The evolution of audio design

It is 1979, year zero of our connection with audio. Sony launches the Walkman. The biunivocal and compulsory link between physical place and music crumbled. Whether the music was recorded or live, it was listened to in the theatre, in arenas, on the street; or in the living room where there was a hi-fi system, or on the car radio. Then the Walkman came along and you could simply bring your music with you. Wearable devices are a hot topic today. Sony’s Walkman, with its spongy headphones that seem terribly primitive today, paved the way.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the Walkman evolved. It became Discman – for CDs – and then Sony launched the Minidisc. No more tapes, music goes digital. Other brands launched similar products. The breakthrough was in 2001, when Steve Jobs launched the device that would change Apple’s history. The iPod is like a Walkman, but it has up to 10 gigs of music, up to 2,000 songs to choose from via an LCD display and an interface designed around a click wheel that immediately becomes an icon.  Jony Ive’s implicit reference, who has designed all Apple devices since Jobs returned to Cupertino in 1997, is the T3 Radio designed by Dieter Rams for Braun in 1958. The mp3 player became the new personal audio standard. Big and small brands entered the sector. Even the Sony’s Walkman is eventually reborn as a digital file player.

Within twenty years, things have changed again. Bringing physical storage with you is an old thing. Storage has moved to the cloud, accessing it from our smartphone. The design we recognise as the icon of personal audio is no longer a device that “contains” music, as the Walkman was, but the earbuds we use to connect to our smartphones. In 2016, at the same time as the iPhone 7 presentation, Apple launched the AirPods. Those wireless earbuds, which extend from the ear with a small white stem, are initially puzzling. Press did not understand them, but people did. They quickly became very popular and imitated. So much so that this form factor, with infinite variations, is now the market benchmark, reworked by many tech and audio giants – from Huawei to Oppo to Xiaomi, and many other smaller, less famous brands.

The AirPods and all their counterparts are a direct result of the Walkman, and arguably the most popular wearable device on the planet. Compared to the Walkman headphones, however, their function is different. They are not just for listening to music, or a Russian course (assuming Duolingo has not removed it), but also for accessing to all the audio experiences that a smartphone provides. Podcasts, audio articles, calls, voice assistants. A smartphone is first and foremost a colourful screen defined by a rather basic interface. It is perhaps because of the visual excess smartphones have brought, that audio has become increasingly important in recent years, with unprecedented use and demand. There are those who isolate themselves for hours in the acoustic bubble created by the AirPods and those who never take them off, continuing to enter and exit that bubble, between a phone call, a conversation at the bar and the latest episode of 99% Invisible. 

Now it is Sony again turning the tables, as a circle closing. Launched in early 2022, the new LinkBuds are totally a new pair of earbuds, featuring a donut-style design. While the AirPods cover the external ear canal, somehow erasing our relationship with the world, the LinkBuds provide total transparency when worn off. Turning them on, Sony’s refined sound quality and noise cancellation technologies activate. It is not full isolation, and for example, riding a bike with them on is not the most pleasant listening experience. But they are perfect for isolating yourself as much as you need to and only when you need to, or making a call and then interacting with a colleague without taking them off. Perhaps they are also a glimpse of a future in which these devices will be worn more or less permanently, working as needed only. Controlling them with finger gestures not on the device, but directly on the temples – through bone conduction, with somewhat science-fiction-like results – increases the charm of an object that seems to come from the future.

The new Urbanista Los Angeles headphones seem to come from the future too. They can be powered either by a classic USB-C cable or by solar charging, thanks to the panels placed along the headband. The idea is that they can be recharged while using them – this can certainly work in LA. Perhaps in other parts of the world it will be more difficult, but it is still a great solution and their audio quality is really good. 

The Stem player produced by Kano Computing and designed by Ye – aka Kanye West – seems not to come from the future, rather from a parallel present. It looks like a flying saucer, has an unusual soft, warm cladding and comes preloaded with the Heartless rapper’s latest albums: Jesus is King, Donda and the unreleased Donda 2 – yes, Kanye fans, you can only listen to it on Stem. Content is managed through a USB-C connection and the official website. Other music can be uploaded as well, but it does not necessarily work. Stem is not a simple portable player, but an invitation to play with music. A series of tactile controls can isolate the rhythm section or the voice of a single track, apply effects, speed it up or slow it down. All this can be done simply by working on the device, with a series of key combinations that, once memorised, sound quite natural. The results can be then recorded and downloaded. After all, this is how hip hop was born, thanks to an alternative approach to vinyl. Kanye West invites everyone to take a leap of faith: the music consumer is also the one who can produce new music. Recovering a tactile dimension in interaction with audio that has been somewhat lost with the many smartphone apps.

One major difference from the Walkman days is that today’s audio devices are used to talking to us. Not just when we use the phone function on our smartphones or send a WhatsApp message. Talking to voice assistants has become one of the many forms of interaction we have with the devices around us. Not only in the car or on headphones, but also at home. And this interaction is becoming increasingly sophisticated. Interaction with Alexa, Amazon’s smart assistant, is changing visually as well. Bezos’ multinational company launched the first Echo Show in 2017, a speaker for Alexa with a screen. This idea has found its most powerful expression in the new Echo Show, a 15-inch smart screen, designed as a cross between a futuristic digital family hub and the dear old TV set that could not be missed in the kitchen. The screen can be personalised via widgets, facilitates the management of smart devices in the home (including cameras) and can be used to watch the latest season of Star Trek: Picard on Prime, a news programme or a recipe video. Despite the touch screen, which is enclosed in a frame that could perhaps have been thinner, much of the interaction is by voice.

Voice assistants and the new way of experiencing audio – no longer just music, but also a podcast or a phone call – have led to the evolution of soundbars. Once, they were a vice for audiophiles who wanted to enjoy their collection of Blu-ray movies to the fullest. Today, they have become a living-room audio hub you might never connect to your TV. A clear example is the new Sonos Beam, a soundbar that is small in size but, as is the American company’s wont, has excellent audio quality – and the newly launched version is Dolby Atmos compatible too. It is compatible with voice assistants (Alexa and Google) and, above all, is part of the powerful Sonos ecosystem, which allows you to connect multiple audio devices in the home via Wi-Fi, as well as manage your music library and various audio services (radio, podcasts and so on) from a single app.

Despite a few attempts to integrate audio functions into other devices, such as glasses – Huawei, Bose and Razer, among others, have tried, with not always successful results – headphones and earbuds still prevail when it comes to wearable audio. Something different, however, can be found at home. A strange but interesting trend, inaugurated by Ikea and Sonos with the Symfonisk bedside lamp, is to combine light and sound. LSPX-S3 is the mysterious name given by Sony to one of the most fascinating and “weird” devices of its recent production, or more simply Glass Sound Speaker. A lamp that is smaller than one would imagine from the photos, with tapered and slender lines, available in a single neutral and metallic colour. The controls are minimal: a touch sensor to control the intensity of the light and a few buttons to manage audio playback. The one for the Bluetooth connection is on the bottom. Very elegant and minimalist, it is a beautiful desk light with a great sound output.