Early 1920's Headphone Driven Loud Speaker Horn by The_ID_of_Ed

Last crawled date: 3 years, 4 months ago

Check out my build video of the project on my YouTube channel
https://youtu.be/6mRn5CAt148
In the early 1920's radio was still very new and most radios didn't have speakers and you had to use headphones. As time went on better amplifiers became available as an add on accessory for your radio and then you could then add a speaker. The speakers of the time were very limited devices as were the amplifiers driving them. So they had to make the most of the modest sound output by using an acoustically amplifier horn.
Being wages at the time were quite low and these new devices were being made in small quantities and thus were very expensive compared to the equivalent today, buying a complete setup was a bit of a stretch. If however you had managed to buy a radio and headphones you were already a good bit of the way. For a few short years there were little niche products that you would hope could provide enough extra amplification from just your existing headphones to allow more than one person to share the experience of the wonderful new medium of radio.
The 3D printed replica I designed in FreeCAD is roughly based on the small speaker horns that were sold from ~ 1922 to 1924. The premise is you put the headphones ear caps at either ends of input ports of the acoustic horn for greater amplification.
I'd seen these adds in early 1920's radio magazines and was sufficiently intrigued that I just had to design my own and see how well such a device could possibly work.
This video is basically in 2 sections. The first is a demonstration of the finished speaker horn, playing some sample music. That's to give folks that may only be interested a speaker demonstration. The next majority of the video is the step by step build of the speaker. Then at the end is a quick extra demo using modern headphones to show how even better the little acoustic horn works.
This was a very enjoyable DIY project and I hope you look at the build video on YouTube
https://youtu.be/6mRn5CAt148
So I hope you enjoy my build video and hope you give it a try and make your own. At the minimum it makes for a nice addition to your collection and a nice display item.