Listen to a History about Listening

Welcome to Becoming Sage, where the ordinary becomes extraordinary! This is Elan Baumgarten. The revolutionary series of devices that create the topic for this episode really are quite extraordinary. Headphones have been a popular figure of culture for decades as they evolved and grew into the little buds that we can stick into our ears today. The Sony Walkman is largely responsible for this, being the first affordable and portable - music player. But headphones were not invented in the 80s alongside the 1979 introduction of the Walkman - of course: but much earlier. The first headphones can be found in the late 19th Century. London was ground zero for something known as “The Electrophone”. The electrophone allowed people to tune into live shows from all around London. They had an odd-looking shape too - very similar to a stethoscope. Just as one might expect, they did have to pay a fairly high subscription fee to use such a device. Listeners could even tune into the Covent Garden Opera - known today as The Royal Opera House. These headphones did not really resemble headphones as we see them today. Those started with Nathaniel Baldwin - an American inventor. Baldwin created these “sound-amplifying headphones” in his Kitchen around 1910. Despite private investors taking little interest in his creation, the United States Navy ordered 100 pairs of the headsets that he was manufacturing in his kitchen. It was a fairly common occurrence for small inventors to write letters to the Navy, especially in the years leading up to World War 1. This Utahn (U-tahn) wrote his letter in purple ink on blue and pink paper alongside a pair of headphones for them to test! Despite the incredible success of his invention and the Navy’s suggestion, Baldwin refused to patent his invention. He claimed that it was “trivial”. He even refused the Navy’s offer to move him to a larger East Coast factory. The Wireless Specialty Apparatus Company scooped up the manufacturing when he wouldn’t, but under a very restricting condition. They were never allowed to raise the price of the headsets for the United States Navy. In 1937 Beyerdynamic invented the first headphones for personal, civilian use. Before this, the armed forces were the only ones who used them. This design in particular was named the “DT-48”. A few years later in Austria, AKG invented the “K-120”. This Austrian device was the first pair of headphones that embraced not only practicality - but style. The next big step in headphones comes in a post-WW2 world. In 1957 EMI, a record label, became a pioneer in stereo recording with the increasing popularity of stereophonics - a radio technology. Just a year later John Koss, a musician and entrepreneur, invented the first commercial stereo headphones. Koss created the Koss Model 390 Phonograph. It was a package for avid music enjoyers that included a phonograph, speaker, and headphone jack all in one. Unfortunately, there were no compatible headphones that were commercially available. Being a big fan of the military-grade headphones, almost everything that he was used to was designed to be stuck in a warplane. The Koss SP-3 headphones would come to life after Koss talked to an audio engineer about his troubles and they designed prototypes to solve the issue. His designs made their debut at a trade show in 1958 Milwaukee. They were such a hit that manufacturers immediately set to work trying to copy his designs. John Koss’ profound success led to the standardization of headphones for many years. The fundamental design of headphones wasn’t challenged until the first wireless headphones were invented. Almost 25% of people use headphones on a daily basis and for several hours a day. There have been increasing rates of hearing loss as well - especially among teens. According to the American Osteopathic Association roughly one in five teenagers will experience some sort of damage to their hearing, that’s 30% higher than twenty years ago. The reason why headphones are so damaging to your hearing is because they are just that much closer to your inner ear, especially earbuds that you actually insert into your ears. Noise coming from the headphones sends vibrations from the headphones into your cochlea (kah-klee-uh), which is vital to transforming the sound waves into electrical impulses that your brain can interpret as sound. This part of your ear will lose sensitivity to the vibrations over time, causing damage. One of the best things you can do for your hearing is to simply lower the volume. Getting noise-canceling headphones can assist with this as there is less competing noise. That way you don’t need to turn them as high up to hear! Once again, my name is Elan Baumgarten, and thank you for listening to Becoming Sage, where the ordinary becomes extraordinary! Catch us next week with your friends and family for another episode of Becoming Sage!