Bone Phones

Yahmanin

Yahmanin

Joined
Sep 29, 2003
Messages
519
Years ago I used to do radio intercept/df in the Army. Lots of us had hearing loss or tinitus after months/years of the cans on. You'd start with the headphone volume knob on 2 or 3, months later is was up to 11. To lessen the number of VA claims (or because they loved us, you pick) we went to bone conductive headphones, or bone phones. They rested on our cheekbones and overall worked pretty well. They not only didn't make the cilia in one's ear indistinguishable from that of a Who roadie's, but let you hear what was going on around you, which is nice if you're out in the woods doing your thing (and why I'm interested in them, I don't want to get creamed by a bus while gettin my David Allen Coe on with the MP3 player). I've looked around for them commercially, but outside of a new Japanese cell that you hold to your forehead (and I though people with headsets looked goofy walking around talking to themselves), I'm coming up blank. Any of you gadgeteers or audiophiles have any idea if these things are made anywhere, or if not, why? They worked great for listening to North Korean sound checks, but perhaps not so good for music?
 
I'm thinking that they might work well for voice transmissions but not have the frequency range to play music well, just like how a telephone headset sounds great when someone's talking to you but when you get put on hold the music they play sounds lack-luster and dull (not refering to the actual songs although those are usually boring anyways).
 
Back in the 70's, there was (albeit briefly) a product on the market that went around your neck & the 'speakers' lay flat on your clavicles- never went anywhere-
Like the transducer/speaker idea- if you can cause the skull to resonate- you could in theory 'hear' the music. Is this like cochlear implants?
 
Sounds almost like the CODEC from Metal Gear Solid. Cool.
 
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