A very unique set of headphones from out of the past

TAE

TAE

All you have is now
I was given a Wurlitzer 120 about 15 or so years ago and in it were a very cool looking set of headphones that actually worked...

What is weird is that they basically have just stayed inside the case of the 120 all these years because I never really played the thing...So in cleaning things up this week I was showing the headset to my daughter and as I looked closer I had a EUREKA moment...WTF? The "wires" to the ear pieces were not wires at all, they were hollow tubes..I'd noticed the phone jack was a little clunky never realizing the phone jack has a small speaker at the end of it that the tubes connect to it to bring the audio to the ear pieces...

They are mono TELEX headphones but I can find no mention or pictures of them anywhere in Google land....

Any of ya's ever heard or seen of anything quite like these in your lives? If you click on the picture it expands to be seen more easily....

Telex.jpg
 
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Never seen the 'phones before, but I think I have a 120 also, I just never knew the model number. I do know that it's from 1954.

Do you know of anywhere that works on these?
 
No clue, never seen anything like this. But now I am dying to know, how do they sound? Have given them a good test run?
 
notCardio said:
Never seen the 'phones before, but I think I have a 120 also, I just never knew the model number. I do know that it's from 1954.

Do you know of anywhere that works on these?
Click to expand...

If it's from 1954 I'm pretty certain it's a 112....Seems like the go to place is Vintage Vibe .
 
Hey IBB They sound OK, not great, definitely work and of course it's a mono signal.

I spoke with a woman at Telex ( who's worked for them since the late 60's) and she thought she knew what they were.....then as we spoke and googled discovered that nope they pre dated anything she has ever seen or heard of.

Think tiny 5/8" wide speaker funneled into a 1/4" Dr's stethoscope tube.

She gave me a few names it might be but no luck ...It was made by Telex, that's all we know.

In researching the history of headphones which basically came from the need for people using telephones to converse without a hand set, I did discover that in the early days the telephones were operated with higher voltage and sometimes people would get shocked while using the original headsets...This design would definitely eliminate that possibility...necessity is the mother of invention.

Crazy when you think of the invention of the telephone was @1876 and first audio ever laid down for posterity was a whacky vocal of Claire De lune captured on April 9 in 1860 on a phonautograph by Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville. And then Justin Frankel created Reaper :guitar: All in less than 160 years..... my oh my...we've come a loooooong way baby!

Tele.jpg
 
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mjbphotos said:
I've seen those (hollow tube) style earphones as part of a stenographer set up.
Click to expand...

Yep they were used quite a bit as such in the "olden days" ...

This model is a unicorn in the history of Telex headphones...I had them listed with the 120 on fleabay but then decided they were staying with me.

I sold the wurlitzer yesterday...It was a nice conversation piece but I'm getting to a point where I need to condense down to an easy minimalistic but effective arsenal of keys and amps. Got rid of about 2 cubic meters of "stuff" over the last week and though there is a little sadness in the surrender of said "stuff"....there is also a very freeing effect going on and a lot more elbow room :D.
 
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