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The goal with this project (along with a couple others) was to have Vintage Aesthetics paired with Modern Technology. I wanted these headphones to look like the past, but sound like the future. Pictured above is my second attempt at making a pair of headphones. The first attempt (pictured below) was very rigid, large, heavy and wasn't adjustable for different head shapes and sizes. That isn't acceptable for a product a lot of different people would use, so I improved on that problem with the second version.
Version 1
Version 2 Metal work
The first version was so rigid because the headband was welded together rather than fastened and I used very thick steel. I decided to form a sheet of 16 gauge steel into three pieces which would have a slot to slide up and down, and be fastened together with a knob. These were all formed from a flat sheet of steel. I cut them by hand using a rotary tool with a metal cutting wheel, then bent them to shape using the wooden housing piece as a guide. The metalwork was difficult, as this was the first time I'd ever done anything like this, but I'm happy with the result!
Tempering metal in the oven
For the electronics, I used a TaoTronics Bluetooth Car Audio adapter. I just bypassed the power button to an external button on the bottom of the right ear cup, and then put the battery and an external charging circuit in the left earcup. I ran the power wire up through the headband, for a seamless appearance. There were multiple wires running back and forth, so I used heat shrink tubing to hold them together, and create the appearance of only one wire. For a future version, I plan to make my own audio circuit with an XS3868 Bluetooth chip and a noise cancellation circuit I'm working on. It's very basic, but essentially just uses an input from a microphone, and inverses the signal and outputs to the speakers along with the music. Using another board was not ideal for the wiring and placement, so I was planning to have my own PCB (circuit board) made professionally for this particular product.
I strongly believe there must be a balance between aesthetics and functionality with product design. No one cares how good your product looks if it doesn't work, and no one wants to buy it if it doesn't look good. You can't have one without the other in a well designed product. I'm a huge fan of the vintage industrial look, so I kept a consistent color scheme while using very "raw" materials. The ear cups and the adjustment knobs are brown, the inside of the ear pad is lined with a grey fabric which goes with the exposed metal, and the ear pads and headband both have black leather. The combination of brown wood, black leather, and grey steel makes the headphones feel very solid and high quality
If you've got any questions about this project, please don't hesitate to contact me!
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