Thermoacoustics is the study of the interaction between heat and sound. It a basis of the thermophone. Byron Higgins in 1802 reported "singing flames" which occurred when the necks of jars were put over a hydrogen gas flame. Sondhauss (1850) and Rijke (1859) performed further experiments. A theory of thermoacoustics was produced by Lord Rayleigh in 1878.
The theory and practice of creating sound with electric heat emerged in the late 19th century. In 1880, William Henry Preece observed that, upon connecting a microphone transmitter to a platinum wire, sounds were produced:
 In 1917, Harold D. Arnold and  of Bell Labs developed a quantitative theory for the thermophone. Since then, thermophones have been used as a precision device for microphone calibration. However, they did not see widespread use elsewhere due to their poor efficiency.