[treve]

I've never heard this before! When I started flying it was just the 2 mono jacks that you still see on planes that haven't been updated (always wondered why it wasn't just a stereo jack)

Pretty surprising to hear there's air/sound tubes rigged on to every seat on a plane.

Seems like the sound tubes ended in the 70's: https://apex.aero/articles/sound-tube-surprising-history-air...

[ano-ther]

> (always wondered why it wasn't just a stereo jack)

Either because they didn’t want you to take their headphones from the plane, or so they could charge for use because you couldn’t just plug in your Walkman headphones.

Or both.

[ben1040]

I flew some overseas trips on Delta 767s in the late 1990s that still had the tube headphones. I was pretty intrigued by the concept, you could hold your hand up to the tube holes in the arm rest and hear the music echo off your hand.

Either on the headphones themselves or in the little overwrap bag there was a note to leave them on the aircraft when you deplane, because they (obviously) wouldn’t work elsewhere.

[chriscjcj]

In my "maybe I'll need it some day" pile, I still have the two-mono-plugs to one stereo jack adapter I bought at Radio Shack so I could stick it to The Man. I think I only used it half a dozen times.

[HeyLaughingBoy]

I bought a BLE wireless headset last year that came with one :-) No idea when I would ever need it!

[JohnFen]

> Seems like the sound tubes ended in the 70's

I was still encountering them in the early '90s, although by that time they had become uncommon.

[rob74]

I guess the article is written from the perspective of AVID: once electronic headphones became cheap enough, they didn't sell any more pneumatic systems for airlines - but the last planes equipped with pneumatic systems in the late 70s/early 80s still flew (unrefurbished) until the 90s.

[petesergeant]

> Seems like the sound tubes ended in the 70

I'm 40-ish, and I remember them as a child, so they were definitely still kicking around in the mid to late 80s, most likely on KLM and Pan Am, that were the airlines of my childhood.

[johnboiles]

They definitely were still a thing into the 90s

[riffic]

the inventing company is still around

https://avidproducts.com/2023/12/08/celebrating-70-years-of-...

apparently the speaker was in the armrest.