At the end of the video I'm just reporting back on my own experiences as someone who has worn one for a day, tried wearing it either way up - adjusted the tone and volume controls, played a variety of music etc. They'll probably be a few "you need to replace the caps in that" tips - but even if after all these years it isn't performing perfectly (although it all seems to be working fine to me), there is one indisputable fact about the 'Bone Fone'... it doesn’t push against any bones. It rests against fleshy parts of the body, parts that can not conduct sound vibrations, even from my proper bone conducting headphones. Even if the intentions were more about feeling the sound - like the way you may physically feel the bass in your chest from music played though a loud and powerful speaker, the speaker drivers and the power output on the Bone Fone aren't sufficient to generate sufficient volume to replicate this. It really is just a portable radio in a sack. People in the early 1980s discovered this and quickly moved on. So just a bit of fun. Nothing to be taken too seriously.
Now there's a thing: early car CD players. I remember our Headstart LX-CD IBM compatible coming with a plastic ring as an adapter for Mini CDs. This was back when CD-ROMs required a caddy.
Should have been called the Body Fone. Also, this news report on it is hilarious! th-cam.com/video/De0TxZzqpSg/w-d-xo.html The reporter is acting like it's a miracle that he can hear the music coming from it lol.
Are you sure the speakers should face outside and not towards the body? I know you said that's how they should be, but it's just not logical, if their job is to conduct sound into the body, why should they face out and not towards the body?
So, get the new iTeeth wireless tooth-buds that stick onto your ONLY protruding bones, the teeth! Get magical and amazing sound reproductions from the iTeeth. Did we mention it is fantastic and magical? We did? Okay, good. Enough brain washing then...
Ahhhh, JS&A. That was a catalog out of the 80's. Each page was one item that had a description that could have been written by a carnival barker. Fascinating concepts, but I'm willing to bet that the Bone Fone wasn't the only one that fell short of it's hype. I'm not sure if it has any relation to DAK, but they seemed to follow the same business plan.
I bought one of those when they were $50 and I was in college. I thought I was cool to walk around with it hanging around my neck. Geez! It really did just sound like a regular transistor radio. Amazing that you found such a great-condition set. Thanks for another great review! Yes, I am very old.
Ryan Schaffer It's the spine actually. And the skull is balancing precariously on a wobbly fork where the main interface cables go through. Fortunately, it's tied down by a bunch of muscles.
@@johnfrancisdoe1563 Or "cable ties" as us neck surgeons* say. * Other neck surgeons may differ. Especially if they've got qualifications, or indeed have ever done any actual neck surgery.
Yeah, I didn't listen to the music (so I didn't hear what music it actually was), but thought "would youtube really copyright strike 70's music?" Only your comment made me realize how stupid my thoughts were...
I'm one of the people who reported on a memory of the "bone fone" - a person at work had them. It's weird because I can clearly hear the music playing when you're wearing them, but I don't recall hearing anything when my colleague was wearing them. At work, it was a group of people programming, and it was pretty quiet. The funny thing is - or was - that the guy was wearing a Yarmulke and was rocking back and forth. I just assumed he was very devout and was praying - like the guys you see at the wailing wall - "davening" they call it. When I got to know him, I asked about it. He was taken aback and said, "No - I'm just listening to my bone fone. I'm rocking to the music." We both had a laugh over it. Still, the thing was, that I had no idea he was listening to music. I'm positive I would have heard it and not made that mistake. That's why I say "weird."
An interesting one not yet tested is the Sony Budo-Khan. It's some sort of bass speaker from the 80s in a cushion you're suppose to lean on and that provides heavy, physiological bass frequencies. I've seen advertised in Sony brochures but I don't know how it looks or work, really. I know some walkmans appear under this brand, too.
Budokan in Tokyo, built for the budo sport in the 1964 olympics, is THE main concert hall in Tokyo ever since 1964. A sold out Budokan is the pinnacle of any singer's career. The meaning the word "Budokan" wants to convey is "the no 1 concert hall in the large metropolis".
I've seen one of the Budo-Khan walkmen, in the 80s and 90s I worked at an electronics retailer, a customer brought one in for repair. This version had oversized headphones and a bass boost circuit iirc. Nice unit, always wanted to add one to my collection but never got the chance. Cheers. Bob.
Omg!!! My parents had one of these when I was growing up (born in 1980). I use to use it all the time. That thing was great! At some point the battery door disappeared for it, but I still used it. My parents divorced when I was 13 and when they moved it got tossed into a box of my stuff; yes, I vividly remember packing it away when we moved. That box is somewhere in my dad's attic. I know what I'm going to go get in the morning. Thank you so much for posting this! I have tried looking for them on eBay before, but I could never remember the name. :)
Yes they did. The ads were all over the mags I read. They always looked intriguing and made me want one. Thanks to Techmoan we now know it would have been $80 worth of disappointment.
Bwah ha ha... now I renember... Dr PhoneBone... thanx bro... Martin was insane. Almost every panel was a joke. Aww. When comedy was slapstick and snowflakes evaporated in the heat of the moment....
I had a set of Bone Fones in California in the late 70's and loved it. It was amazing and the stereo output was awesome. I wish I could buy a set again.
Pretty sure that end sketch is aimed directly at my and my Sound Demo's for speakers and Headphones. At least 50% of the puppet world is interested in how $3000 studio monitor speakers sound in their car! Also this again is like what I did with the Minirigs Mini speakers that I strapped to my neck. Only those sound amazing. Same concept, 40 more years of tech.
It's not just Speaker reviews.. but facepalmingly, also new TV reviews when looking at the comment sections for reviews of the latest TVs at CES and when the reviewer talks about how true black the picture can achieve... then you see moronic comments like, "it looks washed out to me" or "it looks a bit greyish to me" >.> Morons not realizing they are seeing a TV recorded through a camera (so camera's white balance/exposure settings, environment lighting), and the stupid thing they don't realize is they are most likely viewing this recorded footage on their PC monitors (normal backlit LCDs) which can't achieve true black, etc, like the latest TVs at CES this year... I always cringe when these types of morons think they can gauge how good the quality of audio is of a reviewed item through a youtube video and through their phone's speaker or computer speakers/headset... or worse, judge the quality of modern 8K tvs that can achieve true levels of black through their low resolution and likely backlit LCD phone screen or pc monitor.
I'll have you know *I* can hear the exquisite audio coming from a pair of Backes & Muller BM 100 from online demonstrations. The keyboard through which my macbook transmits audio has no effect on audio quality whatsoever..
Would fit in well with Muppet Jr. who thought speakers could be well demonstrated via an audio CD that you would play at home...over your home speakers...which likely wouldn't be good enough to properly replicate the sound quality...and even if they were... Then why bother getting the said speakers being demonstrated in the first place? As said by Muppet Sr., I think what you are sitting on may well be the same thing you are talking out of... 😂😂😂😂😂😂
I had one of these in around 1979, and I knew a lot of people that did. Before the Walkman came out, there was really no headphones you could use while skiing. Which is exactly why the inventor made it according to the information. In that time, you had either the white hard plastic mono earpiece that went into one ear, or the big earmuff style headphones. So for a few years before the Walkman came out and the cost of the headphones dropped, these were very popular among skiers and others that wanted to do things and have a radio. But as you said, once the Walkman and the clones came out they quickly vanished.
What species was drawn in the patent application at 4:35? It's clearly humanoid, but the facial features are all alien. I'm also not sure about its right hand...
Techmoan, thanks for doing this. I'm one of the ones who brought this up in a previous video. When I was little I saw an ad for this in magazines and thought I might get one someday. Good thing I waited for a review, even if it took almost 40 years to get it. And that, sir, is why I love your channel. Where else are we going to get a close look at long extinct audio gadgets!
One of the things I love about watching old Techmoan vids that I missed is seeing how low the sub counter is compared to the present. Yes, I know I'm weird.
You need to get a cheap in car FM plug in transmitter, preferably one with a SD card reader or USB input, and use that to play your own selection of copyright free music for these radio sets. You get cheap ones with RDS transmission and stereo that plug into the cigarette lighter socket, and they are easy enough to use with a 12V wall wart and a car accessory socket from Halfords in the UK. Just make the power lead come near the radio under test, and choose an unused part of the FM spectrum so you have a clearer signal. Will work in the places in your house with poor FM radio reception as well.
I've experimented with those FM transmitters & found that by attaching an external aerial to the right point you can greatly extend the range, I connected one to my rooftop scanner antenna & could receive the signal several streets away!
THANK YOU for reviewing this product! It answered a lot of my questions (and suspicions) I was a real fan of Joe Sugarman (JS&A Catalog, Products That Think) but was leery of the Bone Fone. I was a frustrated audiophile at the time (one who recognized the good stuff but could never afford it) but the claims just didn't add up because you could see there was nothing around the outside of the ear. You could tell Sugarman wrote all that smooth ad copy but Joe didn't usually go for outright scams... so what happened? I think Joe was taken in on this one, and to give him benefit of a doubt I imagine he probably signed a iron-clad contract with the inventor, and Joe might have even sampled a prototype hanging off a wire that JUST HAPPENED to be plugged into a MAINS audio amplifier. You know what that means --- the inventor would have stuffed the EQ to push some serious energy into those speakers, especially below 100hz. Sugarman was no deep techie so he might have believed the inventor's claim of "just a few things to work out before production" to match the prototype. But the thing that would could never work out was how 'bone conduction' could be achieved that way without using special speaker drivers and much more energy than a few AA batteries could ever deliver. Without heating up and discharging within a minute I mean. Bone conduction would have to wait for neodymium magnets and connection with bones. I'd like to ask Joe about it today.
Dude, I bought Bone Fone in 1981 and freeking love it!! You have to compare it to what other crappy ass portable radios existed at the time - they were horrible little things with those crap little white ear phones. Walkman's then took over, which were 10X better. But they weren't affordable for everyone at first. For a very brief period, like 81-82, the Bone Fone was the bomb!
I had one of those Bone Fones, and took it with me to Air Force basic training, resulting in a hilarious exchange between me and my Drill Instructor when he found it on my first inspection. :) He um, "borrowed it" for the full time I was there, and gave it back the night before I left. We were amused to hear lots of music faintly from his office during our time there.
I just remembered a thing which I had which came out not all that long after the Bone Fone. Pillow Sound was a speaker in a pillow. The speaker was protected by foam and some sort of plastic, and there was a jack at the side which could be connected to a radio. It worked well enough, but you couldn't really hear it unless you were right over it, and you couldn't rough up the pillow during the night because you'd find yourself sleeping on the edge of the speaker.
Wow - I remember being impressed by the ad copy for these things, but having nowhere near the money to buy one. I'm glad to learn now that I was better off not blowing the cash on a cheap toy. Thank you for satisfying my many decades of curiosity about this thing!
I bought one back in 1978 and wore only at work. We worked in a manufacturing industrial setting and had a company policy of NO earplugs for safety reasons. With lots of moving around a stationary radio ( permitted) just didn't cut it . Good sound would be a hard thing to say , but it did have good stereo separation and it was easy to over hear your boss telling you to get back to work or any normal conversation. It laid flat after a short while with wear but it did get a little warm on the back of the neck. Remember this was the late 70's for tech.
I remember these. Never knew anybody who fell for it though. I suspect they meant to write "Epic Saga" but I hate to think what we'd have gotten from today's even more prevalent illiteracy.
The puppet at 15:40 completely explains what people try to do with speakers on TH-cam. I recently bought a pair of Bose Companion 20s (hold your boo's). People were playing music through them to show how they sounded. And the comments on so many videos are how horrible they sounded compared to another pair. The problem is, you can't hear how a pair of speakers sound through another pair of speakers. Makes no sense. You're just listening to your own speakers! Just like you can't see how good a TV looks by watching a video of it on your current TV.
There were several legit reviews which compared three pairs of very similar speakers from different manufacturers. You can't judge the absolute quality of a pair of speakers, but comparatively - pretty easily. The minute biases in tonality were very apparent. Same with quality of sound recorders - you can tell the difference in eq very precisely. Of course given you listen to that on a decent system.
The makers of the Treks Air should totally employ Mat in their TV advert: "That's not bone conducting; this is bone conducting" is a hell of a catchphrase, while holding up objects like the bone phone, a cat, a jigsaw, Sir Simon Rattle, etc.
You know, if they had just advertised it as a wearable AM/FM stereo radio, they might've drummed up some halfway decent sales - and maybe even more if they'd swallowed their pride and put a minijack on it. Damn, now I want to go back in time and market a "wearable boombox."
I remember the Bone Fone! We got to try those out in Tahoe and wear them skiing wayyyyyyyyyyy back when I was working at a the ski area called Squaw Valley then, Palisades now, and it was before 1979 when some guy let us try them out. I don't really remember hearing about them again after that though. Brought back some good memories.
I ended up getting the Aftershokz after seeing your video about them. I had no idea they existed and they're awesome for using at the office where I can hear people while listening to music.
OH....MY....GOD!!!! I was had!! All my life since the 1980s, and I was born in 1965, I remember wanting a bone fone!! I never bought one but the very idea of a powerful bone conduction wearable stereo seemed like the bees knees, the coup de gras, the nectar of the gods! If only I'd got one! I thought I missed this spectacular thing. Now I find it it wasn't??? sigh....
I had one and loved it. Sold it and my friend had it and used it for close to 20 years. We still talk about that radio. It was great when you worked in an industrial situation where you were mobile and couldn't carry around a portable radio since headphones are a big no-no.
"Ok guys let's brainstorm an ideia for our next portable audio product. We need to outsell those stupid Walkmans. Any ideas?" - "Humm... Why don't we just fit a couple of radios on sack and let's call it a day ?" - "Wow that's it! That's brilliant!! That's freaking genius!!! We're going to be millionaires"
Dang, I had one in HS, circa 1980, loved it since we could wear it in class under a jacket on low volume. Listened to KQRS and Stereo 101 in Mpls. Fun times, Definitely!!
I had one of these in 1980, I put endless mileage on my bike while listening to the local FM station. In fact their signal was so strong that my Bone Fone would play faint music without even being turned on!
JS&A, and the Bone Fone, god, I haven't heard of them in so many years! Some outfit called sharper image was later pushing the "Fone" through the 80's, I guess they got a lot of unsold ones. I tried one once and remember it seeming like it wasn[t working as advertised. The late 70's through 80's were wild times.
If it were actually doing bone conduction (*IF* being the operative word) you probably could. You'd have to try it out with the headset-like ones he reviewed previously.
My brother used one as a teenager when he did yard work. It worked well for him. I personally used a walkman with headphones as loud as I could get it.
"I can feel me self getting older, while I'm listening to you" LOL!!! Best phrase from the video!! Thank you very much Mr. Mat. Best regards from Chile!!!
i remember when i was a kid, they were these sucker handles that would play music and when you bit down on the sucker it would play the music seemly in your head, 6 year old me was blown away
@@neilomac - Notably the 60's version of the cell phone was the classic shoe phone. PS - don't worry about not getting the reference, you missed it by _that much_ - Eddy
I love that a channel focusing on obscure tech has almost a million subscribers. Your videos are terrific, but my one complaint is that anything named "the bone phone" and "nuts" deserves a few jokes that I didn't hear :-)
Peg Tooth Hold it you guys,I think you' re on to something here!How about the music picked up by the pubic bone.I'm sure the sex shops would be keen to market something that was so innovative.You know"girls just want a have fun"😆
I remember growing up you used to see the adds for these kind of things in the back of newspapers, little gadgets that used to claim to do some pretty amazing things, all mail order and wait 28 days! My Grandfather used to order quite a bit out of them back in the day, I dont remember anything ever working as described but it all had very impressive flowery wording nevertheless
![ทุกครั้งที่หลับตา (Lucid Dream) - AYLA's [ Official MV ]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/4i1OBAQyv58/mqdefault.jpg)
At the end of the video I'm just reporting back on my own experiences as someone who has worn one for a day, tried wearing it either way up - adjusted the tone and volume controls, played a variety of music etc.
They'll probably be a few "you need to replace the caps in that" tips - but even if after all these years it isn't performing perfectly (although it all seems to be working fine to me), there is one indisputable fact about the 'Bone Fone'... it doesn’t push against any bones. It rests against fleshy parts of the body, parts that can not conduct sound vibrations, even from my proper bone conducting headphones.
Even if the intentions were more about feeling the sound - like the way you may physically feel the bass in your chest from music played though a loud and powerful speaker, the speaker drivers and the power output on the Bone Fone aren't sufficient to generate sufficient volume to replicate this.
It really is just a portable radio in a sack. People in the early 1980s discovered this and quickly moved on.
So just a bit of fun. Nothing to be taken too seriously.
Now there's a thing: early car CD players.
I remember our Headstart LX-CD IBM compatible coming with a plastic ring as an adapter for Mini CDs. This was back when CD-ROMs required a caddy.
Should have been called the Body Fone. Also, this news report on it is hilarious! th-cam.com/video/De0TxZzqpSg/w-d-xo.html The reporter is acting like it's a miracle that he can hear the music coming from it lol.
Are you sure the speakers should face outside and not towards the body? I know you said that's how they should be, but it's just not logical, if their job is to conduct sound into the body, why should they face out and not towards the body?
So, get the new iTeeth wireless tooth-buds that stick onto your ONLY protruding bones, the teeth! Get magical and amazing sound reproductions from the iTeeth. Did we mention it is fantastic and magical? We did? Okay, good. Enough brain washing then...
Explaining computers
The entry for “bone phone” in my contacts goes to a very different company.
I remember something about cellphones being called this back in the day... early reference to booty call...
bone trousle
@@aveaoz Classic 1940 cartoon "Bone Trouble"
🤣🤣🙄🤣
🙄
Puppet sketch is 10x better than the product that was clearly reviewed. 11x thank you T.M.
Nice Spinal Tap reference. It was phoney! I laughed my humorous off. Surgeryly serious.
Bone Phone sounds like a new Tinder clone
And it’s successor, nuts
It accurately describes what Tinder is for.
It definitely sounds like something that would *precede* "vigorous activity".
I got to experience that piece of junk back in 1979 when a friend bought one and let me try it out. Then I bought a Walkman.
Bone Fone...Nuts....whomever named these products clearly had a ball coming up with those.
It was the 70's, names like that were common.
two balls*
The 80's... when funky was re-re-repackaged and peddled, and nobody bothered to notice.
Ahhhh, JS&A. That was a catalog out of the 80's. Each page was one item that had a description that could have been written by a carnival barker. Fascinating concepts, but I'm willing to bet that the Bone Fone wasn't the only one that fell short of it's hype. I'm not sure if it has any relation to DAK, but they seemed to follow the same business plan.
American creativity at its...well, usual.
I bought one of those when they were $50 and I was in college. I thought I was cool to walk around with it hanging around my neck. Geez! It really did just sound like a regular transistor radio. Amazing that you found such a great-condition set. Thanks for another great review! Yes, I am very old.
You should have draped it over your head with the speakers pointing inwards... would have been stylish ;)
Critical Eats Japan That is exactly what I was thinking! We need a follow up video.
Like Captain Picard in one of the later movies.
Coming down here just to say that, thanks.
I think he tried. He tried all possibilities as he said.
That would have been great to see
"There's a bone in there somewhere, obviously I'm holding my head up". Hahaha. that made me laugh!!!
He doesn't say the word "I'm", the exact quote is(10:48): There's a bone in there somewhere, obviously, holding me(my) head up
Ryan Schaffer It's the spine actually. And the skull is balancing precariously on a wobbly fork where the main interface cables go through. Fortunately, it's tied down by a bunch of muscles.
@@johnfrancisdoe1563 Or "cable ties" as us neck surgeons* say.
* Other neck surgeons may differ. Especially if they've got qualifications, or indeed have ever done any actual neck surgery.
@@theelectricmonk3909 can I have my cable ties replaced with better quality cables?
I don’t think that you will be getting $20 for that review 😂 cheers Matt for another great video. Steve.
When you played the music I thought 'hey, that isn't 70's music' and then felt really stupid.
Lmao! Same.
Bone head!
Well it would've add some effect to tune in some Retro FM station :)
Yeah, I didn't listen to the music (so I didn't hear what music it actually was), but thought "would youtube really copyright strike 70's music?" Only your comment made me realize how stupid my thoughts were...
Would be cool if it only played Carpenters and Fleetwood Mac
Excellent video takes me back to all the Ronco and K-tel adverts of the 70s people of a certain age will know what i mean well done very entertaining
Great review and LOVE LOVE the puppets at the end . Keep em coming
I had one of these as a kid. I loved it. I could ride bike and here music without drowning out the sound of the car that mowed me down.
I'm one of the people who reported on a memory of the "bone fone" - a person at work had them. It's weird because I can clearly hear the music playing when you're wearing them, but I don't recall hearing anything when my colleague was wearing them. At work, it was a group of people programming, and it was pretty quiet. The funny thing is - or was - that the guy was wearing a Yarmulke and was rocking back and forth. I just assumed he was very devout and was praying - like the guys you see at the wailing wall - "davening" they call it. When I got to know him, I asked about it. He was taken aback and said, "No - I'm just listening to my bone fone. I'm rocking to the music." We both had a laugh over it. Still, the thing was, that I had no idea he was listening to music. I'm positive I would have heard it and not made that mistake. That's why I say "weird."
I used my Bone Fone in the 80's in high school.... Would wear it under a flannel all day and listen quietly. Worked great for me.
An interesting one not yet tested is the Sony Budo-Khan. It's some sort of bass speaker from the 80s in a cushion you're suppose to lean on and that provides heavy, physiological bass frequencies. I've seen advertised in Sony brochures but I don't know how it looks or work, really. I know some walkmans appear under this brand, too.
Budokan in Tokyo, built for the budo sport in the 1964 olympics, is THE main concert hall in Tokyo ever since 1964. A sold out Budokan is the pinnacle of any singer's career. The meaning the word "Budokan" wants to convey is "the no 1 concert hall in the large metropolis".
@@goishikaiganmademou 1. It's 'concert'.
2. What does that have to do with a bass speaker?
I've seen one of the Budo-Khan walkmen, in the 80s and 90s I worked at an electronics retailer, a customer brought one in for repair. This version had oversized headphones and a bass boost circuit iirc. Nice unit, always wanted to add one to my collection but never got the chance.
Cheers. Bob.
It's called Sony Boodo Khan BBS-10 Body System, just google it. Getting his hands on one would be some challenge even for eBay sensei Mat.
Omg!!! My parents had one of these when I was growing up (born in 1980). I use to use it all the time. That thing was great! At some point the battery door disappeared for it, but I still used it. My parents divorced when I was 13 and when they moved it got tossed into a box of my stuff; yes, I vividly remember packing it away when we moved. That box is somewhere in my dad's attic. I know what I'm going to go get in the morning. Thank you so much for posting this! I have tried looking for them on eBay before, but I could never remember the name. :)
Not surprised it was mentioned so often in comments. I remember they advertised the living daylights out of this when I was a teenager.
Yes they did. The ads were all over the mags I read. They always looked intriguing and made me want one. Thanks to Techmoan we now know it would have been $80 worth of disappointment.
Great review...very humerus :-)
Tibia honest with you I wasn't sure if I should thumb up or thumb down this comment. :)
Groan phone...
'Eye 'ear ya.
That was a real knee-capper.
Oh lord, I remember when this thing was new, I'd completely forgotten about it. And yes, I saw it in Popular Science.
I wanted one! Thankfully, I never had the $70 so was never disappointed as I surely would have been.
Puppet comedy gold again!
Yeah, that very last part was totally ICY!!!
Endorsed by Don Martin! (Only readers of Mad Magazine from 1960-1980 will get that one...)
Don Martin was a true genius wasn't he? you could hear the sounds that he Illustrated.
This reply brought to you by Fone Bone beer.
Bwah ha ha... now I renember... Dr PhoneBone... thanx bro... Martin was insane. Almost every panel was a joke. Aww. When comedy was slapstick and snowflakes evaporated in the heat of the moment....
Alternatively, by Jeff Smith.
The bone phone on the neck and the big floppy shoes ! ! ! lol
I had a Bone Fone when I was a kid. It was the coolest radio ever ☺️.
"How about 'Casseiver'?"
I laughed.
I had a set of Bone Fones in California in the late 70's and loved it. It was amazing and the stereo output was awesome. I wish I could buy a set again.
Pretty sure that end sketch is aimed directly at my and my Sound Demo's for speakers and Headphones. At least 50% of the puppet world is interested in how $3000 studio monitor speakers sound in their car!
Also this again is like what I did with the Minirigs Mini speakers that I strapped to my neck. Only those sound amazing. Same concept, 40 more years of tech.
I like to see how much better 4k TV looks on my old 625 line TV.
Nice to see u here
I had one of these in 1979. I used it for cycling and skiing. Worked fine, for the day.
Can you connect a Cassceiver to a Bone Fone?
Had one - back then, recall the sound being wonderful
It's not just Speaker reviews.. but facepalmingly, also new TV reviews when looking at the comment sections for reviews of the latest TVs at CES and when the reviewer talks about how true black the picture can achieve... then you see moronic comments like, "it looks washed out to me" or "it looks a bit greyish to me" >.> Morons not realizing they are seeing a TV recorded through a camera (so camera's white balance/exposure settings, environment lighting), and the stupid thing they don't realize is they are most likely viewing this recorded footage on their PC monitors (normal backlit LCDs) which can't achieve true black, etc, like the latest TVs at CES this year...
I always cringe when these types of morons think they can gauge how good the quality of audio is of a reviewed item through a youtube video and through their phone's speaker or computer speakers/headset... or worse, judge the quality of modern 8K tvs that can achieve true levels of black through their low resolution and likely backlit LCD phone screen or pc monitor.
What puzzles me is how can *anyone* think like that? Absolutely mindboggling levels of ignorance.
@@mmatiasautio like someone thinking they are a legal citizen of a country even though their parents came to said country illegally...
I'll have you know *I* can hear the exquisite audio coming from a pair of Backes & Muller BM 100 from online demonstrations. The keyboard through which my macbook transmits audio has no effect on audio quality whatsoever..
Would fit in well with Muppet Jr. who thought speakers could be well demonstrated via an audio CD that you would play at home...over your home speakers...which likely wouldn't be good enough to properly replicate the sound quality...and even if they were...
Then why bother getting the said speakers being demonstrated in the first place?
As said by Muppet Sr., I think what you are sitting on may well be the same thing you are talking out of...
😂😂😂😂😂😂
LOL yeah I watched the vid and thought it was a really good idea, what an idiot.
I had one of these in around 1979, and I knew a lot of people that did. Before the Walkman came out, there was really no headphones you could use while skiing. Which is exactly why the inventor made it according to the information.
In that time, you had either the white hard plastic mono earpiece that went into one ear, or the big earmuff style headphones. So for a few years before the Walkman came out and the cost of the headphones dropped, these were very popular among skiers and others that wanted to do things and have a radio. But as you said, once the Walkman and the clones came out they quickly vanished.
What species was drawn in the patent application at 4:35? It's clearly humanoid, but the facial features are all alien. I'm also not sure about its right hand...
Your right, It looks like David Bowie... He certainly wasn't human!
Those eyes...like WTF
Techmoan, thanks for doing this. I'm one of the ones who brought this up in a previous video. When I was little I saw an ad for this in magazines and thought I might get one someday. Good thing I waited for a review, even if it took almost 40 years to get it. And that, sir, is why I love your channel. Where else are we going to get a close look at long extinct audio gadgets!
Also, the puppet sketch is on point as usual. Casseiver lol.
In the top right at 9:52, 10:53 and 11:54 you got subscriptions on the counter :) I'm always watching out for that in your videos!
All 3 exactly 1 minute and 1 second apart
The subscription counter probably polls once every minute for updated data.
AM/FM Radio Bone Fone Casseiver
"Actually, I think the thing you're sittin' on might be the same thing you're talkin' out of"
Love it.
One of the things I love about watching old Techmoan vids that I missed is seeing how low the sub counter is compared to the present. Yes, I know I'm weird.
You need to get a cheap in car FM plug in transmitter, preferably one with a SD card reader or USB input, and use that to play your own selection of copyright free music for these radio sets. You get cheap ones with RDS transmission and stereo that plug into the cigarette lighter socket, and they are easy enough to use with a 12V wall wart and a car accessory socket from Halfords in the UK. Just make the power lead come near the radio under test, and choose an unused part of the FM spectrum so you have a clearer signal. Will work in the places in your house with poor FM radio reception as well.
I'm not sure those are legal in the UK.
I've experimented with those FM transmitters & found that by attaching an external aerial to the right point you can greatly extend the range, I connected one to my rooftop scanner antenna & could receive the signal several streets away!
@@draketungsten74 they are legal you can pick on up in Halfords
@@solidamber Good to know. I heard maybe 15 years ago that they weren't. Either I heard wrong or something changed.
@@solidamber Legal as-sold, not modified though...
THANK YOU for reviewing this product! It answered a lot of my questions (and suspicions)
I was a real fan of Joe Sugarman (JS&A Catalog, Products That Think) but was leery of the Bone Fone. I was a frustrated audiophile at the time (one who recognized the good stuff but could never afford it) but the claims just didn't add up because you could see there was nothing around the outside of the ear. You could tell Sugarman wrote all that smooth ad copy but Joe didn't usually go for outright scams... so what happened? I think Joe was taken in on this one, and to give him benefit of a doubt I imagine he probably signed a iron-clad contract with the inventor, and Joe might have even sampled a prototype hanging off a wire that JUST HAPPENED to be plugged into a MAINS audio amplifier. You know what that means --- the inventor would have stuffed the EQ to push some serious energy into those speakers, especially below 100hz. Sugarman was no deep techie so he might have believed the inventor's claim of "just a few things to work out before production" to match the prototype. But the thing that would could never work out was how 'bone conduction' could be achieved that way without using special speaker drivers and much more energy than a few AA batteries could ever deliver. Without heating up and discharging within a minute I mean. Bone conduction would have to wait for neodymium magnets and connection with bones. I'd like to ask Joe about it today.
Dude, I bought Bone Fone in 1981 and freeking love it!! You have to compare it to what other crappy ass portable radios existed at the time - they were horrible little things with those crap little white ear phones. Walkman's then took over, which were 10X better. But they weren't affordable for everyone at first. For a very brief period, like 81-82, the Bone Fone was the bomb!
I had one of those Bone Fones, and took it with me to Air Force basic training, resulting in a hilarious exchange between me and my Drill Instructor when he found it on my first inspection. :) He um, "borrowed it" for the full time I was there, and gave it back the night before I left. We were amused to hear lots of music faintly from his office during our time there.
Love the muppets, always brings a smile to my face.
The Moans.
Gotta love the Moans! 😂😂😂😂😂😂
I just remembered a thing which I had which came out not all that long after the Bone Fone.
Pillow Sound was a speaker in a pillow. The speaker was protected by foam and some sort of plastic, and there was a jack at the side which could be connected to a radio. It worked well enough, but you couldn't really hear it unless you were right over it, and you couldn't rough up the pillow during the night because you'd find yourself sleeping on the edge of the speaker.
Wow - I remember being impressed by the ad copy for these things, but having nowhere near the money to buy one. I'm glad to learn now that I was better off not blowing the cash on a cheap toy. Thank you for satisfying my many decades of curiosity about this thing!
I bought one back in 1978 and wore only at work. We worked in a manufacturing industrial setting and had a company policy of NO earplugs for safety reasons. With lots of moving around a stationary radio ( permitted) just didn't cut it . Good sound would be a hard thing to say , but it did have good stereo separation and it was easy to over hear your boss telling you to get back to work or any normal conversation. It laid flat after a short while with wear but it did get a little warm on the back of the neck. Remember this was the late 70's for tech.
I don't remember a time I saw you this angry against a product.
The added content at the end is pure gold. It's like you're channeling Jim Henson, but British! Love it
I remember these. Never knew anybody who fell for it though. I suspect they meant to write "Epic Saga" but I hate to think what we'd have gotten from today's even more prevalent illiteracy.
Techmoan's voice and accent it's the reason I am watching your channel.
Greetings from #Algeria
The puppet at 15:40 completely explains what people try to do with speakers on TH-cam. I recently bought a pair of Bose Companion 20s (hold your boo's). People were playing music through them to show how they sounded. And the comments on so many videos are how horrible they sounded compared to another pair. The problem is, you can't hear how a pair of speakers sound through another pair of speakers. Makes no sense. You're just listening to your own speakers! Just like you can't see how good a TV looks by watching a video of it on your current TV.
There were several legit reviews which compared three pairs of very similar speakers from different manufacturers. You can't judge the absolute quality of a pair of speakers, but comparatively - pretty easily. The minute biases in tonality were very apparent.
Same with quality of sound recorders - you can tell the difference in eq very precisely. Of course given you listen to that on a decent system.
The makers of the Treks Air should totally employ Mat in their TV advert: "That's not bone conducting; this is bone conducting" is a hell of a catchphrase, while holding up objects like the bone phone, a cat, a jigsaw, Sir Simon Rattle, etc.
I clicked for the girl in the thumbnail. I stayed for the review and puppets. I love your channel!
Woah I use to play with this all the time as a kid I had no idea it was THAT old. I last saw one of these in 1997
You know, if they had just advertised it as a wearable AM/FM stereo radio, they might've drummed up some halfway decent sales - and maybe even more if they'd swallowed their pride and put a minijack on it. Damn, now I want to go back in time and market a "wearable boombox."
I remember the Bone Fone! We got to try those out in Tahoe and wear them skiing wayyyyyyyyyyy back when I was working at a the ski area called Squaw Valley then, Palisades now, and it was before 1979 when some guy let us try them out. I don't really remember hearing about them again after that though. Brought back some good memories.
Ah, the days when customers were a little more naïve and when the truth came out no-one could easily tell the world about it.
yup, we're so lucky to have TH-cam reviews now.
I ended up getting the Aftershokz after seeing your video about them. I had no idea they existed and they're awesome for using at the office where I can hear people while listening to music.
You should get a FM transmitter that can broadcast a short wave of youtube friendly audio when you test FM radio
Any more than ten seconds of FM radio in the UK is too much anyway.
OH....MY....GOD!!!! I was had!! All my life since the 1980s, and I was born in 1965, I remember wanting a bone fone!! I never bought one but the very idea of a powerful bone conduction wearable stereo seemed like the bees knees, the coup de gras, the nectar of the gods! If only I'd got one! I thought I missed this spectacular thing. Now I find it it wasn't??? sigh....
Nice to see you've ditched the self deprecating intro to the muppets segment. Most of us look forward to them.
I had one and loved it. Sold it and my friend had it and used it for close to 20 years. We still talk about that radio. It was great when you worked in an industrial situation where you were mobile and couldn't carry around a portable radio since headphones are a big no-no.
The "bone phone"? Is that the phone for my Netflix and chill hookups?
OMG I used to have one. WOW what memories. I remember using them for skateboarding.I wast a bit heavy for a 10 year old.
Really, I'm just here for the puppets.
We need that second channel
I remember seeing the magazine ads for these constantly, but never actually seeing the device anywhere. There was probably a reason for that.
Give a Moan a Bone!
:)
With a knick-knack paddywhack
This ole bone marrowly missed cumming home
Put this song on repeat on TH-cam music.
"I think the same thing you're sitting on is the same thing you're talking out of" (outro comedy sketch) Wonderful line!
"Ok guys let's brainstorm an ideia for our next portable audio product. We need to outsell those stupid Walkmans. Any ideas?"
- "Humm... Why don't we just fit a couple of radios on sack and let's call it a day ?"
- "Wow that's it! That's brilliant!! That's freaking genius!!! We're going to be millionaires"
Dang, I had one in HS, circa 1980, loved it since we could wear it in class under a jacket on low volume. Listened to KQRS and Stereo 101 in Mpls. Fun times, Definitely!!
Also sold by Radio Shack / Tandy under the 'Realistic' brand with a shocking pink cover...
RoscoZone i remember seeing one in the discount rack at Radio Shack. It was bright orange. Seemed pretty silly even at the time.
Battery card one battery a month
I had one of these in 1980, I put endless mileage on my bike while listening to the local FM station. In fact their signal was so strong that my Bone Fone would play faint music without even being turned on!
JS&A, and the Bone Fone, god, I haven't heard of them in so many years! Some outfit called sharper image was later pushing the "Fone" through the 80's, I guess they got a lot of unsold ones. I tried one once and remember it seeming like it wasn[t working as advertised. The late 70's through 80's were wild times.
This just got shared on a CRACKED article about 80's trends and fads. Maybe Mat will see an uptick of views, I hope!
Ahhh... it's been too long since my last dose of the puppets!
I actually purchased one of these things back in the day. Just another one of life’s lessons.
puppets! puppets! i love the puppets, i want more puppets!
Yes! I remember this, back in the day! I believe these used to be advertised in "Sail" magazine quite a bit.
Mow the lawn? You would never hear it over the lawn mower.
Depends. There are reel mowers too.
@@gocsa have you used one? I have and they are terrible. If the lawn isn't perfectly flat, you'd be better off using scissors
If it were actually doing bone conduction (*IF* being the operative word) you probably could. You'd have to try it out with the headset-like ones he reviewed previously.
@@gocsa most of them are fake though. Tss.
My brother used one as a teenager when he did yard work. It worked well for him. I personally used a walkman with headphones as loud as I could get it.
"I can feel me self getting older, while I'm listening to you" LOL!!! Best phrase from the video!! Thank you very much Mr. Mat. Best regards from Chile!!!
Bone Fone is just a fun way to say bootycall.
That manual is gold, amazing pictures.
PUPPETS!
i remember when i was a kid, they were these sucker handles that would play music and when you bit down on the sucker it would play the music seemly in your head, 6 year old me was blown away
Seems like something you'd see in a Seinfeld episode.
All of those videos totally reminded me of the venerable 1970s Bone Fone!
But is it better than the almighty banana phone?
ring ring ring ring ring ring ring
Clearly not cellular, modular, nor interactivodular, so no.
@@neilomac - Notably the 60's version of the cell phone was the classic shoe phone.
PS - don't worry about not getting the reference, you missed it by _that much_
- Eddy
@@EngineeringVignettes Good one! It's sometimes difficult to get people to Get Smart about something from before they were born.
The Beautiful South on the radio? Brilliant
I can just imagine unhappy customers calling them up for a refund, and the response they got was "Yeah, you're boned!"... :P
Have NEVER clicked on a Video Quicker...Techmoan is Number☝️🍺🇬🇧 Cheers from PA
I had one, it lasted until the early 90s
Did it work good? Was it better than regular headphones or a stereo?
Did it work good? Was it better than regular headphones or a stereo? Or just a gimmic?
Really sounded no different to a small radio, not as good as headphones
@@Oracojisan Oh ok, thanks
I love that a channel focusing on obscure tech has almost a million subscribers. Your videos are terrific, but my one complaint is that anything named "the bone phone" and "nuts" deserves a few jokes that I didn't hear :-)
I cannot help but laugh every time he says "Bone Phone" in the video.
EDIT: My chest actually hurts by the end of the video
SAME HAHA
That little pamphlet reminds me a bit of all those "Sudden New Invention!" pamphlets, like the one that accompanied the Pet Rock as well.
I feel sad for everyone bought this device for $70+
Especially $70 in 1980 dollars.
In the early 80's we got used to being disappointed by over-hyped product ads.
Especially toys.
I still have the emotional scars even today.
- Eddy
Yes, all three of the people who bought this thing.
One of the best puppets yet. Oh and the video was good as well.
am I the only person that thinks the bag it comes in looks more like an oversized maxi pad then a bone?
They tried marketing it as _"The Tampon Fone"_ but the results were catastrophic.
@@fsmoura must have been a bloody mess
People were hysterical.
Peg Tooth Hold it you guys,I think you' re on to something here!How about the music picked up by the pubic bone.I'm sure the sex shops would be keen to market something that was so innovative.You know"girls just want a have fun"😆
I remember growing up you used to see the adds for these kind of things in the back of newspapers, little gadgets that used to claim to do some pretty amazing things, all mail order and wait 28 days! My Grandfather used to order quite a bit out of them back in the day, I dont remember anything ever working as described but it all had very impressive flowery wording nevertheless
That sounds just like wish.com today!
That $70 is about $255 in today's U.S. dollars. You're welcome.
Always super quality videos. Thank you techmoan. Someday when I'm financially secure I will buy your patreon.