Shokz OpenRun Pro 2

I gotta admit, this is going to be one of my most biased posts, since I love these headphones so much. Most days, I put them on in the morning, and they stay on my head all day. When I’m not using them, I just forget they are there (hence them staying there even when I’m done working for the day), but they are conveniently ready to go when I want them. This isn’t really a proper review, and is more just me talking about something I love.

How did I end up onboard the Shokz train?

I’ve been using Shokz bone conduction tech since around 2017, with some AfterShokz Air headphones (this was before they rebranded and dropped the “After” portion of their name). Bone conduction headphones work by resting against your cheekbone, right in front of your ears, and transmitting sound through your bones to your ear drums, rather than through the air. They leave your ears oncovered, so you can still hear the world around you, and others can’t hear the sound from your headphones unless it’s really turned up loud. The sound quality has never been great, but the benefits have been enough to keep pulling me right back.

I saw a coworker rocking some Shokz Air headphones one time, and I decided to ask what the deal was. I mean, they look like headphones, but they don’t cover your ears! His story was that his roommate had bought them on a whim, absolutely hated them, and gave them to my coworker for free (that lucky jerk…).

His take was that they were the best headphones he’d ever used, and that even though the audio was a little tinny, the ability to hear the world around him was unbeatable. He could wear them while working, running, biking, and doing yard work. A when not doing any of those, he didn’t need to bother taking them off. He described it as kind of weird to get used to, almost as if sound were coming from above his head.

I was looking for a new set of headphones to use while working, so I was intrigued. At the time, I was using some LG around-the-neck earbuds, where the buds retracted into a plastic thing that sits around your neck on your collarbone. One of my favorite things about them was that I could just put them on in the morning before work, and leave them there all day. But I kind of hated having to constantly deal with the actual earbuds any time I wanted to listen to something. I also hated not being able to hear the world around me while working. Random conversations would start around me and I’d be off in my own world, missing out on both fun and getting to be involved in various work-related decisions. These funny bone conduction headphones seemed like they could solve my problems, so I went ahead and got some.

Fortunately, my experience pretty much exactly matched my coworker’s and not that of his roommate; there were bad parts, but the good parts were soooooooooooo good!

I completely understand why someone would love or hate those things. They were super lightweight and durable, lasted for hours and hours, and were downright convenient. But they also sounded kind of terrible, and the mic was a joke. For things like podcasts, they sounded fine. But they were almost completely lacking bass in most music, and when you cranked up the volume, you’d get an uncomfortable tickling against your skull. Interestingly, if you put in earplugs while wearing the headset, music could actually sound pretty good, but you’d lose almost all of the benefits of bone conduction. It worked well for things like mowing the lawn, though, which was cool. One thing that really stood out was that when wearing earplugs, the beep sound from hitting any buttons (pause/play and volume up/down) was painfully loud every time (a frustrating thing I had to deal with until 2024, when I got my OpenRun Pro 2s). One more benefit was that I usually had medium to long hair at the time, which could almost completely hide the headset. This meant I could just keep them on all day, with hardly anyone actually being aware!

AfterShokz Airs are also the only headphones I can think of where they introduce noticable saturation that I kind of liked. Normally, I’d prefer a cleaner sound, but something with those ones just clicked for me.

Going pro

After a few years of what had quickly become my favorite headphones, I figured it was time for an upgrade, so I snagged their latest and greatest headphones: the freshly rebranded Shokz OpenRun Pro! These were basically the same as my old Airs, except with an improved (but proprietary) magnetic charging port, better battery life, significantly improved microphone (maybe dual mics; I honestly don’t remember), and most important of all, MUCH better audio quality.

They still sounded a bit tinny, and bass was a bit weak, but it was a HUGE step up from the AfterShokz Air performance. My absolutely favorite thing about them was that rtings.com had done a really good job measuring their frequency response, which autoeq.app added to their impressive database of headphone frequency correction curves. This meant that using any Rogue Amoeba SoundSource (or any other EQ plugin) on my laptop or Wavelet on my phone, I could easily correct for the audio defiencies and make the headphones sound much better! Ultimately, they couldn’t give you a proper, bassy thump sound, but you could really improve things!

Another big win is that the mobile app improved pretty significantly, allowing for easier configuration (no more needing to remember the incantation you need to chant while pressing the buttons in the right order to pair it with multiple devices!) and simple EQ.

The first generation of OpenRun Pros were the ones I was using when the COVID-19 lockdown started and my personal audio oddysey begane.

Can you guys see my screen?

With the start of the pandemic lockdown, remote meetings suddenly became a big deal. One problem I ran into pretty much immediately with my headset (which lives on with the newer model) was that when you connect it to a computer and use the microphone, the headset’s output switches from stereo 44.1 kHz 32-bit float mode to mono 16 kHz 16-bit integer. If those numbers mean nothing to you, rest assured, it’s bad. As soon as something tries to use your mic, your audio goes from reasonably solid to sounding like a mix tape that was dubbed a few dozen times over the phone. As far as I can tell, even after spending quite a while talking to Shokz support, that’s a fundamental limitation of the headset (I’m skeptical, though, considering it only seems to happen with computers. With my phone, everything still sounds good when the mic is active).

If you’re using one of these headsets, you don’t really have a choice other than to use it purely for output and use another mic. It’s a huge flaw in an otherwise fantastic product.

I still recommend the first generation of OpenRun Pro to people who want to try bone conduction headphones without spending a lot of money.

All about that bass

The second generation of OpenRun Pro headphones are the company’s current flagship product. By and large, they are basically the same as the first generation, but they bring along some worthwhile upgrades. Gone is the proprietary magnetic charger, replaced by a USB-C port. This hurts its water resistance slightly, but that’s never been a problem for me. You also get a better battery and improved dual mics which sound noticably better for phone calls (still useless in meetings, though).

Those are nice, but the massive upgrade that really makes the upgrade worthwhile is the new system Shokz introduced for bass. Prior to this, all sound went through the bone conduction drivers, through your skull, to your ear drums. With OpenRun Pro 2, they’ve added a second set of “air conduction” drivers (so… regular headphone drivers 😛), for lower frequency sound, to go through the air to your ear drums. So mids and highs still use the classic bone conduction, which is a good fit, and bass goes through your ears. The result is that we finally have “bone conduction” headphones that can actually handle some bass. They still aren’t as good sounding as even the cheapest earbuds or over-the-ear cans, but it’s a MASSIVE improvement overall! You get good sound quality without losing the benefits of bone conduction.

Compared to the first generation OpenRun Pros, my only complaint is that no one has produced a good frequency response profile, so it’s still kind of tricky to do any headphone correction. Rtings.com did finally release their measurements recently, but they admit that it’s not a good measurement, and using the resulting the correction curve sounds pretty bad. A helpful redditor did a manual EQ by A/B-ing with another pair of headphones, which goes a long way, but it’s not as good as a properly measured correction curve. Maybe some day…

Overall impressions

Like I said, I’m biased. These are my favorite headphones, but I’ll try to be fair.

Cons:

The audio quality is still lacking compared to other types of headphones

After 9 hours or so, they can start to become a little unconfortable on the tops of my ears.

The mic is utterly useless for meetings, due to what they do to the audio quality when the mic is active.

They can be somewhat expensive for the sound quality.

My volume down button recently lost its tactile feedback, and you have to press it at just the right angle for it to work.

It’s Bluetooth, so there’s enough latency to be annoying.

Pros:

They are super light-weight.

While the audio quality isn’t great, it’s improved dramatically over the years and is perfectly acceptable to me for both music and speech.

The are small enough to almost disappear in medium-length hair.

They are very comfortable for hours on end, until you’ve been wearing them for an unreasonable amount of time.

They come in multiple sizes for different size heads.

They are easily replaced if something goes wrong.

The warranty process was simple and painless! When I reported my volume button problem, Shokz replaced it with no questions asked. I didn’t even have to return the faulty headset (which is great, since they still mostly work well).

As I approach a decade with bone conduction technology, I can still see why some people might hate it, but it’s improved significantly over the years. I wouldn’t want to use my OpenRun Pro 2 headset for mixing or playing any instruments due to the audio quality and latency, but for nearly all day-to-day meetings, music, podcasts, and phone calls, they are fantastic!