Maybe it’s just our imagination, but the girl in this photo from the September 1958 issue of Popular Electronics looks just a bit disappointed. She was told that she was going to have the opportunity to listen to a personal stereo player, not long after the concept of stereophonic music had been introduced to the public, and a full four decades before the Sony Walkman hit the market and made the concept of “personal stereo player” familiar. Instead, she’s listening to the phonograph through a set of crystal set headphones, thanks to this simple project shown in the magazine.

She probably did have to admit, though, that it was a clever idea. As the magazine pointed out: “If you are anxious to try the new stereo records, there’s no need to wait until you can acquire a two-channel audio amplifier and a pair of speaker systems.” Instead, the ceramic stereo phono cartridge was hooked directly to the crystal earphones. As with a crystal set, the circuit was entirely self-powered, and didn’t require any amplification. According to the magazine, the set was useful as a demonstrator for entertaining friends or for listening without disturbing others. It also pointed out that public libraries and record stores could use a similar setup.

For listening to mono records, the circuit included a switch which put the two earphones in parallel.

This wasn’t the only extremely simple circuit included in the magazine. The issue also included the timer circuit shown below, which was said to be good for measuring 5-50 seconds, depending on the setting of R1. The timer worked by charging up the large capacitor with a 9 volt battery. After being fully charged, the capacitor discharged through the solenoid of a sensitive relay. When the capacitor discharged sufficiently, the normally-closed relay disengaged, setting off whatever alarm was desired.