When Apple first launched the iPod, back in 2001, it was famously faced with a conundrum: how to communicate to the casual onlooker that a person was using an iPod rather than any common-or-garden portable music player?
In those days, headphones were commonly black, and so Apple’s solution was simply to make the iPod’s version distinctively white. The high-profile advertising campaign that began in late 2003 showed a series of silhouetted figures dancing to Jet’s “Are You Gonna Be My Girl”, their bright white headphone cords visible. Sales duly rocketed—from 400,000 iPods sold in 2002 to 20m by 2005.
Headphone trends have veered in many directions since then, from noise-cancelling devices to pastel-coloured retro styles, via huge cans that imply unspoken professional DJing commitments. Wireless bluetooth headphones capable of playing music launched in 2004—not long after the world first cavorted to Jet, but it wasn’t until late 2016, with the unveiling of Apple’s white Airpods, that they became a covetable item.
Some while ago, the stars realigned, and wired headphones once again became the fashionable thing. The subject was debated as far back as 2019, when the model Bella Hadid was photographed wearing a pair in New Orleans International Airport, sending Vogue into a state of agitation. Then, in 2021, came the launch of an Instagram account, @wireditgirls, featuring the great and the good and the glitterati and their wired headphones: Dua Lipa, Paul Mescal and Zoe Kravitz among them.
But in recent times, the trend has gathered pace. Last October, there came a campaign for luxury fashion label Balenciaga, featuring model Mona Tougaard reclining against crisp white bedsheets in the company of her white wired headphones and her expensive handbag. By early December, the cover of New York magazine showed a series of well-known faces, including Debbie Harry and Cameron Winter from Geese, riding the subway sharing pairs of wired headphones.
The reason for this wired resurgence has been attributed variously to digital fatigue, noughties nostalgia and the simple economics of the matter—if we’re keeping this discussion Apple-focused, a pair of entry-level wireless Airpods will now set you back £119; a pair of wired earpods cost £19.
There are those who argue that wired headphones sound vastly superior to bluetooth devices
But alongside these explanations comes a gathering audiophile movement; those who will argue that music listened to on wired headphones sounds vastly superior to that listened to on bluetooth devices. Now, this is perfectly true—wired headphones can transmit uncompressed audio at over 9,000 kilobits per second; while, at its highest quality, bluetooth delivers compressed audio that can reach just 1,200 kbps. But the interesting element is what someone feels the kilobit speed of their listening might say about them and their relationship with music.
The audiophile world extends far beyond headphones. It embraces turntables and speaker positioning, vinyl pressings, record cleaners, specialist cables that can cost thousands. Its lexicon is filled with the delectable rhythms of dipolar ribbon speakers, diamond concave drivers, automatic azimuth correction. It is fastidious, meticulous and, with the exception of £19 headphones, often expensive.
What this suggests about the audiophile is that they are serious enough about music that they will invest not just money but time, attention and effort into their listening experience. That a person who cares about kilobits per second respects, values and understands music more than the person content to listen through their phone.
Streaming long ago eclipsed physical music sales, and perhaps we should see the audiophile impulse as an inevitable reaction; a human instinct to give form and tangibility to this thing that we love—a piece of rare vinyl, a cable, a speaker, a pair of headphones. But it is easy, I think, for the obsession with the object to then eclipse the love of the thing itself.
In 2024, an online moderator named Pano conducted an experiment via the audiophile forum diyAudio, posting clips of high-quality recordings by artists such as Nirvana, Joe Jackson and Etta James, which had been run through four different mediums: professional audio copper wire, an old microphone cable soldered to pennies, an unripe banana and wet mud, and asking forum members to guess which was which. A month after posting the clips, Pano posted the results: only six out of 43 guesses were correct.
I mention this not to humiliate the audiophile community, but perhaps to hearten those of us who don’t much care how we listen to music. My long-held hunch is that what many audiophiles actually value most is the identity of someone who values music.
Once, on a languid Florida afternoon, I happened to hear “Is She Really Going Out With Him?” floating through the window of an idling car. I can’t tell you if the song flowed through copper wire or a high-end, precision-crafted audio system. I have no idea whether it involved 6x9 speakers or a silk dome tweeter. But I can tell you that the sky was fiercely blue and the air was heavy with frangipani—and that, to my ear, Joe Jackson had never sounded sweeter.
