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Future of Headphones

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by Josh Ray on November 28 '06

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Leave it to Sony to blaze trails in the world of high-fidelity. Here's their latest wonder invention:

"Sony's Tokyo research lab has found a way to connect headphones to portable music and video players without the need for fiddly wiring. They simply feed an audio signal straight through the listener's body."

With the cable obsession in the audio world, one has to wonder if a human cable is the best cable of all. No RF interference (except from those fillings in your mouth), skin effect or other gremlins of wire tech. Of course, the article goes on to say there's only a few millionths of an amp going through your body, but I'm sure that can be upped a little. For all you AKG K1000 groupies, Phillips has a really nice portable solid state amplifier called the HeartStart that may be sufficient:

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Comments

Sony, huh? As long as those in-body headphones don't explode, I'm game.

Posted by: beto | November 28, 2006 11:38 AM

"For all you AKG K1000 groupies, Phillips has a really nice portable solid state amplifier called the HeartStart that may be sufficient:" I didn't get the joke. What's the relation between an AKG groupie and a Philips defibrillator? Can someone explain, please? Thanks in advance.

Posted by: Jobim | November 28, 2006 1:49 PM

AKG K1000s are notoriously hard to drive headphones, so in order to get anything close to optimal performance from them, you'd have to directly run them of a power amp using speaker wires. I guess the joke is that you'd need a debribrillator to swing the kind of power to run the K1000s out of your body.

Posted by: Anonymous | November 28, 2006 3:31 PM

I can see it now: A lenghty round-table discussion in Absolute Sound arguing the merits of what listeners weigh.

Posted by: Rods84 | November 29, 2006 8:54 AM

Thanks Anonymous, now I get it. Rods84: Don't forget the pro's and con's of being sweaty. Another question: If you shake hands with someone, will the circuit be broken for that moment? And what if you (or that guy that you have shaken hands with) have a pacemaker? Can you make your (his) heart groove to the music you're listening?

Posted by: Jobim | November 29, 2006 1:51 PM