(Sorry if it’s a miss, this community looked the most fitting)
After mentioning them somewhere in comments, I actually bought Shokz after years of sitting curious. There are a few brands that do them, so it doesn’t matter what’s the brand is. I bought what I’ve heard of and the cheapest model I could find at that.
So, what’s the trick? As I’m cycling, walking and running a lot, I needed a headphone solution to be aware of my surroundings. They don’t cover ears and don’t actually emmit sound - they vibrate and make your bones serve as a membrane.
The obvious minus is that in a bus or other loud setting you can’t hear shit. That’s by design. And, logically but somehow absurdly, by shutting your ear with a finger, you can make yourself hear it okay. I did a full circle here, returning to the old headphones isolation problem, heh.
But what impressed me more, they do feel like some kind of a cyberpunk prosthetic. You can wear them all day and even the cheapest one that promises 6hr of activity lasts days on the idle. But as you call someone or watch a vid – here they are, with a little to no latency. Honestly, I feel like if there’d be implants, that’s one of the basic ones we can try first. It’s hands-free device with a bonus of being more stealthy and not isolating you from the world.
As a cheapskate audiophile who stayed with cords for a long time, I can say that the sound is okay. Keeping in mind that producers can’t control the skull of a wearer, they can’t nail the ideal sound, but I’m impressed with how nice IDM and metal plays on them - something akin to budget Senh, AKG and Audiotechnica. And unlike cheap Sony, they don’t put up low freqs, that’s a plus. BUT when I shared it with others, people in body reported less effectiveness due to thickness of skin and under-dermal stuff, so it’s better to test it if you aren’t skinny as a skeleton.
After being so open about plus sides, I’m to talk minuses. Since the software is proprietary, it doesn’t have many controls and is very weird sometimes. As I bought a model that was for internal chinese market originally, it talked to me in Chinese, and it can only be switched to another language before any pairing, so only after unpairing I could’ve chosen English – and the same combination of button presses when paired was reserved to calling the last called number, so I fucked up a lazy weekend morning for a friend of mine calling them 4-5 times, damn it. Ah, and it supports dual pairing with a PC and a smartphone, but as I tested it this function worked weird and I sometimes manually disconnected them. Walking&working distance from a source device is around the second or third room, that fits most office and home listening cases. I could’ve probably wished for it to have an option to pick lesser distance since I don’t usually have even a meter between my smartphones and them.
Ah, and going back to the bus problem - the obvious downside that you want to turn them to 100% volume that you don’t feel, but your ears do. After the first day when I needed to move a lot in loud contexts and thus put them on max, I had a headache, because although I didn’t register the volume, my head had a first row concert experience. So if you use these, keep that in mind too.
Have you tried them, is there a topic I haven’t covered? As you can tell, I’m happy with them, so I would be biased. It’s just with VR stuff, even from Apple, I feel like we underlook existing tech that already serves us as expander of our life experiences and powers.
I’ve been giving these more and more of a thought lately. I like the idea that you can just leave them on and not worry about taking them out to hear things.
Only question. Can people near you hear them at all? Like on a plane?
@realitista @andrew_bidlaw they’re really not good in loud places like a plane (for you) in my experience the person you’re on a call with will hear you just fine, but being open-ear designs they just can’t compete with jets.
They are very good for having background music going in offices and such - you can hear it, but you can have conversations over it without any trouble
From my experience it’s not louder on max volume than simple earbuds put out of ear. They have metal details, so they do serve as little membranes, but I don’t find them significant. I’m listening to a lot of problematic stuff on a daily basis and didn’t have any weird looks. Most people didn’t even recognize I’m listening to something in a calm office setting.
In a quiet setting, with the headphones raised to 70-100% volume, people within 1-2m will be able to make out what you are listening too.
(This is with Aeropex Aftershockz)
Keep in mind, at 100% volume they buzz and tickle on your skin, so I never have them set to 100% ever.
60-70% is clear enough for enjoyable listening.
So at normal listening volumes no one can hear, but it sounds like normal listening volumes aren’t good enough for a plane?
I’ve combined these headphones with earplugs for a plane trip. Engine roar overpowers the sound for bone conducting headphones the same way it does for earbuds or headphones that don’t isolate. You might still need to crank the volume up, though. Planes are loud. No issue of other people overhearing it at that point though.
A note about the Aftershockz is that the bluetooth connect beep is very loud and cannot be adjusted.
Yeah I did send them a message about that. Please fix in next firmware version lol
Can others hear whatever’s playing? Like if I’m wearing it on the bus or in library, can others hear my music?
I’ve never used one, but I’ve read reviews on the cheaper ones, they said it’s just speakers in front of your ears.
More or less. Bone conduction headphones still operate by vibrating, and vibration makes sound, no matter how small it is.
They use vibrations to drive your skull as a membrane to make a sound. If you turn them on 100% their own metal pieces would do the sound, but it’s still be silent as 10% volume on your smartphone.
As you can tell by my nickname, I’m from Russia and I tested it through and through, for there were sanctions against those that just scrolled anti-russian memes in a public transport. I watch oppositional figures every time I commute to and from work, so I guess it’s okay.
It’s safe privacy-wise. But as I said, you need to control the volume, because the max volume can exhaust your brain even if you don’t really hear it. But everything lesser than 70% isn’t heard by others even in silence.
Yup, that’s my experience as well. I even left mine running on my desk and I didn’t notice until I checked my bluetooth connections.
it does depend on the ones you have. The cheap ones are just speakers. I have one of the higher end shoks with audio boost and it feels like it has a little speaker on top of the bone conducting.
if you’re in a quiet room and you put them on max and leave it on your desk you’d probably be able to pick out what it’s playing. I think at that point though the desk is somewhat becoming a medium for the sound…
I use these for cycling abs gifted my father in law a pair as he suffers from tinnitus and a few issues hearing
I’m sure DankPods made a video about bone conduction headphones on YouTube. He tested 3 different models from different manufacturers and… well, he had quite a lot to say about them, especially when comparing them to sunglasses that are also headphones.
Can you post a link? There’s a lot of bad and good stories about them in this thread. It’d be great if persons considering these devices would read them first.
Thanks for delivering it. I liked that vid, but surprisingly not only for comparison of different pairs, but for introducing me to headphoneXsunglasses device. This concept left me in LOLWUT state for minutes (:
I had a pair I bought at big lots like 20ish years ago. They were pretty cool, but uncomfortable fitting around my big ass head. Positioning them was annoying and the sound quality wasn’t the best. The novelty wore off and I wasn’t using headphones nearly enough back then.
Lately though, I’ve been thinking about getting a pair again, as every time I put my sennheisers on, someone inevitably comes in to talk to me. Would be good at work for overnights too, where I have to be able to hear people out of their room/walking around. I’m sure the technology and fit has gotten better and I can afford ones that weren’t on sale a big lots!
As I said, you can use the cheapest on-brand pair, so you don’t lose much if they won’t be your thing. At least for Shokz, as I googled, they don’t differ much - mostly by their standard of being water-proof and the battery. I’m looking forward to your experience with them, especially if you take the other brand or model. Good luck!
Yeah, I was looking at the Shokz, also some YouthWhispers that are rated pretty good and also on sale for 30% off. I think I’ll bite the bullet and give them a try.
I love mine for listening to audiobooks at home. I can pause them and have a conversation with my family without having to take them off.
Have these Chinese devices been tested / approved by any reasonable governmental health organism?.
They’re headphones not nukes. Calm down grandpa
Don’t give Americans ideas dude, they will nuke away everyone’s head. Ah sorry they dead it already :D
Well since it’s apparently something using your bones to conduct sound, I’d say it’s legitimate to ask if it’s safe or if it can lead to long term harm.
Same with all the waves emitted by phones, earbuds, WiFi, etc…
Health organism? You mean a human being?
No, hamsters
In this very post I pointed out that you don’t register the volume if there’s a loud noise around you, that can cause headaches. As people buy them from official stores, I guess they are as safe as usual headphones. And this problem is usually dealt with on source device’s end – my chinese phone shows a notification if I exceed the recomended volume and if I use headphones for too long.
A bit late to the game, but for what it’s worth, my experience with the Shockz. I run about 6-7 hours per week, and listen exclusively to audiobooks. As a result, I can’t comment on the sound quality, but I do have some other observations.
Pros:
- Waterproof. I’ve been running for more than a decade before I got the Shockz, and no earphones lasted more than 6 months in the local rain. No such issue with these headphones.
- Not falling off. By their design, they would not fall off, unlike any and all earbuds I ever tried. I may have weird ears in this regard, but I had to learn to run with a hat or headband to keep earbuds in place.
- Spatial awareness. Excellent at keeping me aware of my surroundings.
- Good battery life. A single charge lasts me through the week, and a quick partial emergency charge can carry me over the next 2-hour run. In addition, the “battery low” status actually works well. With any other brand of earbuds, from Mpow to Anker, once I got the “battery low” warning, I had about 20 minutes of charge left. So, going for a long run at “battery medium” was always a gamble. With the Shockz, I never ran out of charge when I started at “battery medium”, even on my long runs.
Cons:
- Not too comfortable. I have a big head, and even so the band behind my head is standing off enough that I can’t wear my hat over it. So, in winter it’s earbuds, held in place and waterproofed by my hat.
- A bit too quiet. Everything, including the persistent wind here, is interfering with the sound. So, for audiobooks, I have to process them in mp3gain to around 95 dB, and then play them at max. This, however, may be more related to my mp3 player; I didn’t do an analysis of it yet.
- The controls are weird. My sense of touch is not too good, so pressing the controls while the Shockz are on my head is a futile exercise. I just can’t feel the buttons properly, so I have to take off the headphones and see which button I’m pushing.
I didn’t test them with music or calls yet (for the latter, I’d have to pair them to my phone), so can’t comment on those features.
I’ve been using various Aftershokz/Shokz models for many years and well over a thousand hours. They are a great option for speech-focused contents like podcasts, audiobooks and that’s what I use them for. I almost never use them for music, the lack of bass (even with earplugs) just doesn’t do it for me. But I don’t find any earbuds satisfactory for music either so maybe I am more picky than most.
I agree with OP about the controls. They are workable but could be much better even considering the limited inputs. I particularly hate the choice of triple-click for backwards-seek and I mess up the timing half the time. Another pet-peeve is the loud beep on play/pause that cannot be turned off. Using the phone/computer controls instead of the on-device ones avoid these issues.
As far as models I originally got the Aeropex and later on “downgraded” to the OpenMove. The audio quality is comparable between the two, the only thing you are missing with the lower end model is comfort - but that is highly subjective! I actually prefer the way the OpenMove feels.
I really wish that there was more competition in this space. The Shokz products are a bit overpriced and slow to evolve and the rest of the options I’ve seen seems lower quality and worse form factor. Would love to hear if anybody has found a different brand that they prefer over the Shokz models.
I would subscribe to every paragraph of yours. Especially the loud notifications. For some reason they don’t adjust to the chosen volume.
I don’t know, how are they popular, but I guess if they’d be a daily driver for many, there would be an interest for others to participate in a competition. But from what I see in Russia where I live, the topmost models are cheap airpods and beats replicas, and I’m probably in the dozen of those who use that tech at all, and I don’t see anyone also using them. It’d take decades and kilometers of my and others’ fanboying to change that.
Suunto Wingz
Mileage may vary, but they tickle my ears when playing on high volumes. The sound quality also isn’t great compared to similarly priced in-ears, let alone over-ears.
That said, they’re great to use as a headset for work and videoconferencing and for other situations when you need to be able to hear.
Yeah, they suck compared to mid-range headphones from Senchs and alike, especially if you listen to quality recordings and rips. But for lower quality speach, streaming and youtube they are decent. And, excluding moments of me being at home and enjoying the new recording, they cover most of my daytime.
Yeah, they are a good thing to have around as a secondary for a bunch of situations where you’re multitasking and need awareness but still want to hear an audio feed.
Which if you’re an audiophile with a budget for audio stuff is fine, I like mine, no regrets. But if you’re budget-conscious and just need one set of headphones that will do the job all around this tech is probably not your first choice.
The sound is a bit weak compared to full headphones, and the lack of bass is accurate. In a quiet settting they are a nice way to hear sound similar to a boom box aince tou can atill hear the stuff around you.
The one thing I don’t like, which also affects the sound, is that without an adjustable back it sits kind of weird and lays down on my neck. If I hold it up slightly in the back it sounds far better than resting after movement.
I wouldn’t call it a lack, more like lack of boosting these freqs for easy sells. I dislike the lack of mids and highs in budget headphones.
I did experience the latter as I wrote in another comment with high collars and caps. I wonder if they can make the wire softer. But I didn’t encounter the problem with positioning, at least with my model.
There’s a curve called the Harman curve which is the most common listener preference. It is based originally on measuring how headphones can reproduce flat frequency response speakers.
The bass boost in Samsung or JBL studio products is not “for easy sells”, it’s based on actual research on listeners.
There are three different bass preferences, one is a bass shelf at like 200Hz with a small boost, which is the most common, where two thirds of people like it. Another is flat bass which is preferred by older or female listeners, and even more bass is preferred by young males.
Not very many products have a huge bass for young male listeners since that’s the smallest group. I think Sony over ears are the most popular product with a big bass
https://kuulokenurkka.squig.link/?share=Harman_2018_Target,WH-1000XM3_(ANC_ON)
And there’s a user with actual theory. Thank you.
I wear these things constantly. I love them for running, and for work from home.
For meetings I feel my voice feels more natural with my ears open. I can pair my phone and laptop, and go from my desk, with music and or meetings, to my couch and watch a video on my phone, or go for a walk with an audiobook without even thinking about it. I regularly get 8+ hours out of them.
I do use my MacBook pros microphone, I’ve had comment from a coworker that the headphone mic sounds tinny to them, but they do offer one with a more dedicated mic.
On airplanes I put in earplugs, throw these on with some ambient sounds and sleep like a baby. Very easy. Same with mowing the lawn
Big fan.
Which ones do you have specifically?
Shokz open run I think
How is the microphone for phone calls?
I’ve done many hours of phonecalls on mine. Mic quality is acceptable, slightly mushy. Wind is an issue for example when riding a bike at higher speeds. Wearing a hoodie over them can block the mic too.
I asked my friends a couple of times when we had calls and some Discord conversations. No problems reported even when I was on a windy street at that time. I’m yet to see the spectrogram of their input, but I listened to my voice messages and they were fine. Obviously, not an all-purpose mic that can record music, but with a range of freqs that covers our speech it works no worse than industry standard, with airpods, dots and others. I even used it, stealthly, to record some IRL talks, just in case, and the result was clear. Their not-very-noticeable nature helps it.
We tested since nicer ones for use in an industrial environment where hearing protection was required. They were great and let workers hear clearly while still being able to use their preferred PPE.
Any models stand out above the rest?
The ones we tested were these: https://a.co/d/f4FADbm
Unfortunately the project they were originally for was cancelled fairly quickly so we didn’t test any others
Excuse me, I see a fellow IDM enjoyer. Any recommendations for me?
I’m not one for labeling music in genres, so I’ll write my answer in two parts: the “canonical” information, with artists documented as “IDM” artists on Wikipedia, and the “personal” information, which I think fits the so called “IDM” genre, but don’t quote me on that, I wouldn’t really know. This is “best effort”.
Canonical answer:
Orbital, aphex twin, and boards of Canada come to mind, but that’s more for the curious casual reader of this thread, as I’m sure you already know them. Also John Tejada, Carbon Based Lifeforms, Moderat, which are less known.
Personal answer:
I dunno if I would say that they fit in “IDM”, but I really enjoy the music of the artist Siriusmo. Also (in no particular order, all this could be hit or miss for you, so don’t dismiss it all because you don’t like one) Sasha, Kaito, Ernest Saint Laurent, Vessels, Barker & Baumecker, and pretty much everything under the labels monkeytown and Kompakt (respectively based in Berlin and Koln). I’m not sure where the genre lines stop tho, so you might add Nick Warren, Phil k, Dave seaman, John Digweed, etc. to that. Labels renaissance (the British one) and Global Underground.
I’m a simple man, I put Shobaleader One Boiler Room live session on repeat and bathe in pure joy. It’s Squarepusher’s old hits but played with a band of his fellow musical maniacs who can make previously programmed polyrhitms look as easy as breathing. There’s a lot of bright flashes, so be aware. Also, he himself plays a bass guitar, the usually overlooked instrument he himself uses a lot, and do it passionately.
