In 1885, Chichester A. Bell and Charles S. Tainter invented the Graphophone. With basically the same idea as Edison, these two Americans did what they believed perfected the sound recording system. They used a cardboard cylinder coated in wax in place of the metal cylinder cover with tinfoil. Many people like this at first because that wax could be shaved down and the cylinder could be used multiple times. This too was flawed; the wax would dry and if hit too hard, would crack and be useless.
In 1887, a German born American, Emile Berliner, invented the Gramophone. This device used a completely different component for recording sound: a flat disk. The flat disk, or “record,” provided a faster and more clear way of recording sound in comparison to the cylinder used in the phonograph. When the public got word of this, the phonograph quickly became useless and no one bothered buying them any more. The fault with the record was that the player had to be hand run and the music never seemed to be at the right speed. It was either too fast or too slow. During the middle of the reign of the “record”, all manufacturers of phonographs made them electrically run so that the sound would come out at an even speed. This process was perfected in the mid-1920’s.
Right up until 1948, all commercial records could hold about 15 minutes of recording time and ran at 78 rpm (revolutions per minute). Since the records were made of a substance called shellac, all of the records were very frail and shattered very easily. LP(Long Playing) records were introduced to the public by the Columbia Broadcasting System Laboratories in 1948. They were now 12 inch records which could hold about 20 minutes of recording time and ran at 33½ rpm. The LP records were made of vinyl and were almost unbreakable. At about this same time, Radio Corporation of America (RCA) got into the recording business to and they developed the seven-inch record which had a playing time of 20 minutes and ran at 45 rpm. Now that there were these unbreakable plastic records with longer running time, the public was getting greedy. They demanded records of higher quality sound.
Almost simultaneous to the invention of LP records, was the invention of magnetic tape recording. In this process, sound waves were converted to electronic signals and if wanted, put onto a record. Tape was very popular because it would allow recorders to edit their work by cutting off pieces of the tape taking away certain unwanted sounds. Tape emerged as the primary means of recording, and records as the means of duplication.
The public demand was met in 1958 when stereophonic phonographs and records were introduced. These type of players used not one, but two speakers to amplify sound, thus improving sound quality. By the late 1960’s, almost all new phonographs and records were stereophonic.
One of the greatest breakthroughs in sound recording history was met by Thomas G. Stockham, Jr. when he developed the digital recording system in the 1970’s. This new form of sound recording greatly improved the quality of sound recording. In this system, sound vibrations are converted into a numerical code which is stored onto a computer. This numerical code guides the microscopic cutting of the disc in a similar process as the phonograph cylinder. The sound is picked up by a concentrated laser beam to read the code which is then converted into sound. Records made by this process are called optical digital records, or very simply, compact discs. This American-born electrical engineer’s invention is used every day in almost every home across the world.
As you have probably noticed, Edison’s invention has had a great impact on the world of sound recording and playing, right up until today. All of the sound machines we use today were all inspired by the workings of Thomas A. Edison.