Kevin Goldstein was frustrated. He wanted to listen to music while riding his bike, but he felt it was not save to wear earbuds while riding. He tried using only one earbud, but he was still unhappy. So, he combined the stereo of regular headphones into one earbud, reports Tucson Velo.
He started selling the earbuds — which come in three different models — in March 2010 and has sold more than 1,000 of them since then.
Goldstein said all the sales were through his online site, but said he is working on retail packaging to start selling them in bike shops.
“Aside from runners and cyclists where I have gotten the biggest support for the product is from the single sided deaf community,†Goldstein said. “Although, they are kind of hard to lock down and market to, they have kind of found me. People who are deaf in one ear love these things. They want to listen too, but they don’t want to miss half their music.â€
Goldstein said more goes into the earbud than just crossing the two audio tracks into one earbud. He said when you do that it produces popping, hissing and other nasty noises. Goldstein said he added circuitry to the plug to adjust the levels and eliminate the noises and allowing both left and right channels to be mixed together.
Logo from One Good Earbud