Phonograph

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 sound. It works by recording sound vibrations as tiny changes in a groove on a rotating cylinder or disc, called a record. When you play it back, a small point called a stylus moves along the groove, making vibrations that turn back into sound.

The phonograph was invented in 1877 by Thomas Edison. Later, Alexander Graham Bell’s team made improvements, and in the 1890s, Emile Berliner changed the way records worked by using flat discs instead of cylinders. These discs had a spiral groove and were called gramophones.

For most of the 20th century, records were the main way people listened to music at home. In the 1960s and 1980s, new formats like tapes and CDs became popular, but records have made a comeback since the late 2000s.

Terminology

The words we use for machines that play music from records can change depending on where you are and when you are talking about it. In everyday talk today, people often say "turntable" or "record player". A record player is usually a single unit that has its own speakers. A turntable is just the part that plays the record and needs to connect to other equipment to make sound. Some turntables can move on their own and stop after playing, while others need you to move parts by hand.

The word "phonograph" comes from old Greek words meaning "sound writing". In the United Kingdom, the word "gramophone" is used for any machine that plays music from discs. In the United States, "phonograph" was used mainly for machines made by one company, but sometimes people used it for other machines too. In Australia, people usually said "record player", while "gramophone" meant older machines you had to wind up.

Main article: record changer

DJ setups often call turntables "decks" when they are used with a mixer. In electric phonographs from the 1940s onward, the movements of the part that touches the record turn into an electrical signal by a transducer. This signal becomes sound again through a phono stage, an amplifier, and loudspeakers.

Main articles: British English, disc records

Early history

Phonautograph

Main article: Phonautograph

The phonautograph was invented in 1857 by a Frenchman named Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville. He was editing a book about how the human body works when he saw a picture of the human ear. This gave him the idea to create a device that could capture sounds.

Scott used a glass plate covered with a special black powder. He attached a thin membrane, like the one in our ears, to a tube. At the center of this membrane, he placed a tiny bristle that touched the black powder. When someone spoke into the tube, the membrane would move, and the bristle would scratch lines into the powder. These lines showed the shape of the sound waves.

In 1860, Scott recorded someone singing a song called "Au Clair de la Lune." At the time, he only wanted to make a picture of the sound, not to play it back. It wasn’t until 2008 that scientists managed to play this recording, making it the oldest known recording of a human voice.

Paleophone

Charles Cros, a French poet and inventor, thought about how to not just record sound, but also play it back. In 1877, he wrote down his ideas in a sealed envelope. He suggested using a special method to create grooves on a metal surface that could later be used to replay the sound.

The early phonographs

Thomas Edison came up with the idea for a phonograph in 1877 while working on ways to send messages over wires. He created a device that could record and play back sound using a piece of waxed paper wrapped around a cylinder. When someone spoke into the device, a small needle would press into the wax, creating tiny bumps and valleys that captured the sound.

Early machines

Edison’s early phonographs used a thin sheet of metal wrapped around a cylinder. When the cylinder turned, sound waves would make a diaphragm vibrate, moving a needle that pressed into the metal and recorded the sound.

Introduction of the disc record

By 1890, people began making records in factories. At first, they made each record by hand. Later, they found ways to make many copies at once. Some artists had to record the same song many times because people wanted so many copies.

Oldest surviving recordings

The oldest known playable sound recording is a cylinder made for an experimental clock. Before that, people thought the oldest recordings were of music made in 1888. But in 2008, scientists played back a recording from 1860, making it the oldest known recording of a human voice.

Improvements at the Volta Laboratory

Main article: Volta Laboratory and Bureau § Sound recording and phonograph development

Alexander Graham Bell and his team changed Edison's tinfoil phonograph to use wax instead. They started working at Bell's Volta Laboratory in Washington, D.C., in 1879 and got patents in 1886 for recording sound on wax.

Even though Edison had invented the phonograph in 1877, his tinfoil version was hard to use because the tinfoil would tear easily and did not sound good after a few plays. However, his big idea was sound recording. But right after that, he focused on developing the New York City electric light and power system instead.

Bell, being a scientist, wanted new challenges after creating the telephone. He was encouraged by Gardiner Green Hubbard, whose daughter Mabel Bell had married. Hubbard’s company, which bought Edison’s patent, was struggling because people did not like buying a machine that did not work well and was hard to use.

The Volta team made a machine called the Graphophone. They recorded sound by cutting it into wax with a sharp tool. Most of their machines had vertical turntables because that was how they built them in their workshop. One special machine from 1886 had a horizontal turntable and could record 150 grooves per inch.

In 1886, the Volta Graphophone Company was created to manage their inventions. Later, it merged with American Graphophone, which eventually became Columbia Records. Their work helped create practical dictating machines for businesses.

The technology became popular in other countries too. For example, in 1895, Hungary was the first to use phonographs for studying folklore and music from different cultures.

Disc vs. cylinder as a recording medium

Discs and cylinders are both ways to record sound, and neither is naturally better than the other. However, discs have an advantage in how they are made. Discs can be quickly produced in large numbers from a single master copy, allowing them to be sent to different factories around the world. Cylinders could not be made this way until around 1901–1902, when a new method was introduced.

In 1892, a man named Berliner started selling the first disc records to the public. These early discs were five inches wide and could only record sound on one side. Later, he made larger seven-inch discs. He also changed the material from hard rubber to a special mix called shellac, which helped improve the sound quality over time.

Wax cylinders were still used even into the 1920s. One interesting invention from that time was the Psychophone, created by a man named Saliger in 1927. This special phonograph was designed for use in psychology, especially for helping people learn while they slept. It had a clock on top and could replay records continuously. Unlike older machines that needed to be cranked by hand, the Psychophone used electricity to play the records.

Dominance of the disc record

In the 1930s, a new material called vinyl was used to make records for radio. It was stronger than older materials and didn’t break as easily when moved around. During World War II, special records called V-discs made from vinyl were sent to soldiers in the US. Most home records at that time were still made from a material called shellac, which was heavier and more likely to break.

Later, records began to be made from vinyl instead of shellac. By the 1950s, most records were made from vinyl, which was lighter and lasted longer.

First all-transistor phonograph

In 1955, a company called Philco made the first phonograph that used tiny parts called transistors instead of bigger parts called vacuum tubes. These phonographs, called the TPA-1 and TPA-2, could play records and were powered by batteries. They cost about $60 when they were first sold. Even though these early models didn’t sell for long, they showed how phonographs could become smaller and more portable.

Turntable designs

There are three main types of phonographs: belt-drive, direct-drive, and idler-wheel.

In a belt-drive turntable, the motor sits away from the spinning part and connects to it with a drive belt made from soft, stretchy material.

The direct-drive turntable was created by Shuichi Obata, an engineer at Matsushita (now Panasonic). In 1969, Matsushita introduced it as the Technics SP-10, the first of its kind. The most famous model was the Technics SL-1200, which became very popular in hip hop culture and was widely used by DJs for many years.

Arm systems

The arm that holds the part that reads the record is called the tonearm. Good tonearms move smoothly over the record without bending or shaking.

Quality tonearms have a special weight that helps balance the arm and makes it easier to adjust how gently it touches the record.

Tonearms can sometimes make the sound a little off. One way this happens is when the arm moves in a curve, which can push the part that reads the record a bit. Good turntables have a special part that helps stop this push.

Another way the sound can change is when the arm moves across the record, which can slightly change the angle of the part that reads the record.

Linear tracking

If the arm does not pivot but moves straight across the record, it can avoid these sound changes. These arms are called linear tracking or tangential arms. They need to move at just the right speed, which can be tricky. Cheaper ones use a special system, while more expensive ones use a cushion of air to help them move smoothly.

Cue lever

Many turntables have a "cue lever". This is a tool that helps lower the tonearm onto the record. It makes it easier to find a specific song, pause the record, and keep the record from getting scratched.

Pickup systems

The pickup, also called a cartridge, is a device that changes the tiny movements of a stylus into an electrical signal. This signal is made louder and turned into sound by speakers. Older pickups made from crystal or ceramic have mostly been replaced by magnetic ones.

The pickup has a stylus with a tiny tip made of diamond or sapphire that moves along the grooves in a record. Over time, the stylus can get worn down from touching the record, but it can usually be replaced.

Styli come in two main types: spherical and elliptical. Spherical styli are stronger but don’t follow the grooves as closely, which can make high-pitched sounds weaker. Elliptical styli follow the grooves better, making the sound clearer and with less distortion. For DJs, spherical styli are often chosen because they are stronger and better for moving the record quickly. There are also special types like the Shibata stylus that can capture very high-pitched sounds even better, which is important for some types of recordings.

Optical readout

Some special turntables use a laser to read the grooves without touching the record. This means the record doesn’t get worn down. However, the record must be very clean, or the laser can pick up dust and make noise. Another way to read records is by taking very detailed pictures of them and using computer programs to interpret the grooves. While early attempts with regular scanners didn’t work well, professional systems, like one used by the Library of Congress, can produce excellent results and even help repair broken records.

Stylus

A special type of stylus was developed to improve sound quality for CD-4 quadraphonic sound. This needed a very thin stylus, as thin as 5 micrometres (0.2 mils). A thin stylus could play higher frequencies but would wear out faster. To solve this, the Shibata stylus was created around 1972 in Japan. This stylus had a larger contact area, which reduced pressure on the record and helped it last longer. It could also play parts of the record that were worn out by older styles of styli.

More advanced stylus shapes were made later to improve on the Shibata design, including versions called "Hughes", "Ogura", and "Van den Hul". Some of these styli were sold under names like "Hyperelliptical", "Alliptic", and "Fine Line". A special diamond-shaped stylus was also made, thanks to new technologies for cutting records with lasers.

To stop steel needles from damaging records, RCA Victor made stronger records in 1930 by mixing a special plastic into the material, called Victrolac, which was first used in 1931 for movie discs.

Equalization

Since the late 1950s, most devices that play old records have used a special sound setting called the RIAA standard. Before this, there were many different sound settings used by companies like EMI, His Master's Voice, Columbia, and Decca. If you play old recordings made with these different settings on a modern device, the sound might seem strange. Some older devices can still be found and fixed up, and there are also new devices that can help make old records sound better.

Contemporary use and models

See also: Vinyl revival

Though compact discs became popular in 1982, some people still bought records in the 1980s and 1990s, even if they were not as common as CDs or tapes. Small numbers of record players kept being made and sold, mostly for DJs.

In the late 2000s, interest in records grew again. Companies like Panasonic and Sony started making turntables again. Crosley became popular for its portable record players, especially among younger listeners in the 2010s.

Today, many turntables have modern features. Some have USB ports to connect to computers. Others have Bluetooth so you can play music wireless. Some even can change the sound from a record into digital files.