Beats headphones: History and evolution
Headphones have had a long history of evolution into unimaginable quality, comforts, and looks. They are basically a device to convert electric impulses into corresponding sound waves technically called an electro-acoustic transducer. Headphones are designed to send the sound into the listener’s ears. The first headphones were developed for telephone operators in 1881. Needless to say, the sound quality was poor. The major requirement was to free their hands. The first models rested on the shoulders of the operator and weighed 10 lbs. The biggest revolution was the quality of sound reproduction called high-fidelity sound. This came about in the late 1930s. 1937 saw the introduction of the dynamic headphones. They are the most popular type. 1958 was when the world woke up to stereo headphones introduced by one John C. Koss. The market for the next decade was dominated by him. Sony, the Japanese company, jolted the market to another revolution in 1979 by introducing their Walkman making portability the most coveted requirement. The 80s saw the introduction of the in-ear headphones. The 2000s welcomed the QuietComfort series of Bose.
The year 2008 saw the introduction of the Beats headphones. These idea for these headphones were conceived by Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine. To understand the uniqueness of these headphones, it is important to know the background of these two. Andre Young grew to the sound of his mom’s record player. He became a DJ, later Dr. Dre, and became the co-creator of famous rap groups. Iovine is well known Record and Film producer and co-founder of Interscope Records and chairman of Interscope Geffen A&M. These are individuals who were involved in music all their lives. Their products were manufactured by Monster Cable, which has decades of experience in speaker and AV manufacturing. This helped the Beats engineers with a fresh perspective about what is required. Dr. Dre insisted that he wanted his customers to hear music the way the artists hear and listen the way they should. This was achieved by the engineers through wizardry in hardware and sound profiling, high efficiency drivers, and magnetic technology. They boosted the volume without distortion or interference. This led to bass performance of epic proportion, with equal mid and treble performance. With the adoption of latest sound cancellation technology, it enables the listen music in quiet solitude anywhere.
A quality of music’s most loved, wearing comfort, and iconic looks propelled these headphones to the top and attached a high status symbol in a short span of time.