LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Phonograph: Thomas Edison
built 630 days ago
By the time Edison worked his way around to the phonograph again, his patents had lapsed and he had gained a competitor. A man named Tainter, who worked for Alexander Grahmn Bell, had become interested in the phonograph. He made a couple of important technical improvements: using wax as the recording medium and developing a better reproducer. In 1885 Tainter applied for patents. In addition one of Edison's friends and colleagues, Ezra Gilliland, started experimenting with the phonograph. Thomas Edison regained interest in the phonograph in 1887 because of these two spurs to his competitive streak.
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Although sound waves had been recorded in the middle of the 19th cent., the first machine to reproduce recorded sound, the phonograph, was built by Thomas A. Edison in 1877. Edison's records were made of tinfoil, upon which a groove of unvarying lateral direction but varying depth was cut; later this method became known as “hill-and-dale†recording. In 1887, Emile Berliner invented the disk record (patented 1896), which has grooves of unvarying depth but of varying lateral direction. His method, called lateral recording, superseded the earlier method. Berliner ... invented the matrix record, from which unlimited duplicate recordings could be pressed. Early turntables were operated by a spring-driven motor that required rewinding for each record played; later the use of an electric motor made rewinding unnecessary.
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A new business phonograph was introduced in 1905. Similar to a standard phonograph, it had alterations to the reproducer and mandrel. The early machines were difficult to use, and their fragility made them prone to failure. Even though improvements were made to the machine over the years, they still cost more than the popular, inexpensive Dictaphones put out by Columbia. Electrical motors and controls were later added to the Edison business machine, which improved their performance. (Some Edison phonographs made before 1895 ... had electric motors, until they were replaced by spring motors.)
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Thomas Edison created many inventions, but his favorite was the phonograph. While working on improvements to the telegraph and the telephone, Edison figured out a way to record sound on tinfoil-coated cylinders. In 1877, he created a machine with two needles: one for recording and one for playback. When Edison spoke into the mouthpiece, the sound vibrations of his voice would be indented onto the cylinder by the recording needle. What do you think were the first words that Edison spoke into the phonograph?
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The phonograph was conceived by Thomas Edison on 18 July 1877 for recording telephone messages, his first test using waxed paper. In early production versions the recordings were done on the outside surface of a strip of tinfoil wrapped around a rotating metal cylinder. By the 1880s wax cylinders were mass marketed. These had sound recordings in the grooves on the outside of hollow cylinders of slightly soft wax. These cylinders could easily be removed and replaced on the mandrel of the machine which played them. Early cylinder records would commonly wear out after they were played a few dozen times.
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Edison had intended the phonograph to be used primarily as a dictating machine in offices. However, with the invention of the flat-disk phonograph, or gramophone, by the German-born American inventor Emile Berliner in 1887, the phonograph began to develop as an artistic medium for recording the great singers and musical instrumentalists of the time. The gramophone played records at 78 rpm, and the needle moved laterally (from side to side) in a groove of even depth. Like the cylinder phonographs, it reproduced sound with a needle whose mechanical vibrations were amplified by using a cone-shaped horn. Most such phonographs... were driven by spring motors and required rewinding. The records were made of shellac and broke easily.
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