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Video: bone conduction headphones - does more money mean better performance?
Not long ago we reviewed the Aftershokx Aeropex headphones, which did pretty well. Dave said of them, "If you want to listen to music and also hear what's going on around you then bone conduction is the way to go and these are the best ones I've tried so far".
At £150 a pair they're not cheap though, and you can pick up a set of R9 bone conduction headphones for around thirty quid; there are plenty of others out there for similar money. The law of diminishing returns means that you shouldn't expect a product that costs five times as much to be five times as good, but is it worth spending the extra on top-dollar heaphones here? We bought a pair of the R9s and pitted them against the, erm, Aeropexes? Aeropices? The other ones.
Watch the vid to see our conclusions! And look out for more cheap stuff vs expensive stuff soon. If you have a cheap thing you'd like to see compared to an expensive thing, let us know in the comments below...
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6 comments
I recently bought a pair of the Aftershokz Openmove headphones, for £59 (white) from "Winstanleys Bikes". Currently £69, but they seem to run deals on the Aftershokz range from time to time.
They sound better than I was expecting. I mainly use them for navigation prompts, but I've started to listen to audiobooks/music when not on busy main roads.I do have a mirror and Garmin Varia, so I know what's behind me.
The sound suffers in high winds, especially for audiobooks, when missing dialogue is more important than missing a part of a song.
They do help me get up hills more easily, as you don't notice the effort you're putting in, when wearing them 😀
I have two pairs of Aftershockz. an older Bluez2 and a Titanium.
Both of them started out alright but then got annoying pretty quickly when they didnt play so nice with a helmet and glasses on so now are used around the house for other things.
What i have been using is a pair of Mpow Solo's. Upon initial inspection you would think that they block out a lot of outside noise but that isnt true at all because unlike other IEM headphones with tips that squeeze right down into your ear canal for a good seal and passive noise isolation, These dont actually do that.
They still dampen some of the noise though but I can still hear the traffic around me as well as the wind whistling past if its a particularly breezy day or if im rolling down a hill.
they play well with my helmet at glasses and use buttons to adjust volume and skip songs so it also works with gloves so long as they arent the deep winter sort.
Why not watch the video then? He answers your very question at around 5:42
As an owner of the top end Aeropex (and not watching the video), I would state over the ear/ in the ear ones would generally be better in most cases as they are directing the sound directly into you ears. However you pay for that with more muffled envriomental sounds. Before I bought the Aeropex I had the more rigid titanium ones and they were great in the summer but in the winter when I was wrapping up warm with snood and over the ear hat, I couldn't use them. So I had a pair of £20 bluetooth buds with a single wire strung between them which held the battery and mouthpiece. I used to use only one in (the left non passing side) and used to hear everything just fine. However the aeropex work fine in the same winter getup as they are more flexible so just use those year round now.
I will add I don't do music, mostly podcasts so don't need super base or large range.
Did you use the microphone on the headphones to do you comentary on the video? or did you use a different one?(If sowhich microphone do you use - amazing lack of wind noise)
Great review - thanks
Worth watching with the sound down and the captions on, just to see how many different ways it can render 'aft your chocs euro pigs'.