Things you probably didn`t know about Headphones
Headphones have become a ubiquitous item in our everyday life. You can spot them in the train, cafe, office etc. You might own one pair of it yourself.
Owning a headphone could mean a different thing for different people. For some, it act as a fashion statement. It`s easy to spot these people, the headphone are almost always just hanging around the neck.
While for others, headphones can also serve as a mandatory piece of contraption to block out distraction, giving them space and time to escape into their own world.
In the 1880s, telephone operators used a somewhat simplified version of modern headphones. It only has a single earpiece and had to be connected to a contraption together with a mouthpiece for transmission.
That contraption itself weighs between 6 – 11 pounds and has to be rested on the operator`s shoulder!
Nathaniel Baldwin made the first modern headphones(two earpiece with a headband) by hand in his kitchen. It was sold to the Navy as a piece of radio equipment. But because Baldwin were making them in his kitchen, the production rate were very low, around 10 at a time.
Hence, the Navy wanted to move him out of his kitchen at Utah and into a bigger and more professional facilities. However, because Baldwin was a polygamist, he refused to moved out of Utah.
Another company, Wireless Specialty Apparatus Co, decided to capitalise on this and worked with Baldwin to manufacture the headphone in a factory in Utah. But on one condition: They could never increase the price of the headphones sold to the Navy.
Cans was actually a slang used in the past for earpiece or for anything that produces sounds and had to be listened to by putting them to the ear. It`s also a term that are used sparingly by hipsters who googled for an easier spelling for headphones.
John C Koss, the father of Stereo Headphones, were not just an excellent inventor, he was also a genius marketer. He embrace celebrity endorsement of his product and had promptly take over the headphones market in the 60s – 70s.
So it was a match made in heaven when Koss Electronics decided to team up with the biggest stars in that era to come up with Beatlephone. If you are a Beatles mega fan, you will want to own this.
In the 70s, headphones were used for home-listening of records. Hence, portability of the headphone wasn`t an immediate concern for headphone manufacturers. The headphones could weigh from 1 to 2 kg. To get a relative feel of the heaviness, a Beats headphone weigh in at just 215g.
It was only until Sony released the Walkman, causing a surge in demand for portable headphones and also creating the next momentum shift in headphone history.
