The 5 Disadvantages Of Bone Conduction Headphones

Bone conduction headphones are an innovative pair of headphones that are relatively new in the market, they provide a listening experience unlike any before.

They are ideal for people who regularly exercise outdoors, and athletes in general. Some come even waterproof meaning they can dive with you.

What’s more, they prove worthy and are great headphones for people with tinnitus or hearing loss.

However, for all those offerings, Bone-conduction headphones pay dearly on sound quality and noise isolation.

The noise isolation can be a two-edged knife since athletes prefer non-noise cancellation headphones, so they can pay attention to their surroundings.

What Makes Bone Conduction Headphones Unique?

Instead of going inside your ear or covering the whole ears like most other headphones/earbuds, bone conduction headphones tend to rest on your cheekbones, while leaving the ears wide open so you can be aware of what’s going on around you.

Most headphones work by dispatching the sound waves to your eardrum. On the other hand, Bone-conduction headphones work differently. 

Instead, they transmit the vibrations through your jawline/bone, bypassing the eardrums and sending the sound directly to your cochlea.

Although they have some benefits, sadly they are not perfect, they compromise in some fields.

Disadvantages of bone conduction headphones

Prices that are hard to swallow:

Being new in the market, they don’t come cheap but instead are pretty expensive, cheapest bone conduction should be minimum of 50$ (there are cheaper, but from not known brands), and those ones are awfully bad.

I wouldn’t recommend them at all. On the other hand, high-end ones offer more in return, but they “offer” a painful price too

The Battery Life – Wireless Headphones’ Nightmare

The nemesis of wireless headphones would be their battery life. Like any wireless headphone, bone conduction headphones also have to be charged regularly.
This is a bit annoying since it adds another extra thing to your charging list.

Sound Leakage – Bleeding

By providing sound from outside, instead of going inside of your ears, they are not leakproof, they end up “providing” other people with sound too.
So if you are embarrassed to listen to Justin Bieber’s “Baby” song on replay while outside in public, it’s time for you to go look for something else.

The Sound Quality

The way they are designed to transmit sound sure pays a hard toll on the sound quality field. With them you will be hearing your music along with several competing background noise, reducing the sound clarity and other frequencies.

AfterShokz is the main player in the bone conduction headphone industry, definitely the best brand that offers a range of bone conduction headphones, all of them being top-notch and unbeatable.

AfterShokz is a brand that has no competition and no brand can eat its launch in this field.
Yet, they lack in sound quality aspect too. No, AfterShokz is not at fault here but it’s the blueprint of bone conduction technology.

Actually, AfterShokz offers the superb sound quality, at all full ranges of frequencies.

They Can Still Put Your Hearing At Risk

Oh, The Irony!

I thought, they were ideal for people with hearing loss?

While they bypass the eardrum, the sound still goes through the same path and it has an impact directly on the cochlea, meaning at high volumes the cochlea cells get damaged which will result in hearing loss.

Final Words

“Nobody’s perfect”

While Bone-conduction headphones have their advantage, at the same time they have their disadvantages.

We just need to consider both the bad and the good and see if it will be worth it in the long run.

Further Reading

You guys, if you liked what you read in this article, I would gladly change the topic and mention for you something else just like audio interfaces!

Now, you may know how important they are and how they can help the sound quality of everything, in bone conduction headphones as well. Well, what I have for you here are the greatest 8-channel audio interfaces that you can find. Also, there are some budget audio interfaces, as well as some of the greatest audio interfaces under $500!