The usual form for giant, chunky headphones has lengthy been a rainbow with Moon Pies at both finish. No rule exists, nonetheless, forcing audio corporations to maintain making them that approach.
Philip Kaplan, the tech entrepreneur behind Tiny Letter and DistroKid, has been proving as a lot all 12 months. The tireless tinkerer has currently turned the world of headphones into his own personal sandbox, with wild designs that fluctuate between a shark cage for your head, a beer-can helmet full of subwoofers, and Maleficent-style goat horns. By boundless curiosity, a cheeky humorousness, and loads of elbow grease, the mad scientist of headphones has change into the toast of audio Reddit—and presumably your subsequent obsession.
Kaplan, who bears a passing resemblance to Steve Jobs, has been serious about audio high quality his complete life. The longtime drummer even printed a children’s book on music manufacturing in 2022. So far as his eager curiosity in headphones is worried, although, his origin story begins with a summer season job at an electronics retailer. The 15-year-old Kaplan used his worker low cost to purchase his first pair of significant, high-quality headphones: the Koss Porta Pro Jr., which went for a then-whopping $25. It was the primary time he skilled true bass so vividly. Very like the person in the infamous Maxwell tape ad from the ‘80s, the sound high quality blew him away.
“It was like getting a deep-tissue mind therapeutic massage,” Kaplan recollects. Since then, he has been chasing comparable highs, ceaselessly in the hunt for the following sound expertise that might rattle his bones and rewire his circuitry. Early in 2024, he began creating these experiences himself.
Experiments in headphone design
Kaplan had been rehearsing along with his band in a studio house, every member donning headphones. The audio high quality on Kaplan’s pair was poor. Worse than that, it was a distraction. He fiddled with the equalization setting for some time, nevertheless it didn’t enhance what he was listening to. Ultimately, his software program engineer instincts kicked in. He realized he may have the ability to enhance the headphones’ sound by modifying them.
After rehearsal, he cracked open the {hardware} and began experimenting. He disassembled the small AKG headphones and used electrical tape to place them inside greater ear cups. The outcomes have been prohibitively messy, however the enchancment in sound high quality was close to what he’d hoped for. He by no means ended up fairly ending these headphones, nonetheless, as a result of digging round inside their guts had given him concepts that prolonged far past the scope of that exact mission.
Abruptly, he had a number of extra high-priority design concepts that wanted seeing to.
As a novice headphone engineer, Kaplan was at a slight drawback. His experience was restricted to computer systems. “I knew nothing,” he says of his earliest experiments.
It’s unimaginable, although, simply how a lot one can study merely from watching YouTube movies on soldering approach and learn how to use 3D printing. No matter data Kaplan couldn’t discover that approach, he was in a position to get out of ChatGPT. Impressed by Dan Clark Audio’s unconventional creations—like ovoid-shaped audio system and collapsible headbands—Kaplan started churning out headphones that Alien designer HR Giger may admire.
One favourite is the set Kaplan calls the Bob. A variation on the helmet-like Jecklin Float headphones created within the Nineteen Seventies, Bob appears to be like like a torture machine encasing one’s complete head. In accordance with Kaplan, although, it sounds “velvety easy, with no harshness.” Like a lot of his out-there designs, he wanted to tweak a number of variations of it earlier than attending to the one he wished. It took loads of experimenting to get the ventilated casings on both aspect of the consumer’s head to angle down and supply a seal for the huge ear pads inside.
“If I get fortunate, I can design a headphone at night time and assemble it the following day,” Kaplan says of his course of. “However some take weeks of prototyping and trial-and-error earlier than they work.”
Pushing the bounds of headphones
A few of these experiments are supposed to check numerous acoustic phenomena. Ol’ Thumpy, as an illustration, which affixes bowling-ball-size orbs on both aspect of the consumer’s head, was his try and play with “Helmholtz resonance,” or wind throb (assume: the noise that comes from blowing throughout the mouth of a soda bottle). Kaplan was a little bit shocked it truly labored as meant.
Different experiments are supposed to clear up sensible issues. He developed the Intruder, as an illustration, in order that his spouse may discuss to him even when he’s jamming out to music. The mannequin encompasses a comically massive, Acme-style crimson button anybody can press to mute the headphones. It serves a helpful perform, even when its title is sort of as insulting as that of the Lazy Susan.
Although some observers may suspect such designs as the Grand Cru, which comes impaled with a dozen wine corks on both aspect; or the Swole, which have dumbbells connected to them; are purely jokes, Kaplan dispels that notion.
“All of them begin with, I ponder what it will sound like if headphones had x . . . or why doesn’t anybody make headphones that do y . . . ,” he says.
The ridiculous-looking EyePhone, for instance, which might be lethal for a pedestrian to put on, developed from Kaplan transferring across the transducers, or drivers, to search out out which location across the head would make the soundstage most expansive. (It turned out to be over the eyes.)
Whether or not a few of these headphones are purely satirical or not, Kaplan will not be quick on concepts. He retains a operating record of them, now tallying into the a whole bunch, and introduces new ones every week on his web site, Pud’s Small Batch Headphones. (“Pud” is a childhood nickname he attained from bullies and has since reclaimed.) In fact, not each experiment has been a hit, although. Kaplan’s thought for a headphone with a built-in USB-C dongle—referred to as Dong, naturally—is at the moment on its third iteration, with no functioning prototype in sight.
By documenting his audiophiliac journey on his web site, in Reddit’s r/headphones group, and in a latest collection of YouTube videos, Kaplan has developed a cult following on-line.
“This dude is the best factor to ever occur to this sub,” reads essentially the most upvoted touch upon Kaplan’s r/headphones post in regards to the BubbRubb, a headphone set that defies simple description and is, fairly deliberately, “the worst-sounding headphone you’ve ever heard.”
Crafting a Reddit following
As soon as he started posting his work on-line, Kaplan match proper in amongst Reddit’s tight-knit headphone-enthusiast group and now considers a lot of its members his pals. The extra adventurous among the many group made the trek to the headphone conference CanJam SoCal 2024 again in September, to listen to what Kaplan’s creations truly sound like. Primarily based on the video footage that emerged from the occasion, his gadgets didn’t disappoint.
Though some folks have provided to purchase Kaplan’s designs as artwork items and others as client electronics, he at the moment has no plans to promote them. For now, headphone conventions like CanJam are the one approach for curious audiophiles to provide them a test-drive. That’s, until Bose or Apple or another audio innovators try comparable experiments anytime quickly.
“There’s a lot stuff you’ll be able to match right into a headphone in the event you don’t want it to be small,” Kaplan says. “So long as it’s snug sufficient, the dimensions shouldn’t actually matter. Until you’re within the center seat on an airplane.”
