Induction speakers and headphones are nothing new. They’ve been around for a while. The concept is pretty simple. For headphones, it’s the use of your head or surrounding objects attached to your head, to vibrate the sounds right into your ear bone so you can hear the sounds. For speakers, essentially the same concept, only it’s the use of most any material to transfer the sound into the air around you for you to hear.

The effect of induction headphones is actually pretty funky. If you’ve never experienced it before, the sound stage is something that’s all at once weird, but kinda cool at the same time. Instead of direct sound into your ear canal, induction headphones carry the sound to your ear bone and thus the nerves for a real “in the head” type of effect.

It’s bound to knock you for a loop if you haven’t ever tried it.

Tunebug’s Vibe takes that experience to another level by taking induction technology into any surface. MSRP at $69.99, it’s a funky experience.

I got a demo of it at MacWorld a few weeks back where the folks at Tunebug put the Vibe on a hollowed out box and I stuck my head into it. Yeah…the things I do for Tech Bucket Blog…

Suffice it to say the experience really intrigued me and I’ve been going hands-on with a Vibe they provided me for about 3 weeks now.

The results?

Not bad. You shouldn’t be expecting full hi-fidelity sound, but the quality overall isn’t bad at all. In fact, pretty surprising for a unit of this size and price range. The material you place the Vibe on has a direct impact on the sound and Tunebug suggests something a solid, but hollow material like the aforementioned box.

There’s a definite range in the unit and it’s pretty solidly built. Really. Very dense for it’s size, you’d think it was solid lead. If you were to throw the guitar pick shaped unit at someone, it’d really really hurt.

Hi, mids, and lows are all very clearly noticeable but bass is a bit hollow (get it? hollow?), but again units like Tunebug’s Vibe are extremely dependent upon what you place it on top of. We tried metal cans, almost empty plastic containers, desks, CD’s, and the included Tunebug carrying box/speaker stand. The best results? I slapped the unit on my head to get a feel for the Vibe and I thought that was the best sound overall.

Yup. That means, my head is pretty hollow…yeah, I know I just totally made fun of myself there.

Here’s the thing, speakers like the Vibe are not really designed to provide you with a quality listening experience. Don’t get me wrong, sound on the Vibe isn’t junk, like I said, it’s quite good, but it’s not designed to go head-to-head with an iPod dock speaker system or headphones.

Instead, Vibe provides an excellent ambient music solution. When placed on something solid and big like a desk/table, the sound comes from the surface itself and really surrounds you pretty well. I stress here, when I say surround, I’m not talking like a surround sound speaker system, there’s just not that depth with the Vibe. What I am saying is the sound is similar to hearing music at your local department store or mall. The sound from the speakers up in the ceiling gets bounced around to the point that the music feels like it’s all around you.

Tunebug Vibe does that really well and provides an above average sound quality when you fit it into the “ambient” music class. If you’re looking for something small and easily placed on your desk at work or at home to listen to background music with while you’re working, Tunebug Vibe is the perfect solution.

You’ll be able to listen to your tunes without having put on headphones or turn it down quietly so you can hear what’s around you. Vibe provides you the solution for ambient music without bugging the heck out of those around you as well as offering you the chance to keep aware of what’s going on outside of your music.

It’s so perfect in fact for those types of situations, that Tunebug ha created another unit called Tunebug Shake, which is ruggadized a little bit for your outdoor sporting needs. Bluetooth, lighter and strappable to a helmet, you’ll be able to listen to music and snowboard at the sametime. Unlike headphones, you’ll be able to hear important messages like “watch out for that tree!!!”. (MSRP around $120)

Tunebug Vibe is available now at Tunebug with the more extreme Shake available soon (sometime end of March maybe?).

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