Sound Recording Solutions
Sound Card Recorder
Powerful voice activated microphone recorder for Windows. Click here to learn more.Phonograph
The phonograph, or gramophone, was the most common device for playing recorded sound from the 1870s through the 1980s. Usage of these terms is somewhat different in American English and English outside North America; see usage note below. In more modern usage, this device is often called a turntable, record player, or record changer. In the late 19th and early 20th century, the alternative term talking machine was sometimes used. The phonograph was the first device for recording and replaying sound. The term phonograph meaning "sound writer", is derived from the Greek words ???? (meaning 'sound' or 'voice' and transliterated as phone) and ????? (meaning 'writing' and transliterated as graphe). Similar related terms gramophone and graphophone have similar root meanings. The coinage, particularly the use of the "-graph" root, may have been influenced by the then-existing words "phonographic" and "phonography," which referred to a system of phonetic shorthand; in 1852 the New York Times carried an advertisement for "Professor Webster's phonographic class," and in 1859 the New York State Teachers' Association tabled a motion to "employ a phonographic recorder" to record its meetings. Arguably, any device used to record sound or reproduce recorded sound could be called a type of "phonograph", but in common practice it has come to mean historic technologies of sound recording. The earliest known invention of a phonographic recording device was the phonautograph, invented by Edouard-Leon Scott and patented on March 25, 1857. It could transcribe sound to a visible medium, but had no means to play back the sound after it was recorded. The device consisted of a horn that focused sound waves onto a membrane to which a hog's bristle was attached, causing the bristle to move and enabling it to inscribe a visual medium. Initially, the phonautograph made recordings onto a lamp-blackened glass plate. A later version used a medium of lamp-blackened paper on a drum or cylinder-an arrangement to which Thomas Edison's later invention would bear striking resemblance. Other versions would draw a line representing the sound wave on to a roll of paper. The phonautograph was a laboratory curiosity for the study of acoustics. It was used to determine the vibrations per second for a musical pitch and to study sound and speech; it was not widely understood until after the development of the phonograph that the waveform recorded by the phonautograph was a record of the sound wave that needed only a playback mechanism to reproduce the sound. Berliner's lateral disc record was the ancestor of the 78 rpm, 45 rpm, 33? rpm, and all other analogue disc records popular for use in sound recording through the 20th century. See gramophone record. Christmas 1925 brought improved radio technology and radio sales, bringing many phonograph dealers to financial ruin. With efforts at improved audio fidelity, the big record companies succeeded in keeping business booming through the end of the decade, but the record sales plummeted during the Great Depression, with many companies merging or going out of business. Booms in record sales returned after World War II. A phonograph circa 1979The turntable remained a common element of home audio systems well after the introduction of other media such as audio tape and even the early years of the compact disc. They were not uncommon in home audio systems into the early 1990s. By the turn of the 21st century, the turntable had become a niche product. Nevertheless, turntables and records continue to be manufactured and sold as of 2006, albeit in very small quantities when compared to the disc phonograph's heyday. Another major component is the pickup or cartridge. Early electronic phonographs used a piezo-electric quartz crystal for pickup, where the mechanical movement of the stylus in the groove generates a proportional electrical voltage by creating stress within the crystal. Crystal pickups are relatively robust, and yield a good level of signal which requires only a modest amount of amplification. A crystal's output tends not to be very linear, that is, it introduces unwanted distortion. It is difficult to make a crystal pickup suitable for stereo reproduction, as the stiff coupling between the crystal and the stylus prevents close tracking of the needle to the groove modulations. This tends to increase wear on the record, and introduces distortion. The next development was the ceramic cartridge, which was also a piezoelectric transducer like the crystal, but because it was more sensitive, could be made with greater compliance (the ability to ride the undulations of the groove without distorting or jumping out of the groove). This also allowed ceramic stereo cartridges to be made. The ceramic cartridge became standard in most phonographs, except for the better high-fidelity (or "hi-fi") systems. In high-fidelity systems, crystal and ceramic pickups have been replaced by the magnetic cartridge, using either a moving magnet or moving coil. In the moving magnet system, the stylus carries a tiny permanent magnet, which is positioned between two sets of fixed coils (in a stereophonic cartridge). As the magnet vibrates in response to the stylus following the record groove, it induces a tiny current in the coils. This current is fed to an amplifier which boosts the signal, and then to a loudspeaker. Because the magnet is so light, and is not coupled mechanically to the coils, the stylus follows the groove far more gently and faithfully, requiring less tracking force (the downward pressure on the stylus). Moving coil systems are generally more expensive and are preferred by some audiophiles. Here the coils are attached to the stylus, and move within the field of a permanent magnet. Magnetic cartridges provide a much lower output than a crystal or ceramic pickup, in the range of a few millivolts, thus requiring a preamplifier stage, as well as additional equalization to correct the response of the cartridge over the audio frequency range. Moving-coil cartridges generate an even smaller signal, of a few hundred microvolts, and require additional preamplification. Electrical noise induced by power lines or other EMI are attenuated by various methods, including electromagnetic shielding in the signal cables connecting the pickup to the amplifier. Historically, most stereo high-fidelity component systems (preamplifiers or receivers) that accepted input from a phonograph turntable had separate inputs for both ceramic and magnetic cartridges (typically labeled "CER" and "MAG"). Most systems today, if they accept input from a turntable at all, are configured for use only with magnetic cartridges; ceramic cartridges are for all practical purposes completely obsolete. The stylus typically has either a hemispherical (known as "conical") diamond tip for playing monophonic recordings or for or rugged use, or an elliptical diamond tip for playing stereo or binaural records. Specially-profiled tips (such as "line contact" tips) are intended to track the record groove even more accurately than an elliptical tip, but styli with such tips are expensive. Most cartridges have an aluminum cantilever, the arm that connects the the stylus to the magnet or pickup coils; some very expensive models have ruby, boron, or carbon fiber cantilevers chosen for their exceptional stiffness. DJs use the more rugged conical styli due to the frequent reversals of direction involved in scratching and back-cueing - these activities also require a very rugged cantilever. Magnetic cartridge manufacturers usually provide a specialised range of styli for DJ use. Phonograph recordings are made with high frequencies boosted. This reduces background noise, including clicks or pops, and also conserves the amount of physical space needed for each groove, by reducing the size of the larger low-frequency undulations. During playback the high frequencies are rescaled to their original level. This is accomplished in the amplifier with a "PHONO" input that incorporates standardized RIAA equalization circuitry. Basic arm design has changed relatively little. S-Type tonearms can be found on even the 1925 Victor Orthophonic phonograph. Originally, even though the tonearm was light for earlier electric pickups, the full weight rested on the record. Right through to the crystal pickup, this was required to create sufficient tracking force to follow the grooves adequately with relatively stiff styli. Naturally, record wear was not given much consideration. With the advent of the better technologies, including more powerful rare-earth magnetic cartridges, far lighter tracking forces became possible, and a balanced arm came into use. Most use a counterweight to offset the weight of the arm. A calibrated dial on the weight provides for quick change of stylus pressure. Stylus pressures of 1 to 2 grams are currently the standard for high-fidelity turntables, while pressures of up to 5 grams are common for DJ use. Tonearms are prone to two types of tracking errors that can affect the sound. As the tonearm tracks the groove, the stylus drags tangent to the disc surface and resistance along the arm combines to create a horizontal skating force towards the center of the disc. Modern arms provide an antiskating mechanism, using springs, hanging weights or magnets, to offset this force, so as to make the net horizontal force near zero. The second error occurs as the arm sweeps in an arc across the disc, causing the angle between the cartridge head and groove to change slightly. A change in angle, albeit small, may have an audible detrimental effect by creating a differential force on the groove walls. Making the arm longer to reduce this angle is a partial solution, but less than ideal, because the arm would need to be of infinite length to reduce angular errors to zero. Some arms (such as the Garrard "Zero" series) have been manufactured with a parallelogram arrangement which pivots the cartridge head on the arm to maintain a constant angle. Typical phonograph tonearmIf the arm is not pivoted, but instead travels horizontally along a radius of the disc, there is no skating force and no cartridge angle error. The arm is driven along a linear track using an electronic servomechanism to position it properly. Bang & Olufsen developed the first practical system with its model Beogram 4000 in 1972. Early Edison phonographs had utilized similar spring-powered drives to carry the stylus across the record at a pre-determined rate. In practice, the linear tracking system is not widely used today due to its complexity and attendant expense. However, some of the most sophisticated systems do employ this technique. It is nearly ideal, as the stylus replicates the motion of the recording lathe when the master recording was cut. In the early 1980s, an upright (front loading) record playing music centre appeared, in which the record was placed in a door which hinged downwards to accept it. The door retracted automatically and the record was spun in the vertical plane. A pair of linear-tracking arms traversed the disk, one on each side, so that both sides could be played without stopping. The system was mechanically and electronically complex. It worked, but the system was aimed at the mass market and had only mediocre sound quality. The large size of the hinged door made it vulnerable to damage, and the retraction motor was barely able to lift its weight, especially after some years of use. ELPJ has recently revived this design with its laser turntable.
Phone Call Recorder
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