Have you ever heard your recorded voice and thought to yourself, “do I really have this voice? I don’t recognize myself in it!”? I think we’ve all been there, and, sorry to disappoint you, that recorded voice is what other people hear coming out of your vocal cords. It is strange, but it is also very true.
The explanation is very simple: we hear our voice not only with our ears but also with our skull bones.
Why do I start so far away? Because after we tested the headphones.
SHOKZ OPENRUN PRO
you asked me how bone conduction works and why it is so recommended when we do sports.
How does bone conduction work?
We need to take a small step back and go back to elementary or middle school-I do not, in fact, want to venture into overly in-depth or boring explanations-to try to remember how hearing works; too often, in fact, we associate the concept of hearing with the eardrum, which, in fact, is only a part of the ear.
Let’s go to the fundamentals and see right away that the ear is composed of three parts: outer, middle and inner ear.
The outer ear is responsible for amplifying sound and, with the eardrum, setting hammer, anvil and stirrup, three small bones that are located in the middle ear and vibrate, in motion. Just the vibration of the stirrup propagates to the inner ear where the sound is perceived by the brain. To simplify, when we hear a sound from our ears, the process is divided into three stages: amplification, vibration, and perception.
When, however, the vibration reaches the inner ear from the bones of the skull-rather than from the middle ear-it is called bone conduction.
What is the fundamental difference? When sound arrives by bone conduction, some sound frequencies are “cut off” because they are dispersed in the vibration and thus we hear a different sound than what we perceive through the ear. And that is why we “hear” our voice differently when it is recorded and passes only by the ear. Likewise, this makes you realize how important it is to have quality bone-conduction headphones and thus enable a high-level sound experience.
Like
SHOKZ headphones
, indeed.
Why are bone conduction headphones recommended for people who play sports?
Precisely because of this particular way of propagating sound to the inner ear, bone conduction headphones leave the ear canal completely unobstructed, allowing us to hear sounds coming from the environment. It is a bit like having a mixer that lets us hear both the audio from the headphones and its from the road, thus increasing our safety.
In short, the perfect solution for running, cycling or otherwise outdoor sports.
