A phonograph, later called a gramophone, and since the 1940s a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogue reproduction of recorded 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, faintly reproducing the recorded sound. In early acoustic phonographs, the stylus vibrated a diaphragm that produced sound waves coupled to the open air through a flaring horn, or directly to the listener's ears through stethoscope-type earphones.
Phonograph cylinders are the earliest commercial medium for recording and reproducing sound. Commonly known simply as "records" in their heyday, a name which has been passed on to their disc-shaped successor, these hollow cylindrical objects have an audio recording engraved on the outside surface which can be reproduced when they are played on a mechanical cylinder phonograph. The first cylinders were wrapped with tin foil but the improved version made of wax was created a decade later, after which they were commercialized. In the 1910s, the competing disc record system triumphed in the marketplace to become the dominant commercial audio medium.
The Victor Talking Machine Company was an American recording company and phonograph manufacturer, incorporated in 1901. Victor was an independent enterprise until 1929 when it was purchased by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) and became the RCA Victor Division of the Radio Corporation of America until late 1968, when it was renamed RCA Records.
Dictaphone was an American company founded by Alexander Graham Bell that produced dictation machines. It is now a division of Nuance Communications, based in Burlington, Massachusetts.
Columbia Graphophone Co. Ltd. was one of the earliest gramophone companies in the United Kingdom.
The Gramophone Company Limited, based in the United Kingdom and founded by Emil Berliner, was one of the early recording companies, the parent organisation for the His Master's Voice (HMV) label, and the European affiliate of the American Victor Talking Machine Company. Although the company merged with the Columbia Graphophone Company in 1931 to form Electric and Musical Industries Limited (EMI), its name "The Gramophone Company Limited" continued in the UK into the 1970s.
Pathé Records was an international record company and label and producer of phonographs, based in France, and active from the 1890s through the 1930s.
Edison Records was one of the early record labels that pioneered sound recording and reproduction, and was an important and successful company in the early recording industry.
Charles Sumner Tainter was an American scientific instrument maker, engineer and inventor, best known for his collaborations with Alexander Graham Bell, Chichester Bell, Alexander's father-in-law Gardiner Hubbard, and for his significant improvements to Thomas Edison's phonograph, resulting in the Graphophone, one version of which was the first Dictaphone.
Sound recording and reproduction is the electrical, mechanical, electronic, or digital inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording.
Eldridge Reeves Johnson was an American businessman and engineer who founded the Victor Talking Machine Company in 1901 and built it into the leading American producer of phonographs and phonograph records and one of the leading phonograph companies in the world at the time. Victor was the corporate predecessor of RCA Records.
Russell Dinsmore Hunting was an American comic entertainer, pioneer sound recordist, and an influential figure in the early years of the recorded music industry. He was described as "the most popular pre-1900 recording artist".
Chichester Alexander Bell was an Irish chemist and inventor. He was a cousin of Alexander Graham Bell and was instrumental in developing the Graphophone.
A dictation machine is a sound recording device most commonly used to record speech for playback or to be typed into print. It includes digital voice recorders and tape recorder.
The Volta Laboratory and the Volta Bureau were created in Georgetown, Washington, D.C., by Alexander Graham Bell.
John Hill Maccann, or Professor Maccann was a concertina player and designer from Plymouth, England. In 1884, Maccann patented a new design of Duet concertina, which became the first successful and most widely accepted layout of that instrument. Maccann's layout was a refinement of the earlier "Duette" system developed by Charles Wheatstone, inventor of the concertina. Initially called the "New Chromatic Duet English Concertina", it was to later be called simply the "Maccann system".
The North American Phonograph Company was an early attempt to commercialize the maturing technologies of sound recording in the late 1880s and early 1890s. Though the company was largely unsuccessful in its goals due to legal, technical and financial problems, it set the stage for the modern recording industry in the mid 1890s.
The Columbia Grafonola is a brand of early 20th century American phonograph made by the Columbia Graphophone Company. Introduced in 1907, Grafonolas are internal horn alternatives to the same company's external horn Disc Graphophones.
Edison Bell was an English company that was the first distributor and an early manufacturer of gramophones and gramophone records. The company survived through several incarnations, becoming a top producer of budget records in England through the early 1930s until, after it was absorbed by Decca in 1932, production of various Edison Bell labels ceased.
IRENE is a digital imaging technology designed to recover analog audio stored on fragile or deteriorating phonograph cylinders, records, and other grooved audio media. It is in use by several archives and preservation institutions in the United States seeking to preserve and digitize historical audio.
