It seems that we are soon going to have a chance to enjoy some new explorations in the field of headphone development, that will not only produce better sound but also be safer and biodegradable. Digital Music News first reported on the ‘bone conduction’ headphones developed by a company called Conduit Motion that are supposed to transmit the audio signals while your ear canal would remain open to other noises and sounds.
Then, the same specialized online newsroom brought the news of Korvaa headphones, which are “microbially grown” and developed in collaboration with scientists. The idea is to replace everything possible with a naturally derived material so to be able to “move away from the culture of planned obsolescence in electronics, where old is disposed for new on a regular schedule.”
While Conduit Motion, mainly a sports company, has a working model of their ‘bone conduction’ headphones up and running, the Finnish company is still in the early stage of building their prototype. The principle of the bone conduction headphones is that the bones around the ear are able to pick up vibrations around them and through cilia cells in the inner cochlea be transmitted to the brain. While the sound quality will leave something to be desired for audiophiles, such headphones should be much safer when you are on the move.
The Korvaa headphones try to keep the high quality of sound, but at the same time come with ‘ecologically safe’ headphones, where, for example, the padded earpieces were created from the hydrophobin protein, and the earbuds are covered from a fungus-derived material called mycelium.
