I still remember the first time I recorded my voice and played it back long time ago. I was shocked and told myself what a bad recording program. I asked my friends and they told they encounted the same problem. But when I listen to their recordings I felt those are their real voice, nothing strange here. Then I came to know that only we can hear the difference, other people always feel the same when hearing us speaking or our recording.

With this wonder, I asked google and here, the secret was revealed.

When you speak, the sound energy spreads in the air around you, goes through your external ears and reach the cochlea (a small curved tube inside the ear, which contains a small part that sends nerve signals to the brain when sounds cause it to vibrate). This is called air-conducted sound. Simultaneously, sound also travels directly from your vocal cords through tissues of the head to cochlea. This is call bone-conducted sound. The voice you hear when you speak is the combination of sound carried along both ways. When you listen to a recording of yourself speaking, there is only air-conducted component in unfamiliar isolation. And this is also what everyone else can hear when you speak.

I have to say that I hate my own voice on the recording (my real voice T_T). After so many years I still can not get along with it. It is like I listen to a stranger not me.

References: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvosNz0Xq7g

                 http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-does-my-voice-sound-different/

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