Ongoing History Daily: Who invented headphones, part 2
In 1953, a company who specialized in renting TVs to hospital patients was looking for something new. John C. Koss, the owner, thought that portable turntables might be a good idea. But they couldn’t have music blaring all over hospital wards, so Koss and his engineers came up with the idea of listening through headphones.
This idea was essentially an accident, a by-product of the portable turntable idea.
By the end of the 50s, just as the first hi-fi crazy was really taking off, headphones became very popular, especially with guys. They helped shut out the noise of the family and other distractions and many users remembered what it was like to use such things listening to sonar on ships and submarines during World War II.
