Innovative "skull bone headphone" to reach mass market

[Wang]

Innovative "skull bone headphone" to reach mass market

June 14, 2006

An innovative headphone that uses the vibrations of the skull bone instead of the eardrum to transmit sounds is poised to go on sale in earnest in Japan.

Morito Co., a wholesaler of footwear and apparel materials said Wednesday it has tied up with Goldendance Co., the developer of the new headphone, called Audio Bone, and acquired the exclusive rights to sell the product in Japan.

People normally recognize sounds by detecting vibrations in the air through the eardrum. But Goldendance''s "bone conduction" technology bypasses the eardrum, sending vibrations through the skull to the auditory nerve.

The Audio Bone, for use with portable music players, is attached to the temple while in use and does not cover the ears. As a result, users can hear what other people say or other sounds while listening to music.

The new headphone also prevents the heavy burden imposed on the eardrum when people listen to music with conventional headphones.

You can read the rest here.

 

[Kinsao]

The physics of it makes sense, but I'm not so sure I trust the biology...

Wouldn't it subject the brain to these vibrations too?

 

[JimmySeal]

If you could really bypass the eardrum by placing vibrations on the temple, wouldn't they have developed this long ago for people with damaged eardrums?

Besides, it sounds like it would give you one hell of a headache in a short period of time.

 

[Wang]

Wait for some reviews of this new device or try it out yourself when possible.

 

[breez]

If you could really bypass the eardrum by placing vibrations on the temple, wouldn't they have developed this long ago for people with damaged eardrums?

I'm quite sure such a thing exists, but it is very limited in regards to possible frequencies if I remember correctly.

I wonder if any acceptable audio quality (for listening music) is at all possible with this technology.

edit: http://www.umm.edu/otolaryngology/baha.html and http://www.pde.com/~kazemir/HearingAids.htm

As with any other hearing aid, the quality of sound from a bone conduction hearing aid is not perfect. Both the dynamic range and the frequency range are limited, resulting in sound similar to listening through a telephone. Another disadvantage, which is specific to hearing by "bone conduction," is that the listener hears in "mono." When the bone is vibrated in any location, the sound travels to both inner ears at almost the same time.

I think this headphone using bone conduction is not much more than a gimmick.

I can see the market for cell phone headsets though.

 

[Mars Man]

At the moment I cannot say anything about that product. I can say that I have heard of the idea of using vibration to help deaf people 'hear', if you will--using different cortex systems.

I would not be surprized if it were to weaken the hearing system some. MM

 

[ozone_00]

What, none of you have tried this with a set of regular headphones? The sound isn't the greatest but it works. My guess is that the inventor has done the same thing before and just decided to tweek it to sound better.

 

[breez]

I don't think any kind of tweaking will allow sound quality good enough for music listening. If expensive, medical grade equipment cannot produce anything but limited quality, a cheap mass produced product certainly cannot either.