
10 most influential headphones – in pictures
Designs that made the act of listening a personal experience, from early in-ear prototypes to Bluetooth, wireless and noise-cancelling varieties
Main image: Beats by Dr Dre studio headphones 2008 produced by Monster Cable. Photograph: AlamyFri 17 Mar 2017 06.00 EDT Last modified on Sun 16 Jul 2017 17.55 EDT
First in-ear, 1891
In-ear listening devices, commonly referred to as the earphone or earbud, hark back to the late 1800s when Thomas Edison attached stethoscope-like listening tubes to a phonograph. The first patent for earbuds dates back to 1891, when French electrical engineer Ernest Jules Pierre Mercadier designed the ‘bi-telephone’ for communications use.Earphone technology improved over the next 90 years, with most developments meant for hearing aids and other devices. It wasn’t until the 1980s after the release of the Walkman that the earbud as we know it today began to evolve.Photograph: Ernest Jules Pierre Mercadier
Share on Facebook Share on TwitterNathaniel Baldwin’s headphones, 1910
Mormon fundamentalist electrical engineer, Nathaniel Baldwin, is widely credited as inventing what became modern headphones in 1910 on his kitchen table. His headphones were designed for communications use and were snapped up by the US Navy to be used by radio operators.Photograph: web
Share on Facebook Share on TwitterBeyerdynamic DT48, 1937
German audio equipment manufacturer Beyerdynamic, which started out creating loudspeakers for cinemas, developed the first pair of dynamic headphones the DT48. They used a coil of wire attached to the back of a speaker cone through which the current of the audio signal was carried, causing it to move in a fixed magnetic field to move the air and create sound.Dynamic drivers are still the most popular type used in headphones and speakers today, and the DT48 were still in production in one form or another until 2012.Photograph: BeyerDynanic
Share on Facebook Share on TwitterKoss SP/3 Stereophones, 1958
Milwaukee-based musician John C Koss partnered with engineer Martin Lange to develop the first stereo headphones, the Koss SP/3, in 1958. The headphones were intended as a way to market a portable phonograph, but after exhibiting the design at a hi-fi trade show, Koss went into manufacturing the so-called ‘stereophones’, setting the design and mechanics of headphone for years to come.Photograph: Koss
Share on Facebook Share on TwitterWalkman headphones, 1979
The original cassette Walkman came equipped with a set of on-ear foam-pad headphones, Sony’s MDR-3L2. Due to the Walkman’s popularity, the bundling of the new lightweight headphones propelled them into the mainstream along with the relatively new 3.5mm headphones socket, both of which became ubiquitous across multiple devices.Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo
Share on Facebook Share on TwitterBose Quiet Comfort, 2000
Bose released the Quiet Comfort headphones in 2000, but the idea gestated decades earlier. Having been plagued by the engine roar of a transatlantic flight in 1978, company founder Dr. Amar Bose started its research into noise-cancellation technology, which uses microphones outside the headphones to detect ambient noise and cancel it before it hits the eardrum by playing the inverse of the ambient sound through the speakers. Bose first used this technology in 1986 in a headset designed to protect the hearing of pilots.Photograph: Bose
Share on Facebook Share on TwitterApple Earbuds, 2001
The original Apple basic earbuds had no controls, no microphone and were nothing more than white versions of similar earphones sold by competitors at the time, but they shipped with the iPod in 2001 and quickly became a status symbol – a streak of white cable that signified the wearer as an iPod owner.They managed to successfully make the earbud the go-to portable audio earphone of choice, and bred a healthy industry in third-party premium earphones targeted at iPod owners who wanted better sound.Photograph: Jamie Smith/The Guardian
Share on Facebook Share on TwitterBeats by Dr Dre Studio, 2008
Music producer Jimmy Lovine and rapper Dr Dre started a headphones company in 2006 because Apple’s Earbuds ‘destroyed the feeling of what [Dr Dre] worked on’ – his music. Beats by Dr Dre were released in 2008, and while acoustically they nothing special, they convinced buyers that big headphones could be fashionable. Through celeb endorsement and product placement, Beats reinvigorated the headphone market, showing that not only audiophiles were willing to spend £100s on headphones. Completing the circle, Beats was bought by Apple in 2014.Photograph: Alamy
Share on Facebook Share on TwitterFirst Bluetooth (stereo) headphones, 2004
Bluetooth, the wireless connection standard named after the 10th century Danish King, Harald Bluetooth (pictured), and first released in 1999, is the reason mainstream headphones are now going wireless. The first stereo wireless Bluetooth headphones hit the market in 2004, but it wasn’t until the early 2010s that they started to become viable alternatives for traditional wired headphones.Photograph: BirgerNiss/Getty Images/iStockphoto
Share on Facebook Share on TwitterTruly wireless earbuds, 2016
While Bluetooth headphones are now commonplace, truly wireless earbuds – those without any wires connecting them – are still a new and unproven technology.Bragi’s Dash were some of the first, but struggled to maintain a constant connection between each earbud. It wasn’t until 2016 that Bragi’s the Headphone, Jabra’s Elite Sport (pictured) and Apple’s AirPods came along that the technology actually worked. While they’re still an expensive early adopter device, wireless earbuds are the future of earphones.Photograph: Jabra
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