Even if the sound quality is not always there, the audio has invaded our lives. Our elders did not experience listening mobility, apart from the car radio which became widespread from the 1970s, or even the battery-powered “transistor” that can be transported and sometimes worn by the ear. At that time, listening was done mainly at home, where hi-fi stereo systems gradually replaced monophonic recorders. The loudspeaker has also given way to two speakers enclosing up to several speakers, for the reproduction of high-fidelity sound. It wasn’t until the Sony Walkman, launched with great success in 1979 as a compact K7 player, to bring personal music to the streets.
Pocket models
This is the ancestor of portable players, which became digital from the end of the 1990s. By abuse of language, they were then called “MP3 players”, in reference to the compressed audio file format. Several of these digital pocket models were initially launched by manufacturers called Diamond, Creative, Archos or even Thomson and Philips, before Apple launched – twenty years ago – its iPod. But it is really smartphones that will consecrate the ubiquity of audio, again popularized by the iPhone launched in 2007 by the Apple brand.
Today, notes the Médiamétrie audience measurement institute, “Audio is boosted by digital listening”. If the radio listened to live on FM, in DAB + or live on the Internet is still dominant in listening (for 86.4% of Internet users questioned, according to the audio measurements published in May), personal music on a walkman, smartphone or CD comes in second position (54%). Music streaming, broadcast by YouTube, Spotify, Deezer and other Apple Music, is increasingly popular with Internet users (53.5%). As for on-demand, replay or web radio (27.7%), it is gaining in popularity among listeners, as are native podcasts excluding radio (12.1%) and audiobooks (7.7%). ). Overwhelmed by video, the Internet has never given more voice.