My wife loves bone conduction, but to me it sounds terrible. Makes me wonder if I'm doing something wrong or if my bones just suck

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amalcon 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Do you have the same musical taste as your wife? I have a bone conduction headset that I use for cycling. Podcasts and ebooks sound fine, and some music is acceptable (a lot of classical, some pop and folk). Anything with bass just sounds like garbage though - don't bother with any hard rock, hip hop, or anything else with bass.

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freedomben 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

Ah interesting! Yeah she listens to a lot of podcasts while I mostly use headphones to listen to rock and metal

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canuckintime 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Which bone conduction headset do you have?

	▲	freedomben 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		I tried out hers to see if I liked them, and am not sure which make/model it is. I'll ask her when I get a chance. I do remember her saying they cost about $125 so not cheap, but probably not high end either

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heavyset_go 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Get a good pair that actually does bone conduction and isn't just a shitty speaker blasting next to your ear.

It will never be as good as open ear headphones, some frequencies just don't translate well via conduction, but they're good enough for podcasts, TV and movies. They're great for music if you're exercising or need to be aware of your surroundings, but if you care about sound quality, they are not something you'd want to use to listen to music in a quiet room, for example.

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HanShotFirst 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

They are not great for listening to music in high fidelity. The are great for spoken word, and fine for music if you're not super concerned about quality; I liken it to listening to music from the speaker on a small portable FM radio.

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underdeserver 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Your bones so not suck, but positioning makes a huge difference.

How much did you play around with them?

Also try them with earplugs.

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stronglikedan 4 days ago | parent [-]

> Also try them with earplugs.

At that point, just get TWS buds which will sound magnitudes better.

	▲	underdeserver 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		The point is to verify your fit and find the sweet spot so you can later use them without earplugs. No one is claiming that bone-conduction headphones are competitive in sound quality.