I wrote the preceding yesterday in another topic.
2 Likes
Don’t think of them as left and right; rather, as blue and red. 
Traditional mnemonic: R for Red and for Right. (But don’t use that for airplane wingtip navigation lights!)
Probably for the audiologists perspective looking at you?
7 Likes
Anatomical view for the audiologist. Which means facing them.
1 Like
True, and I am sure that is where it comes from, but I am not an audiologist, so I find it confusing.
Here’s an article I found that gives some of the history. It’s an interesting assessment.
1 Like
It is confusing just like the English language when one word has different meanings. I think of receiver has an amplifier and other functions like tuner, radio, preamp, etc, in it.
Simplified nomenclature…
It’s just derivative from the telephone industry where you lift the receiver and place it near you ear.
The way you describe a transducer is always contentious given that they are merely a method of transforming one energy to another.
7 Likes
Yes, I agree. The receiver on a telephone is were you receive the other party’s voice. The terminology predates modern electronics and our modern perspective.
2 Likes
Ah yes! The telephone. That explains an otherwise strange terminology. Telephones came first so audio terminology does not apply?
No, I’ve never understood why. Back in the days when I used body worn hearing aids, the “receivers” were in the white button like things on the ends of the cords and clipped on to my earmoulds via magnets.
It is wire-centric, not user-centric.
Alex Bell patented (specific aspects of) “sound on a wire”. The thing you put to your ear Receives the sound from the wire. The thing you talk to Transmits sound onto the wire (“transmitter”).
Bell was selling a way to put your voice blocks or miles away via a wire. The wire was central to the whole invention. (He didn’t patent the wire, or a good transmitter, but he sure commercialized The Bell System of wires and end-bits.)
For a century all telephony called the ear-thing a receiver.
Many early electric hearing aids WERE telephone parts. So the names carried-on.
The modern balanced-armature receiver is a very developed thing, but more closely related to classic telephone ear-things than any other common audio transducer.
3 Likes
Re: the mnemonic, I learned “red, right, and round.” LOL!
In the 1990’s as a tech we called them earphones
I agree with your comment of the right aid being represented on the left side of the screen, etc.
My HAs stopped working and the Aud replaced the “speaker.” So they do use the term.
Maybe the print option can flip them?
If you’re truly curious about this:
It’s because in the days of horsie-back riding instead of autos, one never knew if the approaching rider on the ‘road’ was a good or bad person. So, once close enough, one was therefore able to draw one’s sword and defend themselves appropriately should they realize they were about to be attacked if they rode on the LEFT side of the road rather than right. 
Just never dropped the habit, I suppose. Easier to keep, than to change. Just guessing at this point, however.
1 Like
Like many, I too have wondered as to why the speaker is referred to as the receiver. Sure, it “receives” information from the microphones, bit it then (as a speaker should) it outputs that information to the ear.
Just like a speaker in a community hall receives information from a microphone and then puts that information out to the audience.