At its keynote event on Wednesday, Apple will unveil the iPhone 7, and the phone will reportedly no longer have a headphone jack.

If Apple (AAPL) succeeds in strong-arming the public into saying goodbye to the venerable headphone jack, it won’t just be annoying you with a required USB headphone converter, it’ll be breaking a 138-year-old tradition of simplicity and elegance in a chinless shrug.

Though you may not realize it, the 3.5-millimeter stereo miniplug on the end of your earbuds holds a direct link to the 1/4-inch phone plugs used in ancient switchboards, which date back deep into the 19th century. Since then, only two major innovations have changed the plug: the advent of stereo and miniature versions.

The headphone jack is a rare example of completely mature technology

Unlike so many things in tech, the headphone jack has a near-perfection that has allowed it to resist even the suggestion of innovation since its popular debut on the Sony Walkman—until Apple decided September 7 would be its Judgement Day.

The jack has also made it possible to plug your phone into equipment that predated computer chips and integrated circuits. Even today, many headphone manufacturers still bundle a 1/4-inch adapter so you can plug directly into a Hi-Fi receiver if you, like many millennials, still love the cracks and pops of vinyl grooves.

All this legacy has had some interesting results for consumers. Though there are dozens of hot new headphones in the $150 range, gadget review site The Wirecutter still lists the Sony MDR-7506 as its top pick in the over-ear category. You may not know them or their popular sibling, the V6, by their less-than catchy names, but you have most likely seen them before, and as far back as 1985. You’d be hard-pressed to think of that many electronics whose performance has topped the charts for more than 35 years.

The simplicity and elegance of a cord from pocket to ear still matters too. Without batteries to charge, Bluetooth operations to pair, and extra radiation to worry about—this worries some people, believe it or not—many wired headphones can be repaired easily if you’re even slightly the DIY type.

This simplicity also means that the sound only has a short cable to pass through, instead of a Bluetooth wireless system that’s notorious for introducing latency, distortion, echo and other noise. This is not to say that digital sound can’t be better, but it’s important to remember that Apple’s “innovation” isn’t about embracing digital audio over analog, it’s about embracing wireless over wired.