Article written by Lauren Johnston.
For as long as music has been produced, we have been finding ways to better the technology and find different ways to listen to it. Throughout the years we have had Boom Boxes, Cassette Players, Walkman’s, MP3 Players and iPods. It seems that we have found ways to make music more accessible and especially we have found ways to make music louder, through normal speakers to amplifiers… But what about all that noise pollution? Let’s face it, it’s irritating to listen to someone blasting their music when you are trying to concentrate on a task or do anything at all, which brings me to this week’s topic, headphones, how they were invented and how they have progressed throughout the years.
In 1895, thanks to the invention of the Electrophone system which was a paid for service people were able to listen to music that was being played at the opera house. These “headphones” if you could call them that, looked more like ginormous stethoscopes that were wired into your house, not only that but you had to hold them up to your ears and hold them for the length of time that you wanted to listen. It took fifteen long years after that people started inventing more and more types of headphones for practicality.
In 1910, Nathaniel Baldwin invented a smaller set which was more practical for everyday use. Nathaniel Baldwin, used a common telephone receiver ear piece which was found in most sets of headphones, from that he created his first ever pair on his kitchen bench by hand. Nathaniel then profited from his creation by selling all of them to the United States Navy. He also made the first pair that would resemble headphones that you see today, even though he wouldn’t have known that, maybe if had of known years on people would be taking his idea and creating their own version that’s a little better in different ways maybe Nathaniel would have patented his creation. Nathaniel and many other courageous inventors found a common problem throughout the making of headphones and that was due to the quality of the headphones, the sound quality was poor, they weren’t padded or smoothed out which made them highly uncomfortable to listen to any audio through them for long periods of time. Even though people had headphones in their own homes earlier in 1895, these headphones and many other types for years were only used by the US Navy, Radio workers and people in similar smaller industries.
A few years later in 1937 a company by the name of Beyerdynamic introduced the world to once again a different type of headphone, these were called dynamic headphones which even to this day are still the most popular and preferred type. It’s hard to explain what exactly dynamic headphones are as during my research even I got a little confused, so I have attached a picture to show you, as far as I understand it’s basically more than one way of listening to sound. From there they made a set called DT-48’s and they were the first dynamic headphones to hit the market. To this day not only are they the most popular but they are still the leading type of headphones on the market.
In 1949 AKG released headphones (k120’s) that made people look and be overwhelmed with a new desire to own a pair of headphones, one site claims that if these headphones were to be put on the market today they would sell like hot cakes at Urban Outfitters and other stores similar, not only that they were comfortable to wear for extended periods of time. AKG also made a lot of profit off these headphones, so much so that it was enough for them to quit making film equipment and focus solely on audio. It wasn’t long after the k120’s were released that John C Koss upstaged every other headphone on the market. In 1958 John Koss released the first ever stereo headphones with extra padding. As you can imagine this took the world by storm.
John Koss became well known and his headphones dominated the market for the next few decades. Not only that but a decade later he released the first US made electrical headphones, but as usual there was a flaw, the ESP-6’s weren’t exactly light weighing in at two pounds they weren’t the lightest headphones on the market.
Although all these headphones were successful in their eras and decades, there were a lot of downfalls, especially with the first two mentioned. It wasn’t just the uncomfortablity of wearing them as such, or the hassle of either only being able to listen to music through headphones that were wired to a wall in your home, or that the sound quality was poor. In some cases it was a matter of safety with reports claiming that some headphones the headphone was part of the vacuum tube's plate circuit and carried dangerous voltages. It was normally connected directly to the positive high voltage battery, and the other battery sat in a terminal was securely grounded. This meant that if you were to adjust your uncomfortable headset, you ran a very high chance of being shocked by the electrical current.
It wasn’t until 1958 the company Sax released the first ever pair of electrical headphones and debuted them at a show in Tokyo. Even though the debut was in 1958 the SR-1’s wouldn’t be manufactured or released until 1959 and they flew off the shelves. Nowadays the SR-1’s are extremely rare and if you can get your hands on a pair it would be like finding gold.
From here on out lighter, discreet, portable headphones were made. Today we have come as far as wireless headphones, in-ear earbuds, and not to mention the different aux jacks we have that won’t shock us like earlier models. Steve Jobs was really the game changer in the making and selling of headphones, copying Sony’s idea of making headphones suited to their technology and including a pair with every device sold. Personally, I don’t see the production of headphones ever stopping or staying at the same quality they’re at today. The world of music and technology will never stop evolving, amps, speakers and stereos, as well as the speakers in our phones, laptops and tablets.
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