Excerpt:
Story of Artificial Head Technology
The possibility of recording sound signals exactly as they are perceived by the human ear: an idea which has been around for over 100 years.
1886
However, initial experiments exhibited at the World Fair in Paris in 1886 and the later systems of De Boer and Vermeulen (1939) fail to achieve the expectations of their inventors.
1969
Similar disappointment results with the head created in 1969 by Kürer, Plenge and Wilkins, and manufactured from 1973. True-to-the-original reproduction of signals recorded using this system is not possible. Loudspeaker compatibility and spatial impression at playback via headphones prove impossible to achieve. Because of inherent noise, recordings around the hearing threshold cannot be realized.