Phonograph facts for kids
A phonograph is a cool machine that can record sounds and play them back. You might also know it as a gramophone or a record player. It works by carving sound vibrations into a spiral groove on a spinning cylinder or flat disc, which we call a "record." To hear the sound again, a tiny needle, called a stylus, traces the groove. This makes the needle vibrate, and those vibrations turn back into sound. Early phonographs used a big horn to make the sound louder.
The phonograph was invented in 1877 by Thomas Edison. Later, Alexander Graham Bell and his team improved it in the 1880s. They created the graphophone, which used wax-coated cardboard cylinders. In the 1890s, Emile Berliner changed things by using flat discs instead of cylinders. He called his disc players "gramophones." Over the years, record players got better with new turntables, needles, and sound systems.
Flat disc records were the main way to listen to music for most of the 1900s. But in the 1980s, their popularity dropped because of cassette tapes and CDs. However, records are still loved by some audiophiles, DJs, and collectors. They have even made a comeback since the 2000s!
What's in a Name?
The word phonograph comes from ancient Greek words: phonē (meaning "sound" or "voice") and graphē (meaning "writing"). So, it literally means "sound writing." Other similar names like gramophone and graphophone have similar meanings. These words were like "photograph" (light writing) or "telephone" (distant sound).
In the United Kingdom, people usually called disc players "gramophones." This name became popular because of the Gramophone Company. The word "phonograph" was mostly used for machines that played cylinder records. After softer vinyl records came out, like LPs and 45s, people started calling the machines "record players" or "turntables." Often, these were part of a bigger music system that included a radio, called a "radiogram."
In the United States, "phonograph" was often used for any sound-playing machine, even though it was originally Edison's specific name. By the early 1900s, people used "phonograph" for both cylinder and disc players. The popular Victrola machines, which played discs, led many to call any disc player a "victrola." After the 1920s, when electric players came out, "record player" became a common term. Later, as home stereo systems grew, the part that played records was called a "turntable."
The name Grammy for the famous Grammy Awards actually comes from the word "gramophone." The award trophy even looks like an old gramophone!
Early History of Sound Recording
Before Edison invented the phonograph, other inventors tried to record sound. But Edison was the first to make a machine that could both record and play back sound.
The Phonautograph
The first known device to record airborne sounds like speech or music was the phonautograph. It was patented in 1857 by a French inventor named Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville. This machine recorded sound waves as wavy lines on a sheet of paper covered in soot. But it couldn't play the sound back. It was only for studying the sound visually.
However, in 2008, some audio historians used computers to scan these old recordings. They were able to turn the wavy lines into digital sound files. This allowed us to hear recordings from around 1860, including parts of French songs!
The Paleophone Idea
A French poet and scientist named Charles Cros was the first to imagine playing sound back from these recorded lines. In 1877, he wrote down his ideas for a machine he called the "paleophone." He suggested using a process like photoengraving to turn the soot tracings into grooves on a metal disc or cylinder. Then, a needle would follow these grooves to recreate the sound.
Cros was not rich enough to build his machine. He shared his ideas freely. Sadly, he died in 1888, before disc records became popular. But his idea of etching grooves into metal was later used to make the first commercial disc records.
Edison's First Phonograph
Thomas Edison came up with the idea for recording and playing sound in 1877. He was actually trying to improve telegraph messages and automate telephone speech. He first tried using waxed paper.
Edison announced his invention of the first phonograph on November 21, 1877. He showed it off for the first time on November 29. It was patented in February 1878. People were amazed! One newspaper described how the machine said, "Good morning. How do you do? How do you like the phonograph?"
Edison himself told the story of his invention: He was working on a way to record telegraph messages on a spinning disc. He realized he could use similar ideas to record human voices. He designed a small machine with a cylinder wrapped in tinfoil. He shouted "Mary Had a Little Lamb" into it. When he played it back, the machine repeated his words perfectly! Edison said he was "never so taken aback in my life."
Early phonographs recorded sound onto thin sheets of tinfoil. This foil was wrapped around a cylinder with grooves. As the cylinder spun, a needle connected to a diaphragm would press into the foil, making tiny dents that matched the sound vibrations. To play it back, the needle would follow these dents, vibrating the diaphragm and making sound. These early recordings wore out quickly and were hard to put back on the cylinder. They were mostly used as a fun novelty.
Edison knew sound could be recorded on a disc, but he focused on cylinders. He thought cylinders were more "scientifically correct" because the needle moved at a constant speed along the groove.
Improvements and the Disc Record
Alexander Graham Bell and his team at the Volta Laboratory in Washington, D.C., worked to improve Edison's phonograph. They started in 1879 and by 1886, they had patents for recording sound onto wax instead of tinfoil.
Edison's tinfoil phonograph was hard to use. The tinfoil tore easily, and the sound quality was not great. Bell's team made it much better. They put wax in the grooves of the cylinder, which was more durable. One of their early recordings said, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy. I am a Graphophone and my mother was a phonograph."
Their improved machine, called the Graphophone, was much more practical. It laid the groundwork for dictating machines used in businesses.
The Flat Disc Arrives
While cylinders were useful for business, a flat recording surface was also being explored. In 1887, Emile Berliner patented his own version of the phonograph, which he called the Gramophone. Berliner's idea was similar to Charles Cros's earlier concept. He used a needle to carve a spiral groove into a zinc disc coated with wax. Then, he used acid to etch the groove permanently into the metal.
Berliner's flat discs had a huge advantage: they could be mass-produced much more cheaply than cylinders. This was because discs could be stamped out, while cylinders were harder to copy in large numbers.
In 1889, the first "phonograph parlor" opened in San Francisco. People could put a coin in a machine and listen to a wax cylinder record through stethoscope-like tubes. By the mid-1890s, these parlors were in most American cities.
Early record companies found ways to copy records. At first, performers had to sing the same song many times into different recording machines. Later, a special machine could make 90-150 copies at once. Still, popular artists like George Washington Johnson had to sing his hit "The Laughing Song" thousands of times!
Oldest Surviving Recordings
Some of the oldest playable sound recordings include a Lambert lead cylinder for a talking clock. Wax cylinder recordings of Handel's music from 1888 were thought to be the oldest music recordings. However, the 1860 phonautograph recording of Au clair de la lune, which was recently played back using optical scanning, is now the oldest known musical recording.
Edison's original 1877 tinfoil recording of Mary Had a Little Lamb is not preserved. But a recording from an 1878 demonstration of Edison's phonograph in St. Louis, Missouri, has been played back using optical scanning. This shows how fragile these early recordings are.
Discs Take Over
Berliner's flat disc record was the ancestor of all the records we know today: 78 rpm, 45 rpm, and 33⅓ rpm LPs. Even though Edison's cylinder technology might have had better sound quality at first, discs won out because they were easier and cheaper to make in large numbers. They also took up less space to store.
Berliner started selling his disc records and "gramophones" in 1892. His first records were small (5 inches) and only had music on one side. By 1895, he made 7-inch records and started using a shellac compound instead of hard rubber. Early Berliner records didn't sound great, but improvements by Eldridge R. Johnson made them sound as good as cylinders. By 1901, 10-inch records were sold by Johnson and Berliner's Victor Talking Machine Company.
In 1904, records with music on both sides appeared, offering about seven minutes of playing time. Cylinders usually only held two minutes of music. This, along with the fact that wax cylinders broke easily, led to cylinder sales declining. Even Edison, who loved cylinders, started making disc records by 1912. He kept making cylinders until 1929, being the last company to stop.
By 1906, disc systems had mostly replaced cylinders in Europe. By 1913, Edison was the only company still making cylinders in the USA.
The Rise of the Record Player
The 1920s brought better radio technology, which hurt phonograph sales. But record companies improved sound quality, keeping business going until the Great Depression hit. Sales then dropped sharply, and many companies went out of business.
Record sales picked up again in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Home phonographs became more common, often combined with radios in big console units that could change records automatically.
In the 1930s, vinyl was introduced for radio recordings. During World War II, there was a shortage of shellac, which was used for records. Vinyl, made domestically, became important for records sent to soldiers. After the war, vinyl became the main material for records. In 1948, two new vinyl formats were introduced: the 33⅓ RPM long-playing record (LP), which could hold a whole album, and the 45 RPM "single" for hit songs.
Records had some downsides, like surface noise from dirt or scratches. A deep scratch could make the needle skip or get stuck, repeating a section. This was so common that the phrase "you sound like a broken record" was created for someone who keeps repeating themselves!
First Transistor Phonograph
In 1955, Philco made the world's first all-transistor phonographs. These portable players only played 45rpm records and ran on batteries. They were expensive at first, but by the 1960s, cheaper portable record players became very popular, especially for kids and teenagers. You could even find 45 rpm records at pharmacy counters!
Sound quality improved a lot in the 1970s. Turntables became very precise machines with advanced parts that made the sound clear and accurate. A good record player could reproduce sounds from very low (20 Hz) to very high (20,000 Hz) frequencies, with almost no unwanted noise.
Records also became a form of art. Their large surface allowed for cool graphics and even books to be printed on them. Records could be made in unusual shapes, colors, or with pictures. Even after CDs came out in the 1980s, records were still common in home music systems until the early 1990s.
By the early 2000s, turntables became a special product. CDs were cheaper and didn't have pops or scratches. However, there's been a new interest in vinyl. Many stores now sell turntables, and some systems combine a turntable with a CD player, cassette deck, and radio in a cool retro style. Records are still made and sold today, though not as many as before.
How Turntables Work
Turntable Parts
Simple record players often had a light metal spinning plate for the record. A rubber disc on top helped the record stay in place and reduced vibrations. More expensive turntables used heavy aluminium parts. These heavier parts helped keep the speed steady and reduced unwanted vibrations. They usually had special bearings to make them spin smoothly.
How Turntables Spin
Early phonographs used spring-wound motors with a governor to control speed. This was a friction disc that slowed down the rotation if it went too fast. Electric motors eventually replaced these.
Modern turntables often have markings on their edge. When viewed under artificial light, these markings appear still if the turntable is spinning at the correct speed.
Idler-Wheel Drive
Older turntables often used a rubberized idler wheel system. A motor spun a stepped shaft, and the idler wheel would touch different steps to get different speeds. The idler wheel then pressed against the record platter to make it spin. The downside was that the idler wheel could wear out, and the motor's vibrations could cause low-frequency noise (rumble) or speed changes (wow and flutter).
Belt Drive
Belt-driven turntables use a rubber belt to connect the motor to the platter. This belt helps to isolate the platter from the motor's vibrations, reducing rumble and flutter. Belt drives often use less expensive motors because the belt absorbs much of the unwanted noise.
Direct Drive
Direct-drive turntables spin the platter directly, without belts or wheels. This needs very precise engineering and electronics to control the speed. Technics introduced the first successful direct-drive turntable in 1969. Their Technics SL-1200 model, updated in 1978, became a favorite for DJs because of its strong motor and pitch control. By the 1980s, direct-drive turntables became more affordable.
The Tone Arm and Needle
The tone arm holds the pickup cartridge and the stylus (or needle) over the record. Its job is to make sure the stylus stays in the groove with the right amount of pressure. This helps the sound quality and prevents damage to the record and needle.
A perfect tone arm would be weightless and have no friction, but that's impossible! So, tone arm designs are a compromise. Most modern tone arms are light and stiff, made from metal alloys, carbon fiber, or even wood. They have very low-friction bearings.
Early electronic record players had heavy pickups that rested directly on the record, causing lots of wear. Later, lighter crystal and ceramic pickups appeared. When fine-grooved vinyl records came out in the late 1940s, even smaller and lighter cartridges with jewel styluses became standard.
Quality tone arms have an adjustable counterweight to balance the arm and cartridge. This allows you to set the perfect tracking force for the stylus, usually between 1 to 2 grams for home use. DJs might use heavier forces (up to 5 grams) for tougher use.
As the tone arm moves across the record, it sweeps in an arc. This can cause a slight change in the angle between the cartridge and the groove, which can affect the sound. Longer arms help reduce this error. Some special designs, called linear tracking or tangential arms, move the stylus in a straight line across the record, just like the machine that cut the record. This removes the angle error and skating force.
Pickup Systems
The pickup cartridge turns the stylus's vibrations into an electrical signal. There are a few main types:
- Piezoelectric (Crystal/Ceramic) Cartridges: Early electronic phonographs used crystal pickups. The stylus's movement created stress in a crystal, which generated an electrical signal. These were tough and produced a strong signal, but the sound quality wasn't great, and they could wear out records faster. Later, ceramic cartridges improved on this, offering better sound and less record wear. These were common in cheaper record players.
- Magnetic Cartridges: These are the most common type for good quality sound. There are two main designs: moving magnet (MM) and moving coil (MC). In both, the stylus is attached to a tiny rod called a cantilever. At the other end of the cantilever is either a tiny magnet (MM) or tiny coils (MC). As the stylus moves in the groove, it creates a changing magnetic field, which generates a small electric current in fixed coils. This current is the sound signal. Magnetic cartridges offer much better sound quality and cause less record wear. The stylus is often replaceable.
- Strain Gauge Cartridges: These are less common. They don't generate a voltage but act like a variable resistor. The stylus movement changes their resistance, which then changes an external voltage supplied by a special preamplifier. They offer excellent sound quality and are not affected by cable issues or magnetic hum.
- Optical Readout: Some very specialized turntables, called laser turntables, use lasers to read the groove. Since there's no physical contact, the record doesn't wear out. However, they are very expensive.
The Stylus (Needle)
The stylus is the tiny tip that plays the record. It's usually made of diamond or sapphire. It has to be very tough because it's the only part that touches the spinning record. A worn-out stylus can damage your records and make the sound bad.
Different materials and shapes have been used for styluses over time. Edison used sapphire in 1892 and diamond in 1910 for his cylinder phonographs. His Diamond Disc players hardly ever needed a new stylus.
Early disc players often used disposable steel needles. These wore out very quickly, sometimes after just one side of a record! They were cheap and sold in big boxes. Later, hardened steel and chrome-plated needles lasted longer.
When vinyl records came out, styluses were made of sapphire or diamond. The shape of the stylus is very important. Early ones were spherical (round), but later, elliptical (oval) shapes were developed. Elliptical styluses touch more of the groove, which gives better sound quality and less wear.
Even more advanced stylus shapes, like the Shibata, Ogura, and MicroLine, were invented to make even more contact with the groove. This further reduced wear and improved sound, especially for special quadraphonic records that had very high frequencies. These advanced stylus shapes are still made today.
Record Materials
Early records in the 1800s were made of hardened rubber, wax, and celluloid. But in the early 1900s, a shellac compound became the standard. Shellac records were fragile and could easily shatter or crack.
To solve this, in 1930, RCA Victor made unbreakable records using a mix of polyvinyl chloride and plasticizers, which they called Victrolac. This was first used in 1931 for movie discs and some home records. However, at the time, movies started using sound on film instead of discs, so the need for unbreakable records decreased.
The Victrolac formula improved, and by the late 1930s, it was called vinylite. This material was used for records sent to radio stations because vinyl records wouldn't break in the mail. During World War II, there was a shortage of shellac. Vinylite was made in the USA and used for records sent to soldiers.
After the war, RCA Victor and Columbia perfected two new vinyl formats in 1948: the 33⅓ RPM LP and the 45 RPM single. For a few more years, 78 RPM records were still made of shellac, but that format was phased out around 1958. LPs and 45s were made almost entirely of vinyl.
Sound Equalization
Early record players used the stylus to vibrate a diaphragm that sent sound through a horn. This had problems: the sound wasn't very loud, and the stylus had to work very hard, wearing out records quickly. Also, bass sounds took up a lot of space in the groove, limiting how much music could fit on a record.
When electronic amplification came along, these problems could be fixed. Records are now made with boosted high frequencies and reduced low frequencies. This helps reduce background noise and allows more music to fit on the record.
When playing back, the high frequencies must be brought back to their original level, a process called "equalization." Most hi-fi amplifiers from the 1950s to 1990s, and all DJ mixers, have a special "phono input" that does this equalization and amplifies the tiny signal from the cartridge.
Since the late 1950s, almost all phono inputs use the RIAA equalization standard. Before this, many different equalization methods were used. If you play an old record made with a different equalization, it might sound strange on a modern system.
Turntables Today
Turntables are still made and sold today, though in smaller numbers. While some audiophiles prefer the sound of vinyl records over digital music, they are a small group. However, vinyl LP sales have been increasing in recent years!
Updated versions of the 1970s Technics SL-1200 turntable are still a standard for DJs. Turntables and vinyl records are very popular in electronic music mixing, where DJs can physically manipulate the music.
In hip hop music, DJs use turntables and a DJ mixer as musical instruments. This is called turntablism. The most famous technique is scratching, invented by Grand Wizzard Theodore. While many hip hop DJs now use digital devices to create scratching sounds, some still use real vinyl records.
The laser turntable uses a laser instead of a needle, so it doesn't touch the record at all. This means no wear and tear on the record. Scientists are also experimenting with scanning records and using computer software to play the sound from the image of the grooves.
Even though CDs largely replaced records in 1982, records are still sold. In 2008, LP sales grew by 90% compared to the previous year.
USB turntables are now available. They have a built-in audio connection that sends the sound directly to a computer. Some even come with software to adjust the sound.
Because of the growing interest in vinyl, Panasonic announced in 2015 that they are bringing back their famous Technics turntables, which are loved by DJs and music fans.
Images for kids
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An Edison Standard Phonograph that uses wax cylinders
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A wood engraving from 1878 showing a public demonstration of new technology, including the phonograph, in Melbourne, Australia.
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An old drawing of a phonautograph. It used a barrel made of plaster of Paris.
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A Technics SL-1200 turntable, popular with DJs.
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See also
In Spanish: Fonógrafo para niños
