Blue LEDs are hot. They have quality, panache, a sense of high tech about them.
Why?
History and cost, of course.
Intentionally or not, Krell and others were capitalizing on an association between blue and high-end audio that dates back to 1923. In that year, product inspectors at German radiomaker Ideal began to daub a blue dot on earphones that met their standards. The mark became so identified with quality that in 1938 the company changed its name to Blaupunkt — literally, blue dot.
Blue got another image boost in the 1960s, when McIntosh Labs, a top-of-the-line stereo components maker in Binghamton, N.Y., hired University of Michigan researchers to find out what color of light is most visible to middle-age males, the company’s core demographic. Blue, they said, and McIntosh began putting blue-tinted faceplates on its pricey units.
Eventually blue’s associations with quality filtered down from obsessed audiophiles to ordinary electronics buyers. “Consumers associate blue light with high-end gear,” confirms Ray Weikel, the Logitech director of product marketing responsible for putting blue lights in the company’s computer speakers. “Our engineers lusted after blue LEDs for a long time,” he says.
So that’s really the answer. The appeal of blue lights is less about science than about branding. Like the Romans’ imperial purple that was made at great cost from mollusk glands, blue light is so attractive because it is unavailable to the masses. It feeds off the same aura of exclusivity as a Fendi F on a handbag or a jaguar on a car hood.
Blue LEDs were difficult to invent, and initially cost much more than red or green ones. The cost is coming down, though, so expect to see many more of them, until they stop being considered trendy.