Is coming to stores near you real soon
It is perhaps not to be thought as the last word in fidelity, but as a casual listening device or an exercise tool, it comes into its own. I found that in use around the house I felt more in touch with my surroundings and less distracted by the music when I was doing something else. I wonder whether headfiers out there might find they produce better performance at work with these, as opposed to the isolation from headphones and iems? They distract far less because they feel more natural. They don't necessarily sound more natural ; that's another discussion entirely. For the runner, the bone conduction tech is a dream come true. You may want some distraction from the exertions of your run; what you wouldn't miss is the discomfort caused by sweat getting into your ears, that lack of being completely aware of your surroundings due to the isolation and volume of your head gear, the flapping of cables against your body, the bass being destroyed by your feet pounding on the pavement, and the pain of ramming your earphones into your ear canals as far as they can go so as you won't have to constantly adjust them. In use on the run, the bone conduction tech means you can hear everything, the music is clear, there is no adjustment needed to the fit and there is no longer that unpleasant feeling of sweating into your ear canal. About the GR8
It's on sale in India currently. It will be introduced to the rest of the World shortly. The bone conduction market is fast growing, Shokz, (formerly AfterShokz) are the market leaders and have been producing these headsets for several years. The bluetooth market is rapidly expanding and is already worth £billions. Combine the 2 and you would be mad to overlook this area. The GR8 is HiFiMan's introductory bone conduction model. I am not certain what the exact RRP will be, but my research tells me it costs RMB 249 in India, approximately £30 in my currency. On another, unofficial seller's site, it retails at £42. The betting man would put it somewhere between the 2 prices when it goes on official sale, which puts it below the Shokz gear.
The GR8 does all the wireless stuff - it has bluetooth 5.0, shares its connection between 2 phones simultaneously, has an IPX rating of 4 so you can carefully wipe it down after a run, or wear it in the bath if you promise not to put your head under the water. The GR8 has a battery life of 7 hours, can make and receive calls, open your voice assistant, play/pause volume up/down and next/last track. The volume at maximum will not hurt your ears, in a quiet environment at max you'll not hear conversation properly, but at quieter levels, which is all you'll need, you can have a chat no problem. It charges via a supplied USBC cable, I've charged it from 50% to 100% in an hour on my charger but am not sure exactly how long it takes from discharged to full.
More is available here in my showcase review :
https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/hi...uetooth-headphones.25844/reviews#review-28491
and this YouTube video :
Are you interested in bone conduction tech? Are you a runner? Or a cyclist perhaps? Do you have a set? Have you already get a set of bone conduction headphones? Do you own a set of GR8 bone conduction headphones? Are you interested in HiFiMan's take on them? Let's start the discussion and see where it takes us.
