When did we make the change from a headphone society to an earbud society?  Growing up, everybody had a huge set of over-the-ear, noise-canceling headphones that plugged into the quarter-inch jack on the family sound receiver.  We’d listen to our dad’s Pink Floyd and Beatles records, transfixed in our own little inner space, nothing entering our minds but the music.  By the time we were teenagers, the stylish black headphones  that came with every Sony Walkman were the mark of a true music lover.  So what if they mussed our moussed-up do’s?  They delivered the portable punch of stereo sound.

Nowadays, we’ve got more portable music devices floating around than any time in history, and you never see headphones anymore.  Everybody’s got tiny buds crammed into their ear canals.  Sure, some (like the Kicker EB101s) are comfortable and offer the same sound fidelity as the priciest pro set of cans, but it’s just not the same.  Who’s to blame for this decimation of headphones?  Steve Jobs?  Nintendo?  I can’t say for sure, but I have every intention of fitting in.  That’s what music is about!  So goodbye forever, headphones!  You didn’t fit the jack in my iPhone, anyway.