Don’t Be Selfish: Cool Headphones Let Friends Share Tunes

We love sharing things with our friends: pictures, status updates, videos, music and anything else we can send digitally. But when you want to share a song that’s playing on your iPod right now, how do you handle it? Do you hand your friend one of your earbuds and deal with hearing only half of the audio? Do you hand over your headphones entirely and miss the song yourself? Do you fiddle with one of those earphone splitters that makes the music sound kind of terrible?

Dutch designer Dorien van Heijst has a new idea for sharing your music. Her Plug It In! headphones are retro-styled listening devices with a fun addition: an extra jack in one of the earpieces allowing for a friend to plug in. The unique design lets friends instantly share a great song or interesting podcast without dealing with the annoying aspects of splitters.

Van Heijst points out that with her design there is no static or degradation of sound quality or volume – all important points for audiophiles. The design combines a nostalgic appearance with a very modern type of function.

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See more in Audio & TV or under Gadgets. July, 2011.