Discman

And the car has always been the arena for the best battles because controlling the dial resulted in complete aural dominance: If you chose Aerosmith, everyone had to listen to Aerosmith. This is why today, when every member of the family could be plugged in, Jetson-like, to individual Discmen, they often are not.

But it took a decade to make any impression on the mainstream – people stuck with cassettes for recording, and Walkmen and Discmen for portability – and almost as soon as it did, it was killed by the MP3 player.

I use Sennheiser headphones when I want to listen to music closely, and those little Sony over-ear headphones (the ones that came with Discmen) for listening to music on the go.