sony headphones - Headphones (also known as earphones, earbuds, stereophones, headsets, or by the slang term cans) are a pair of transducers that receive an electrical signal from a media player or receiver and use speakers placed in close proximity to the ears (hence the name earphone) to convert the signal into audible sound waves. In the context of telecommunication, the term headset is also commonly understood to refer to a combination of headphones and microphone used for two-way communication, for example with a mobile phone. Headphones date from the beginnings of the history of the telephone and the radio. The weak electrical signals of the early instruments were enough to operate only headphones audibly. Beyerdynamic is considered to have officially invented headphones in the late 1930s, and was the first company to market headphones to the public. Headphones are normally detachable, using a jack plug. Typical products to which they are attached include the Walkman, mobile phone, CD player, Minidisc player, digital audio player, (mp3 player), and personal computer. Headphones can also be used with full-size stereo components. Some headphone units are self-contained, incorporating a radio receiver. Other headphones are cordless, using radio (for example analogue FM, digital Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or infrared) signals to receive signals from a base unit. Another application is in the professional audio sector. Here, headphones are used in live-situations by DJ's and sound engineers for monitoring channels independently from what the public hears. An effect can also be previewed this way. In radio-studios diskjockeys use a pair of headphones when talking in the microphone while the speakers are turned off, for reduced feedback and monitoring of their own voice. In studio-recordings, musicians and singers use headphones to play along a backing track. These headphones tend to be of better quality than 'normal' headphones. The two common connectors are 1/4' and 3.5 mm plug. Headphones designed for home stereo systems and recording studios use the older 1/4' connector. Sony introduced the 3.5mm connector in 1979, adapting the older monophonic 3.5mm connector for use with its Walkman personal stereo. Advantages of the smaller connector include lower bulk, weight and cost. This smaller connector is more prevalent today due to the popularity of portable music devices, although aftermarket headphones sometimes include an adapter for compatibility with the larger connector. Please note that in the professional world, only 1/4' is used. Therefore, professional phones are actually 1/4' oriented and always include an adapter to 3.5 mm. Headphones may be used to prevent other people from hearing the sound either for privacy or to prevent disturbance, as in listening in a public library. They can also provide a level of sound quality that could only be matched by speakers costing a great deal more. This is especially true in the bass (low frequency) region, where loudspeaker-listening room interactions normally cause resonant modes so that even with the best speakers a listener in a given place hears some bass notes too loudly and others too softly. Good headphones, with a good seal to the ear can have an extremely flat low-frequency response down to 20 Hz within 3dB (though claims such as 'frequency response 4 Hz to 20 kHz' are just marketing hype based on the fact that the headphone has some output at 4 Hz; response at frequencies lower than 20 Hz is however very small). Headphones of the 'closed back' type are also used to exclude external sounds, particularly in sound recording studios and in noisy environments. Headphones can also be useful for videogames that use 3D positional audio, allowing players to better judge the position of an offscreen sound (such as the footsteps of an opponent). Although modern headphones are very widely sold and used for listening to stereo, especially since the invention of the Walkman, they are fundamentally unsuited to such use. This is why they usually produce the disconcerting effect of sound coming from the middle of the listener's head, with unnaturally isolated sounds occasionally appearing predominantly in one ear, giving the impression that the other has suddenly gone deaf. This is because stereo recordings represent the position of each sound by large amplitude differences between two channels intended for reproduction through a pair of loudspeakers. When the sounds from the two speakers mix at each ear they create the phase difference which our brain uses to locate direction (at least below 2 kHz). Binaural recordings use a different microphone technique to encode direction directly as phase, with very little amplitude difference (except above 2 kHz) often using a dummy head, and can produce a surprisingly life-like spatial impression through headphones. Commercial recordings almost always use stereo recording though, because historically loudspeaker listening was more popular than headphone listening. It is possible to improve the spatial effect from stereo on headphones by using frequency-dependent cross-feed between the channels, or better still a Blumlein shuffler (custom EQ employed to augment the low-frequency content of the difference information in a stereo signal) though this is rarely done. While cross-feed can reduce the feeling of deafness in one ear, only the use of a dummy head when the actual recording is done, with artificial pinnae can convincingly take away the middle-of-the-head effect. Optimal sound can only be achieved when the dummy-head matches the listener's head, since pinnae vary greatly in size and shape. Headphones can have an ergonomic benefit over the traditional handset at office desks. They save space and many new models are wireless. They also allow call center agents to maintain good posture instead of tilting their head sideways to cradle a handset. They are also used in professional sound editing, so that more than one person can work on an audio track without interfering with another.