Ever questioned what makes a headphone operate?

To put it very straightforwardly, your earpiece contains a bit of plastic that moves in accordance to those frequencies received through the gadget it is attached to. The plastic moves due to a metallic curl that’s connected to the magnet, which enables the plastic to form the noise waves that play into your ear.

That’s it, actually. It seems easy enough, but I couldn’t have considered it.

Jezen Thomas at eHow.com delivers a further thorough justification to us, he states this,

“Earphones consist of a speaker cone, an iron coil, a magnet and speaker cables. When earphones are plugged into a music-playing device like a stereo, electricity is sent along the speaker cables. The speaker cables feed this electrical current through the iron coil, which behaves as an electromagnet. The coil then attracts or repels the permanent magnet, depending on the electrical current sent by the music-playing device. This causes the coil to move, which subsequently pushes and pulls the speaker cone. As the speaker cone vibrates as a result of this movement, it creates sonic waves that resonate through the air and are transferred through small bones and membranes inside your ear”.

Evidently, there is various kinds of earpieces, but essentially, that’s it.

Some earpieces, though, do feature bonus features. Noise reducing earpieces, for instance, can make a small field of white sound round the amp itself, which acts as a bit of a vacuum and has the result of disabling outside sound. These earpieces are also better for the health of the inner ear than most other sorts. Sam Costello at About.com

“The noise around us can contribute to cause us to change how we listen to an iPod. If there’s a lot of noise nearby, it’s likely that we’ll turn up the iPod’s volume, thus increasing the chances of hearing loss. To cut down on, or eliminate, ambient noise, use noise-deadening or –cancelling headphones. They’re more expensive, but your ears will thank you”. 

Chris Woodford, articles for ‘Explain That Stuff.com’, gives a detailed explanation of the key differences between earpieces and speakers. Although basically working in a similar method, there are variants concerning both, it seems. He states,

“The biggest difference between loudspeakers and headphones is, of course, size. A loudspeaker needs to set all the air moving in a room so you can hear the sound it’s making, but the speaker in a headphone only has to move the volume of air inside your ear canal. That’s why it can be so much smaller and more discreet”.

 If, even in the end this technology talk, you are still considering seeing what is happening in your headphones, the Youtube user Cayde Brown is known for a number of videos labeled ‘Take Apart’, which may be of interest. In a single episode (which I’ll link HERE), Cayde takes a pair of headsets apart and reveals to us exactly how they work.

Ever questioned what makes a headphone operate?