Thomas Edison invented the phonograph in 1877. Below is a photograph of him with his second phonograph, in Washington, D. C..
Thomas Edison - April 1878
photo by Levin Corbin Handy
Early disc recordings were produced in a variety of speeds ranging from
60 to 130 rpm, and a variety of sizes. I have no doubt this must have caused some confusion. As early as 1894, Emile Berliner's United States Gramophone Company was selling single-sided 7-inch discs with an advertised standard speed of "about 70 rpm".
One standard audio recording handbook describes speed regulators, or governors,
as being part of a wave of improvement introduced rapidly after 1897.
Early record players were hand-cranked. The 1898 Berliner Gramophone shows a
governor. This model Berliner, Style 5, (with the optional brass horn)
became the
trademark of first the Berliner Gramophone Company, then the Victor
Talking Machine Company and later RCA Victor as a result of a painting, "His Master's Voice", by Francis Barraud which was purchased along with the
copyright by the Berliner Company.
There are great detail photos of the Berliner player on the Phonograph Company website (link below).
Berliner, Style 5 Gramophone
Circa 1897
There is a really interesting article on the manufacturing of early discs by Fred Gaisberg on Sound Of The Hound (link below), as well as a video of an Edison player on YouTube (link below).
Viewfinder links:
Audio equipment
Thomas Edison
Edison, Nikola Tesla & the incandescent bulb
Pathé Records & early phonography
phonography articles/mentions
Net links:
The photo captioned "Berliner, Style 5 phonograph Circa 1897" shows a gramophone. Berliner called his invention - that plays flat discs - the gramophone. A phonograph is a cylinder machine. Tom Henshaw
ReplyDeleteThank you for the correction, Tom, I will make the change.
ReplyDelete