Listen to Music Actively with Bone-Conduction Earphones!

Earphones are things that you put in your ears to listen to music... but the advent of bone-conduction earphones has changed the concept of earphones. Bone-conduction earphones have various advantages because you can listen to music without blocking your ears. So, let's introduce bone-conduction earphones.

■ What are Bone-Conduction Earphones?

Bone-conduction earphones are earphones that transmit sound through the skull. With normal earphones, sound is transmitted from the ear canal to the eardrum, to the cochlea (an organ that converts sound into electrical signals), and then to the brain. With bone-conduction earphones, sound is transmitted from the skull to the cochlea and then to the brain.

In other words, the organ that catches sound vibrations has changed from the eardrum to the skull. In order to transmit sound to the skull, you need to set up a device that transmits sound to the temples. That device is a bone-conduction earphone.

■ The Recommended Features of Bone-Conduction Earphones!

○ You can hear the sounds around you

This is probably the biggest advantage of bone-conduction earphones. With earphones or headphones, the earholes or the whole ear are blocked, so it becomes harder to hear the sounds around you. With bone-conduction earphones, the earholes are completely open. Naturally, you can hear the sounds around you as they are.

And yet, you can still hear the sound coming out of the earphones, so you can use them conveniently. For example, if you want to listen to music while your baby is sleeping, you can enjoy the music while keeping an eye on your baby.

You can also use them while driving a car or bicycle. When driving a car or bicycle, it is dangerous if you cannot hear the sounds around you, so you cannot use earphones or headphones that completely block out sound. For cars, there is also the option of using wireless speakers even if the car does not have an audio system, but for bicycles, if you use wireless speakers, the sound will be scattered all around you, so I recommend using bone-conduction earphones. As they do not block your ears, you can also hear the sound of the wind and feel refreshed.

○ Your ears won't get stuffy or sore!

If you block your ears with earphones or headphones for a long time in summer or other hot weather, you may get itchy from the heat. With bone-conduction earphones, your ears are not blocked, so you won't get itchy. I recommend them for listening to music for long periods of time.

Also, I think that some people get earaches from headphones that press on the ears for long periods of time. Bone-conduction earphones don't cause earaches because they are placed against the skull.

○ Hard to remove, so good for sports

Many bone-conduction earphones are of the type that you hook over your ear. With earphones, some people find them easy to dislodge depending on the shape of their ear canal. Bone-conduction earphones are designed to stay in place, so they are also suitable for sports and other activities where you move around a lot. They are also good for sports like tennis and basketball where you want to hear the sound of the ball and the voices of your opponents.

■ Points to Keep in Mind When Purchasing!

○ There may be some sound leaking

You should expect some sound leakage from bone-conduction earphones due to their structure. If you are using them in a quiet place such as a library, you should be careful about the volume. If you are jogging or walking outside in a park or cycling, you probably won't need to worry about it so much.

○ Note the water resistance.

Since bone-conduction earphones are likely to be used outside, you should also pay attention to their splash-proof performance (their ability to prevent water ingress). Splash-proof performance is expressed as an IPX rating, so check the specifications in catalogues or on the internet. The minimum rating you should look for is IPX4 (no harmful effects from splashes from any direction).

○ Whether or not it gets in the way of glasses

As many bone-conduction earphones are of the type that you wear over your ears, they may interfere with the arms of your glasses. As they hook over the arms of your glasses, they may interfere if your glasses have thick arms or unusual shapes.

■ Recommended Bone-Conduction Earphones!

I will introduce two types of bone-conduction earphones that you can buy from Sound House.

movio / ActiBone M305BONE Bone Conduction Wireless Earphones

This is a wireless bone-conduction earphone with Bluetooth 5.0. It weighs only 28g, so even if you use it for a long time, your head won't get tired. You can play music for up to 5 hours continuously. It is waterproof to IPX5, which means “no harmful effects from water jets from any direction. Splash-proof.” It seems like you can use it even in heavy rain.

myFirst / BC Wireless GN01 Gray Bluetooth bone-conduction earphones for children

These are bone-conduction earphones for children. They are lightweight at 26g and have a continuous playback time of 5 hours. The key point to note is that, in addition to the standard SBC codec, they also support AAC. AAC is a wireless standard mainly used in Apple products, and it has better sound quality and less delay than SBC. If you use an iPhone or similar device, I recommend these as they allow you to listen to higher quality audio.

The waterproof performance is IPX6. IPX6 means “no harmful effects from water jets from any direction. Water-resistant type.” So you can use it with peace of mind even in heavy rain. The material used on the surface is PET, the same material used for PET bottles. The fit is gentle, so even children can use it with peace of mind.

■ It's also Good to Use Earphones and Bone-Conduction Earphones Depending on the Situation

There are also many regular earphones with good sound quality, so if you want to be particular about the sound, you could use regular earphones, and if you want to use them while doing sports, driving a car or riding a bike, you could use bone-conduction earphones. Please give them a try.

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