We Bid Farewell To An Icon – Tyll Hertsens

Tyll Hertsens – a name most people will be unfamiliar with, but the name of a man that we should all thank, nonetheless. Today he is perhaps most famous for his headphone reviews on YouTube and his more in-depth written reviews on Innerfidelity.com. This calm and cool dude, along with his signature “funky shirts”, really did play a huge part in laying down the foundations with regards to portable audio products.

Way back in the early part of the 90’s (yeah, LAST century!) Tyll was an electron microscope repairman. As you can imagine, he is very well acquainted with electronics and understanding electronic systems. However, due to this line of work he would often find himself in some pretty remote areas, and the only thing to keep him company was his love for music. Unfortunately, this was also the seriously early days of portable audio, and so finding good gear proved to be quite a mission.
He searched high and low for a pair of (portable) headphones that truly immersed him into the music, but to no avail. Back in those days headphones really weren’t as portable as they are today. If we look at some of the headphones like the Sennheiser HD600 and HD650 (among others), they all have high impedances and relatively low sensitivities. As such, they require a fair amount of power to properly power them. So, the problem then was that all of the good headphones needed ample juice, but portable devices simply couldn’t provide that kind of power yet.
He then had the bright idea that, if he was able to make a portable headphone amplifier that could adequately drive his choice of home Hi-Fi headphones, then all will be sweet. This, in a nut-shell, was the origin for HeadRoom.
You see, what followed here is nothing short of a man setting himself on a mission to influence the world and achieving to do exactly that. This was waaaay before the iPod revolution or even portable computers (laptops), so really, he was entering uncharted waters. Once the iPod was released, though, the industry exploded as enthusiasts within this new market wanted more and more.

I wonder, if it wasn’t for Tyll, would the iPod even have happened? Sure, he wasn’t directly involved with Apple or anything of that sorts, but perhaps Steve Jobs just happened to have somehow heard about Tyll (or HeadRoom) and it gave him the idea for the iPod. Perhaps the iPod was just somehow the natural “next step” from the Walkmans of yesteryear…who knows?
One fact remains though, and that is that Tyll Hertsens, saw the potential of where things could go, but he also saw how severely limited headphones were at the time. After a little while, HeadRoom designed and sold a couple of different headphone amplifiers, and so were already pretty well established within the enthusiast community by the time iPods came out. With this new wave of portable music devices, suddenly a ton of people had headphones, and so too started a perpetual need for constant improvements from “new-born” enthusiasts.

 

The phrase “necessity is the mother of invention” comes to mind here.

Steadily, over the years that followed, headphones got better and better and portable devices became more efficient and more powerful. As better headphones came out, HeadRoom designed new products to compliment them, to allow users to extract as much out of their rigs as possible. Tyll and HeadRoom were at the forefront of it all. Perhaps they weren’t quite an integral part of the iPod craze, but for everything else, headphones, amps, DACs, etc…..they either lead the way, or at the very least switched on the light-bulb for someone else.
Fast-forward to today and the gap between home Hi-Fi and portable Hi-Fi continues to shrink to this very day. We’re not quite there yet, but you could argue that the finish-line is within sight.

Perhaps a slither of relief to this farewell is that the world has not lost Tyll. Instead, he has decided that it’s time for him to retire and fulfill a dream of travelling on the open-road. He is literally packing up only what he needs, stuffing it all into a vehicle that is purpose-built (and self-built, we should add) for one hell of a road-trip, and selling off the rest (including his home). It’s a big move, to say the least, but it sounds like it could be an epic adventure.

There is another reason behind is decision, though. He openly admits that, as we will all experience at some point, time is often not kind to one’s body. In the case of Beethoven it was made clear that you don’t particularly need hearing to write some of the most impressive music ever conceived, but things aren’t quite as simple when it comes to reviewing audio gear. As such, any person’s involvement in reviewing audio-related products hinges entirely on his/her hearing. Sadly, for Tyll, it just isn’t what it used to be. Whilst his hearing is apparently still better than the average person for his age-range, we certainly can respect his decision.

In closing, Tyll, we wish you all the best in your adventure and future endeavors. We simply cannot thank you enough for being the bright light that shone the way forward for this industry.