History of headphones - a good article

Kinda' cool, but they've left out a bunch of good companies. I've been drooling over the Orpheus for some time now. You should check out the Stax SR-009. That's currently holding the "best headphone to date" title with a lot of audiophiles. I haven't heard those either, though. I'm currently waiting for my money tree to sprout.

Didn't the Orpheus come out several years ago?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marximus 

Didn't the Orpheus come out several years ago?

I actually think the first consumer model (HEV60) was released in the late '90s

Yeah, there's a review on Stereophile from 1994.

Nice entry level knowledge into the world of headphones, nothing more I think for this article.

No offense for Apple fans but when you include the iBuds and Earpods (heard they are good for the price) into the history of headphones, then you can see that the article is just hyping up the release of the new stuff (Earpods specifically).

Surprised that even Grado was not mentioned in the article...

Quote:

Originally Posted by AbsoluteZero 

Nice entry level knowledge into the world of headphones, nothing more I think for this article.

 

No offense for Apple fans but when you include the iBuds and Earpods (heard they are good for the price) into the history of headphones, then you can see that the article is just hyping up the release of the new stuff (Earpods specifically).

 

Surprised that even Grado was not mentioned in the article...

Yeah it did feel like it left a lot of stuff out. I was hoping id get to hear the history of these companies and what products they all started out making and how that affected the market and brought to where we see it today. (I mean aside from beats and ibuds)

Quote:

Originally Posted by obobskivich 


HEV60 != Orpheus. Orpheus is the HE90 + HEV90. HE60/HEV70 is the "Baby O" and one of a few Sennheiser electrostat models. There's a thread on Orpheus in Summit-Fi for those interested.
Article is missing a lot:
- John Koss didn't actually design/invent the SP3 by himself, his co-worker/engineer Martin Lange is often credited with that (my understanding is that John Koss is like the Steve Jobs of headphones; Koss Corp is not a one man show is the point).
- Eugen Beyer invented stereo dynamic headphones in 1937, the Beyerdynamic DT48. They are likely to end production this year due to reported supply issues.
- Orpheus came out in the 1990s and cost nowhere near $40,000 (that's higher than any used gouge I've ever seen); I think actual MSRP was something around $9500.
- Should also mention the Koss ESP/6 or the first STAX (SR-1 I think), as the first electrostatic headphones (it's contested as to which one is actually "first" - and they're fairly different designs too).
- Could also mention Sony's invention of woodies, with the MDR-R10, as well as the bio-cellulose drivers they developed for them. In fact, there's a lot of Sony contributions that should be mentioned.
- The significance of Grado and Sennheiser on the development of the high-end headphone market should also be mentioned on some level.
- Ultrasone and Audio-Technica should at least be mentioned somewhere (they've both contributed a lot, AT more than Ultrasone (AT also has some 30 years on Ultrasone)); Yamaha and Toshiba as well, for their isodynamic and electret headphones.

Good info. So, you're saying the original Orpheus is the 90, and the 60 & 70 are the Baby O?

obobskivich should write an article on headphones, this linked article did seem a bit lightweight, but still worth a read.  

Quote:

Originally Posted by obobskivich 

There's also an older (ca 1980s) Sennheiser electrostat, Unipolar 2000.

Two - Unipolar 2000 and Unipolar 2002. 2000 came out in the late '70s while the 2002 apparently followed not much later.

Quote:

Originally Posted by obobskivich 

Wanted to correct an error (your mention of the 2002 got me thinking about it), the 2000 series are electrets, not electrostatics. I am not sure what the difference between the 2000 and 2002 specifically is, as they use the same transformer component (HER2000), you can read more about it here: http://www.gramophone.net/Issue/Page/July%201978/129/791424/
They are claimed to be the first electrets on the market by Sennheiser, and indeed date to 1977 (thanks for catching that one). These are unrelated to the HE60 and HE90 (and since I dug out the history, the HE90 were released in 1991).

You've created an error in correcting what was already correct: electrets are electrostats. Saying they aren't is like saying the Senn HD 800 isn't a dynamic because the driver has a hole in the middle.

The Unipolars aren't the first electrets as far as I know - I think it was something about them being the first unipolar electrets or something like that, but I'm not sure that that's true either.