running so I can hear approaching traffic. I also love them for loud environments where I use earplugs. Since the ear canal doesn’t have to be open for headphones, I can use earplugs And I can still hear my bone conduction music. So what’s going on with this strange technology and what are its downsides? I’ll explain.

How bone conduction works

When we hear a sound from something around us, the sound waves usually travel through the air until they hit our eardrum, which is located in the ear canal. The eardrum vibrates to the beat of the music – actually the frequency of the sound – and transmits this vibration to tiny bones in what is called our middle ear.

(From there, vibrations are transmitted to the inner ear, including the cochlea, where they are converted into signals that are sent to our brain and then further processed into our perception of sounds. However, all of this is outside the scope of this article. We Mich only interested in how the vibrations from our headphones get to the middle ear.)

However, there is another way to make the middle ear bones vibrate: you can do this directly by sending vibrations directly through the head. Legend has it that Beethoven bit his conductor’s baton and held it up to his piano so he could “hear” through his teeth. You can now try this with any old earbud: Turn on music and hold your earbud’s speaker to your tooth. You will hear the music. Wild, right?

In fact, we hear bone conduction sounds all the time. Every time you speak, you hear your own voice via bone (and soft tissue) conduction And through the air. (This is probably why your recorded voice sounds so different than what you’re used to when speaking.) Put your fingers in your ears and speak loudly, and you’ll only hear the bone conduction part.

Bone conduction headphones take advantage of this phenomenon. Like all headphones, they have tiny speakers. But instead of pointing these little speakers into our ear canals to vibrate the air and then our eardrums, the headphones are designed to press their little speakers against a bone – usually the cheekbone right in front of the ear. Technically they also conduct sound through soft tissues like skin, muscle and fat, but the bones do a really good job and are the name of the technology.

Do Shokz and other “bone conduction” headphones really conduct sound through the bones?

Yes, they work via actual bone conduction, but not only Bone conduction. Some sound is also transmitted through the air.

Because people don’t always believe this – I came across a few Reddit threads arguing about whether bone conduction headphones are nonsense – here are two little experiments you can do with bone conduction headphones to understand what’s going on.

At first, wear them normally. The small speakers are located on the bony area directly in front of your ear. Turn on some music. Enjoy. Now carefully pull the speakers away from your head so that they are no longer in contact. YesYou will continue to hear the music. ButCompared to normal wear, it will be tinny and quiet.

Now wear them normally again, but cover your ears with your fingers (or a handy pair of earplugs, if you prefer). The sound will be different – a little deeper, that’s how I would describe it, but I’m no audiophile. It almost seems like it’s getting louder. The headphones definitely do not require air access to your eardrums to allow their sound to pass through.

Is bone conduction safe for your ears?

Bone conduction is neither better nor worse for your ears than traditional headphones because ultimately the same thing happens to both. Your cochlea (that is, tThe part of your ear is damaged (in the most common types of hearing loss) still receives the vibrations in both directions. Bone conduction headphones that are too loud are just as harmful to you as normal headphones that are too loud.

There is a way bone conduction headphones can be better for your ears, as I indicated above. If you are in a noisy environment, you can wear earplugs to protect your ears from the loud noises around you. And You can wear bone conduction headphones to drown out the silence with some music.

I started wearing the earplugs and headphones combo this summer when I was doing a lot of outdoor workouts near a loud air conditioner, and I also realized that the sound of dropping the bar was actually pretty loud too (the dropping the dumbbell bar does). a routine part of Olympic weightlifting). So I got some Loop earplugsand found that not only could I still listen to my music through my Aftershokz Aeropex Mini (an older version of what is now). Shokz OpenRun Mini), I was able to turn the volume almost to a minimum and still hear well. Overall, my ears are exposed to a lot less noise, so it’s a win-win.

What are the disadvantages of bone conduction headphones?

There are no health or safety drawbacks (as discussed above), but you won’t get pristine sound quality from bone conduction headphones.

Some are better than others, and you should always read reviews and try headphones in person if you want to make a purchasing decision based on sound quality. But in general, the advantages of bone conduction headphones are also their disadvantages. Because Shokz and Co. don’t block out ambient noise, the sound that reaches your ear is a mix of the music you intentionally play and the sounds of the world around you.

When I wear my Aftershokz with earplugs, I don’t get particularly good sound quality. Just as your voice sounds different with your ears plugged in, the sound mix from bone conduction and earplugs isn’t quite the same as what you would hear through a good quality pair of headphones.

Personally, I find that these small disadvantages are offset by the other advantages that bone conduction headphones offer. I don’t need to listen to my podcasts in crystal clear audio while running, I just need to be able to listen and hear what’s going on around me at the same time. If I Do I want to listen to music in high fidelity, I do that at home, with one Nice noise canceling headphones.