Written by Philip L. McKenzie & Michael Brooks

NY, NY – Designer headphones have had explosive growth over the past few years. Led by the ubiquitous Beats by Dre, residents of urban scapes have turned their travels into bass heavy personal concerts. Many people were more than willing to pay upwards of $300 for the latest headphones from Beats and other market players such as Sony, Sol, & Sennheiser.

Increasingly however the private and fashionable speaker experience has been replaced with the public experience of Bluetooth wireless speakers. Not since the days of my youth when “boom boxes” and “ ghetto blasters” dominated NYC streets have I heard so much music played in public spaces.

Music is no longer confining itself to headphones but instead is being blasted on subway cars and stations, while walking, in parks and everywhere in between. The speakers of choice are various types of the wireless models you can pretty much find anywhere. This does not come without it’s risk, but the trend line is up on Bluetooth wireless speakers. What has motivated this shift in consumer preference? Bluetooth speakers do provide a fairly high quality listening experience, given the size, but I can’t say they are that easy to carry when you’re truly mobile. There is also the issue of public courtesy as fellow subway travelers might not want to hear Fetty Wap at 800am while traveling to work. These impediments, both social and legal have not seemed to slow down their growth particularly in cosmopolitan spaces.

It will be interesting to see as the technology improves if Bluetooth wireless speakers will make a real dent in the headphone market. Is it possible that we can return to a normalized social interaction of one’s personal music choice becoming the soundtrack for your subway ride? Despite questions, it is clear that we are seeing a resurgence of the boom bap of the 70s/80s on our streets and on our subways.