Phonograph

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"Turntable" redirects here. For its use as a musical instrument, see Turntablism. For other uses, see
Turntable (disambiguation).

"Gramophone" and "Record player" redirect here. For other uses, see Gramophone (disambiguation).

Not to be confused with Phonogram.

Thomas Edison with his second phonograph, photographed by Levin Corbin Handy in Washington, April
1878

Edison wax cylinder phonograph, circa 1899

A phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name
in the UK since 1910) or since the 1940s called a record player, is a device for the mechanical recording
and reproduction of sound. The sound vibration waveforms are recorded as corresponding physical
deviations of a spiral groove engraved, etched, incised, or impressed into the surface of a rotating
cylinder or disc, called a "record". To recreate the sound, the surface is similarly rotated while a playback
stylus traces the groove and is therefore vibrated by it, very faintly reproducing the recorded sound. In
early acoustic phonographs, the stylus vibrated a diaphragm which produced sound waves which were
coupled to the open air through a flaring horn, or directly to the listener's ears through stethoscope-type
earphones.

The phonograph was invented in 1877 by Thomas Edison.[1][2][3][4] Alexander Graham Bell's Volta
Laboratory made several improvements in the 1880s and introduced the graphophone, including the use
of wax-coated cardboard cylinders and a cutting stylus that moved from side to side in a zigzag groove
around the record. In the 1890s, Emile Berliner initiated the transition from phonograph cylinders to flat
discs with a spiral groove running from the periphery to near the center, coining the term gramophone
for disc record players, which is predominantly used in many languages. Later improvements through the
years included modifications to the turntable and its drive system, the stylus or needle, and the sound
and equalization systems.

The disc phonograph record was the dominant audio recording format throughout most of the 20th
century. In the 1980s, phonograph use on a standard record player declined sharply due to the rise of
the cassette tape, compact disc, and other digital recording formats. However, records are still a favorite
format for some audiophiles, DJs, collectors, and turntablists (particularly in hip hop and electronic
dance music), and have undergone a revival since the 2000s.

Contents

1 Terminology

1.1 United Kingdom

1.2 United States

1.3 Australia

2 Early history

2.1 Predecessors to the phonograph

2.2 Phonautograph

2.3 Paleophone

2.4 The early phonographs

2.5 Early machines

2.6 Introduction of the disc record

2.7 Oldest surviving recordings

3 Improvements at the Volta Laboratory

3.1 Volta's early challenge

3.2 Volta Graphophone

3.3 Graphophone commercialization

4 Disc vs. cylinder as a recording medium

5 Dominance of the disc record

5.1 First all-transistor phonograph

6 Turntable technology
6.1 Turntable construction

6.2 Turntable drive systems

7 Arm systems

7.1 Linear tracking

8 Pickup systems

8.1 Piezoelectric (crystal/ceramic) cartridges

8.2 Magnetic cartridges

8.3 Strain gauge cartridges

8.4 Electrostatic cartridges

8.5 Optical readout

9 Stylus

10 Record materials

11 Equalization

12 In the 21st century

13 See also

14 References

15 Further reading

16 External links

Terminology

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Usage of terminology is not uniform across the English-speaking world (see below). In more modern
usage, the playback device is often called a "turntable", "record player", or "record changer", although
each of these terms denote categorically distinct items. When used in conjunction with a mixer as part of
a DJ setup, turntables are often colloquially called "decks".[5] In later electric phonographs (more often
known since the 1940s as record players or, most recently, turntables[6]), the motions of the stylus are
converted into an analogous electrical signal by a transducer, then converted back into sound by a
loudspeaker.[7]

Close up of the mechanism of an Edison Amberola, circa 1915

The term phonograph ("sound writing") was derived from the Greek words φωνή (phonē, 'sound' or
'voice') and γραφή (graphē, 'writing'). The similar related terms gramophone (from the Greek γράμμα
gramma 'letter' and φωνή phōnē 'voice') and graphophone have similar root meanings.[8] The roots
were already familiar from existing 19th-century words such as photograph ("light writing"), telegraph
("distant writing"), and telephone ("distant sound"). The new term may have been influenced by the
existing words phonographic and phonography, which referred to a system of phonetic shorthand; in
1852 The New York Times carried an advertisement for "Professor Webster's phonographic class", and in
1859 the New York State Teachers Association tabled a motion to "employ a phonographic recorder" to
record its meetings.

Arguably, any device used to record sound or reproduce recorded sound could be called a type of
"phonograph", but in common practice the word has come to mean historic technologies of sound
recording, involving audio-frequency modulations of a physical trace or groove. In the late-19th and
early-20th centuries, "Phonograph", "Gramophone", "Graphophone", "Zonophone", "Graphonole" and
the like were still brand names specific to various makers of sometimes very different (i.e. cylinder and
disc) machines; so considerable use was made of the generic term "talking machine", especially in print.
"Talking machine" had earlier been used to refer to complicated devices which produced a crude
imitation of speech, by simulating the workings of the vocal cords, tongue, and lips – a potential source
of confusion both then and now.

United Kingdom

In British English, "gramophone" may refer to any sound-reproducing machine using disc records, which
were introduced and popularized in the UK by the Gramophone Company. Originally, "gramophone" was
a proprietary trademark of that company and any use of the name by competing makers of disc records
was vigorously prosecuted in the courts, but in 1910 an English court decision decreed that it had
become a generic term;[9] it has been so used in the UK and most Commonwealth countries ever since.
[citation needed] The term "phonograph" was usually restricted to machines that used cylinder records.

"Gramophone" generally referred to a wind-up machine. After the introduction of the softer vinyl
records, 33+1⁄3-rpm LPs (long-playing records) and 45-rpm "single" or two-song records, and EPs
(extended-play recordings), the common name became "record player" or "turntable". Often the home
record player was part of a system that included a radio (radiogram) and, later, might also play audiotape
cassettes. From about 1960, such a system began to be described as a "hi-fi" (high-fidelity, monophonic)
or a "stereo" (most systems being stereophonic by the mid-1960s).

United States

Early phonograph at Deaf Smith County Historical Museum in Hereford, Texas

In American English, "phonograph", properly specific to machines made by Edison, was sometimes used
in a generic sense as early as the 1890s to include cylinder-playing machines made by others. But it was
then considered strictly incorrect to apply it to Emile Berliner's upstart Gramophone, a very different
machine which played discs (although Edison's original Phonograph patent included the use of
discs[10]). "Talking machine" was the comprehensive generic term, but from about 1902 on, the general
public was increasingly applying the word "phonograph" indiscriminately to both cylinder and disc
machines and to the records they played. By the time of the First World War, the mass advertising and
popularity of the Victrola (a line of disc-playing machines characterized by their concealed horns) sold by
the Victor Talking Machine Company was leading to widespread generic use of the word "victrola" for
any machine that played discs, which were generally called "phonograph records" or simply "records",
but almost never "Victrola records".

Boy and toy record player, 1920s

After electrical disc-playing machines appeared on the market in the late 1920s, often combined with a
radio receiver, the term "record player" was increasingly favored by the public. Manufacturers, however,
typically advertised such combinations as "radio-phonographs". Portable record players (no radio
included), with a latched cover and an integrated power amplifier and loudspeaker, were becoming
popular as well, especially in schools and for use by children and teenagers.

In the years following the Second World War, as "hi-fi" (high-fidelity, monophonic) and, later, "stereo"
(stereophonic) component sound systems slowly evolved from an exotic specialty item into a common
feature of American homes, the description of the record-spinning component as a "record changer"
(which could automatically play through a stacked series of discs) or a "turntable" (which could hold only
one disc at a time) entered common usage. By the 1980s, the use of a "record changer" was widely
disparaged. So, the "turntable" emerged triumphant and retained its position to the present. Through all
these changes, however, the discs have continued to be known as "phonograph records" or, much more
commonly, simply as "records".

Gramophone, as a brand name, was not used in the United States after 1902, and the word quickly fell
out of use there, although it has survived in its nickname form, Grammy, as the name of the Grammy
Awards. The Grammy trophy itself is a small rendering of a gramophone, resembling a Victor disc
machine with a taper arm.

Modern amplifier-component manufacturers continue to label the input jack for a magnetic pickup
cartridge as the "phono" input.

Australia

Wood engraving published in The Illustrated Australian News, depicting a public demonstration of new
technology at the Royal Society of Victoria (Melbourne, Australia) on 8 August, 1878.

In Australian English, "record player" was the term; "turntable" was a more technical term;
"gramophone" was restricted to the old mechanical (i.e., wind-up) players; and "phonograph" was used
as in British English. The "phonograph" was first demonstrated in Australia on 14 June, 1878 to a meeting
of the Royal Society of Victoria by the Society's Honorary Secretary, Alex Sutherland who published "The
Sounds of the Consonants, as Indicated by the Phonograph" in the Society's journal in November that
year.[11] On 8 August, 1878 the phonograph was publicly demonstrated at the Society's annual
conversazione, along with a range of other new inventions, including the microphone.[12]