Dyscern - Good Vibrations: Conduction Earbuds

Good Vibrations: Conduction Earbuds

Dr. Samuel Says - Smart Design
Written by Dr. Samuel Centralia, Ph.D., D.D.S., Esq.
Tuesday, 30 September 2008
When I feel the need to relax, I like to test ride high-end factory prototype motorcycles. Like many loyal Dyscern readers, I suspect. There's nothing like winding up Pacific Coast Highway at 130 mph to take your mind off your daily troubles. I don't mean to brag, but I still hold the North American land speed record on the Ducati GT 9000, and you can find my picture of the walls of many biker bars near the Bonneville Salt Flats. I've run into a problem with this recently, however. I'm really addicted to my iPod, as you know, and very much enjoy shuffling through random '80s songs while riding. Trouble is, even the best in-helmet speakers are drowned out by wind noise above 80 mpg. And while wearing my favored brand of earbuds solves the problem nicely, they have the drawback of making me totally deaf to ambient sounds. The whistling of the wind, say. Or the surf. Or the blaring horn of the Humvee coming at me from the intersection. So I'm heartened by the new alternative earbud technology just now hitting retail shelves. Generally classified as conduction earbuds, these gizmos pass music and audio signals through the bone and cartilage in and around your ear, rather than inside the ear canal proper. You attach them just in front of your ear, or on the cartilage. As my old college roommate David Pogue points out in this excellent NYT review, conduction earbuds solve a lot of problems at once. They're more comfortable, easier (and more hygienic) to wear and share, and work just fine for people with certain types of hearing impairments. Most critically, relative to my situation, they allow you to hear everything else around you at the same time you're hearing your music, or podcast, or what-have-you. They're basically like having your radio or CD player on in the background, only the speakers are really tiny, and pressed up against your head. The downside? Sound quality isn't so good. I haven't tested these myself, but it makes sense. And anyway, they should work just fine for spoken word recordings, or other audio where sound quality isn't that crucial. Like '80s music, come to think of it. Bookmark this article: Trackback(0) TrackBack URI for this entry Comments (0) Show/Hide comments Write comment Show/Hide comment form