Earphones

Article By:

Harris, J. Donald Formerly, U.S. Navy Submarine Medical Laboratory, Groton, Connecticut.

Last reviewed:January 2020

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1036/1097-8542.208800

A class of energy transducers capable of receiving alternating current and generating acoustic waves resembling very closely the characteristics of that current. The movement of an element (diaphragm) is accomplished by magnetic attraction, electrostatic attraction, or the piezoelectric effect (the expansion or contraction of certain crystalline substances in response to electric charges). Earphone systems include the driver element with its diaphragm and arrangements for magnetic flux, or electrostatic or direct electric charge, plus a casing, one or more acoustic cavities and ports, acoustic damping and insulation, and some arrangement for coupling the driver to the human ear. The wiring connecting the precedent amplifier to the driver, which may be incorporated into the earphone system, may in modern systems be a complicated circuit which feeds, for each of two stereophonic channels, some part of the current to each ear. The time delays and energy ratios at the two earphones (each of which may contain two drivers) can be appropriately adjusted so that the listener is given the illusion that the sound sources are not “within the head” but are externalized appropriately in all three planes of space. The various types of earphones are described below. See also: Transducer

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