A personal history of the headphones

My earliest memory of regularly using headphones concerns a pair that my dad had in the late seventies and early eighties. In addition to being rather heavy, I remember they had a short, tight, curled lead that required one to sit right in front of the record player, leaning forward slightly, in order to utilise them. I have a clear memory of sitting in that situation of mild discomfort, listening to Simple Minds' 'Empires And Dance'.

Shortly before I left for university, I was advised by my good friend, Colin, who had gone away a year before me, to buy a personal hi-fi or 'Walkman'*, because a lot of my first week would involve standing in queues. This proved to be excellent advice and provided the additional benefit of providing a gentle prophylactic against people who were keen to make new friends.

For the next few years, it was rare for me to be seen out during daylight hours without my Walkman, a habit that only came to a close when I was married. Even then, I remember having both portable CD and MiniDisc players during the nineties. And then, of course, the iPod came along, enabling me to DJ to myself on the commute between the Lakes and London around 2003.

All during this period of more than twenty years, ever since the uncomfortable era of my dad's headphones, I wore the sort of headphones that - if you are of a certain age -  you probably associate with the Sony Walkman: they were light and portable, and fitted just over the entrance to the ear canal or nestled in its entrance. The culmination of these has been Apple's AirPods, which I love.

These days, it's far more common to see people wandering around in the sort of large headphones that were once limited to listening to the domestic hifi, often giving their wearers the profile of one of the Cybermen from Doctor Who. I have to say, though, that I have always found them uncomfortable to wear for more than, say, the length of an album.

Then, at college last week, Yoss mentioned that 'open-backed' headphones were the best thing to wear for prolonged periods. Whilst they 'spill' the sound a lot more, as you would expect, there is no build up of pressure around the ear.

Intrigued, I purchased the pair that you see in today's photo and, blimey, what a gamechanger! I wore them all through this evening's 'Electronic Music Composition' session, which I joined by Zoom. If there is no one around to be disturbed by the fact they don't do much to contain the sound, they are brilliant for both monitoring when recording and for listening to music. Would recommend!

*Originally to be marketed as a the 'Stowaway', resulting in the title of B.E.F.'s album, 'Music For Stowaways'. They decided not to change the title to 'Music For Walkmen' as it sounded like the sort of title Gary Numan would use.