Bone conductor headphones

I have to admit it, I like them as a concept but I have had a mixed bag of results with them so far.

With the England Athletics ban on headphones in races that are not of this type, bone conductor headphones are becoming a necessity if you wish to listen to any tunage in races they sanction, so here’s my experiences with them so far.

The first pair I had were Aftershokz Sportz M3’s which were one of the early models and corded... I initially bought them thinking they would be just ‘plug and play’ like normal headphones, however after purchasing these still need to be charged to drive the speakers inside them with a charge lasting an advertised 8 hours… Which would make them able to last a marathon for me, however not really suitable for an all-day ultra (or anything beyond more than 35 miles) or on a long bike ride.

Aftershokz Sportz M3

Soundwise the reproduction was great for running and when out cycling in still weather. Once I got over the slightly weird sensation of being able to hear what I was listening to as well as the ambient noise all sound me, I enjoyed wearing them. They also always remained in place without slipping no matter how hot and sweaty I was getting.

I did notice though that the sound level was limited to a point where whatever you are listening to is drowned-out when cycling by wind over about 10mph or when in a slip-stream at speed downhill, unless you use ear plugs, which kind of defeats the whole purpose of using them in the first place!

Learning to work within their limitations, for a while all was good, however after about 6 months they developed a fault that lead to one ear intermediately crackling, which progressed from just the intermediate until eventually dying a couple of weeks later.

I looked-up the warranty and Aftershokz sent me a replacement pair, their at the time equivalent model in production: the Titanium Sportz.

Aftershokz Titanium Sportz

Sonically they performed almost the same as the M3’s, however they had changed the design relocating the battery pack and button control to near the headphone jack from its previous position that could clip to the neck of a top or a lapel.

When I say near to the jack, we are talking around 10cm, so the larger battery pack had to sit next to your phone and would continually bang against it with natural movement, or if worn on your arm in a pouch, would continually slap against you due to its size, a design issue which made it unwieldy and cumbersome... A size that would lead to the destruction of my pair. The long and the short of it was the box had flapped its way out of my pocket and was swinging freely, then got caught on the arm of an office chair and snapped the 10cm cable from the box to the jack clean off: ruined in an instant.

I contacted Aftershokz again for a warranty replacement, but they refused to give me a new pair as the date of my request was 3 days beyond a year from my purchase of the original pair, with the replacement pair not having any separate warranty on them.

2 pairs of headphones, both trashed within 6 months of very light use: only when running, cycling or a walk to the pub one evening a week! Not good when you are paying £30-£50 for a pair of headphones; you suspect them to be far more robust than that, so I made the conscious decision to abandon the brand and the paid premium associated with it.

Around a year after I decided to take the plunge again when I noticed knock-offs of the M3’s were retailing for around £25 as it must have been the old design and the tech within had been licensed to 3rd parties for manufacture. Again though as with the original M3's, the headphones lasted a similar amount of time before the crackling returned and one ear died!

Something that also had not really bothered me before when wearing them but did the second time around was the cable… I was wearing the cable underneath my shirt to avoid it flapping around and potentially getting snagged and damaged whilst active, however it kept slipping down my back and pulling the headphones down a little, which necessitated pulling the cable back out of the shirt every 5 minutes. Also the clip for the battery box did not grip that tight so it would work its way off the net of the shirt and bounce around under your shirt as it worked its way down, which was doing my head in after a while!

Safe to say I was fed-up with the wired ones and their inherent issues after three pairs biting the dust in short time with light use. As a consequence I decided to abandon them although I am still sold on the concept of the headphones, more for running than cycling due to the sound levels in the wind, so I had a look at the marketplace for a pair of bluetooth ones having heard good things from people in my club about their performance.

I soon found a pair of R9’s on eBay retailing new for the same price I had paid for the knock-off M3’s, so at that price it was sensible to give them a go.

R9's

Battery life is promising 6 hours - which was not too much short of the 8 Aftershokz promised, so again suiting me for use in a run up to a marathon in length on a charge, although in longer activities I will still be using ordinary old-fashioned cabled headphones on my iPod Classic (no bluetooth there anyway!) to preserve the battery life on my phone.

Weight-wise they feel no heavier than the previous models, however without the pull of the cable they feel much better, forgetting they are on you - again they do not shift from where they rest where you place them in front of your ears, so all round so far so much better than the cabled varieties - also something I have noticed is the drain on the phone battery using bluetooth is actually less than listening through cabled headphones believe it or not!

So there you have it, if you’re looking at bone conductor headphones for your running, take a look at the bluetooth, forget about the cabled ones!

Eat pies.
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