Spacephones were a prototype isolation heaphone especially for a more enjoyable spoken-word audio experience in loud settings.
Have you ever turned up your headphone volume to hear over loud noise, and then later, when you are in a quieter place, you turn on your headphones again and volume feels like it is set at jet-engine levels?
That’s how loud you were listening to the volume before, and that’s not healthy. The sound levels in the NYC subway system can breach 100 decibels. And when you turn up your headphones to hear over it, you’re essentially doubling the sound.
I wanted headphones that would block out the outside noise so that I could maintain a modest volume level. There are some specialty headphones for drummers, then there are “active noise cancellation” powered headphones.
The prototypes were made by taking apart professional-grade hearing protectors, off-the-shelf headphone drivers, and then recombining them together into one product.
They worked great (I still use them), but I was concerned that the market for such high-performance sound-isolation headphones would be limited. The product drawbacks were the large size and the tight fit.
Spacephones are a fun product that I use to this day, and were an opportunity to practice some soldering and prototyping, while creating another product-market outline.