A phonograph, later called a gramophone, and since the 1940s known as a record player or turntable, is a device that mechanically and analogously reproduces sound.
Sound vibrations are recorded as physical changes in a groove that spirals or winds around a rotating cylinder or disc, called a record. To play back the sound, the record is rotated while a stylus (a small needle) follows the groove. The stylus vibrates, recreating the recorded sound. In early phonographs, the stylus made a diaphragm vibrate, sending sound through a flaring horn or directly to the listener’s ears using earphones similar to a stethoscope.
The phonograph was created in 1877 by Thomas Edison. Alexander Graham Bell’s Volta Laboratory improved it in the 1880s, introducing the graphophone, which used wax-coated cardboard cylinders and a stylus that moved side to side in a spiral groove. In the 1890s, Emile Berliner changed phonograph cylinders to flat discs with spiral grooves, starting from the edge and moving toward the center. He also introduced the term "gramophone" for disc record players, a name still used in many languages. Over time, improvements were made to the turntable, drive system, stylus, pickup system, and sound equalization.
For most of the 20th century, the disk phonograph record was the main way people bought and listened to music at home. In the 1960s, 8-track cartridges and cassette tapes were introduced as alternatives. In the 1980s, phonograph use dropped because of the popularity of cassettes and the rise of compact discs. However, records have become popular again since the late 2000s.
Terminology
The words used to describe devices that play records are not the same in all English-speaking countries. Today, these devices are often called "turntables," "record players," or "record changers." Each term describes a different type of device. A record player is usually a complete unit that includes speakers, while a turntable is a part that connects to a separate amplifier and speakers. An automatic turntable moves the tone arm and stops the motor after playing a record, while a manual turntable requires the user to place the tone arm on the record and return it after playing. A record changer plays a stack of records one after another. A coin-operated jukebox plays music from a large collection of records.
When used with a mixer in a DJ setup, turntables are often called "decks." In later versions of electric phonographs, which are now commonly called record players or turntables, the stylus's movements are changed into an electrical signal by a transducer. This signal is then turned back into sound using a phono stage, an amplifier, and one or more loudspeakers.
The word "phonograph," which means "sound writing," comes from Greek words: φωνή (phonē, meaning "sound" or "voice") and γραφή (graphē, meaning "writing"). Similarly, the words "gramophone" and "graphophone" are based on Greek words: γράμμα (gramma, meaning "letter") and φωνή (phōnē, meaning "voice").
In British English, "gramophone" can refer to any machine that plays sound from disc records. These devices were introduced and popularized in the UK by the Gramophone Company. At first, "gramophone" was a brand name owned by the company, and other companies could not use the name without facing legal challenges. However, in 1910, an English court decided that the term had become a common word.
In American English, "phonograph" was originally specific to machines made by Edison but was sometimes used more generally in the 1890s to include machines made by others. However, it was incorrect to use "phonograph" for Emile Berliner's Gramophone, a different device that played discs. Edison's original Phonograph patent did include the use of discs.
In Australian English, "record player" was the common term, while "turntable" was a more technical term. "Gramophone" referred only to old mechanical (wind-up) players, and "phonograph" was used the same way as in British English. The "phonograph" was first shown in Australia on June 14, 1878, to a meeting of the Royal Society of Victoria by the Society's Honorary Secretary, Alex Sutherland. He published an article about the phonograph in the Society's journal in November 1878. On August 8, 1878, the phonograph was publicly demonstrated at the Society's annual event, along with other new inventions like the microphone.
Early history
The phonautograph was invented on March 25, 1857, by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville, a Frenchman who worked as an editor and typographer at a scientific publishing house in Paris. While editing a book by Professor Longet called Traité de Physiologie, Scott saw an illustration of the human ear and thought of a way to "record speech." In 1853 or 1854, he began working on a device to create a machine that could copy the way the human ear hears sound.
Scott covered a glass plate with a thin layer of lampblack. He attached a trumpet-shaped tube to a thin membrane that acted like an eardrum. At the center of the membrane, he placed a stiff bristle from a boar’s hair, which lightly touched the lampblack. As the glass plate moved slowly through a groove, someone would speak into the trumpet. The sound caused the membrane to vibrate, and the bristle would draw lines on the lampblack. On March 25, 1857, Scott received a patent for his invention, which he called the phonautograph.
The earliest known recording of a human voice using the phonautograph happened on April 9, 1860, when Scott recorded someone singing the song Au Clair de la Lune. However, the device was not meant to play back sounds. Instead, people were supposed to look at the lines, called phonautograms, and read them. This was not the first time sound vibrations had been recorded, as English physicist Thomas Young had used tuning forks for similar purposes in 1807.
By late 1857, with help from the Société d'encouragement pour l'industrie nationale, Scott’s device was precise enough for scientists to use it, helping to start the study of acoustics.
The phonautograph’s importance was not fully understood until March 2008, when it was found in a Paris patent office by First Sounds, a group of American audio historians and engineers. Scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California converted the phonautograms into digital recordings, allowing the sounds to be played back. Before this, the earliest known voice recording was thought to be a 1877 phonograph made by Thomas Edison. The phonautograph influenced the development of the gramophone, which was invented by Emile Berliner.
Charles Cros, a French poet and inventor, was the first to imagine turning the phonautograph’s lines into sound. On April 30, 1877, he sent a sealed letter to the French Academy of Sciences to claim credit for his ideas. In October 1877, he described a method to record sound directly onto a metal surface using acid, which avoided the need for photography. He called his device a paleophone, meaning "voice of the past."
Cros could not afford to build a working model, so he shared his ideas freely. After hearing about Edison’s phonograph, he had his letter opened in December 1877 to prove he had thought of the idea first.
Between 1890 and 1900, Cros’s acid-etch method was used to make early records, but he died in 1888 before seeing his work’s impact.
Thomas Edison developed the phonograph between May and July 1877 while trying to improve telegraph and telephone technology. He first tested waxed paper and announced his invention on November 21, 1877. The first public demonstration happened on November 29, 1877, when the machine said, “Good morning. How do you do? How do you like the phonograph?”
A music critic named Herman Klein described early phonograph recordings as sounding like someone singing far away, with a slightly nasal tone. Recording was simple: users kept their mouths six inches from the horn and spoke softly.
In 1878, the Argus newspaper in Australia reported that a phonograph demonstration at the Royal Society of Victoria was amusing. People laughed when the machine sang “He’s a jolly good fellow” in a voice that sounded like an old man with a cracked voice.
Edison’s early phonographs recorded sound onto thin metal sheets, usually tinfoil, wrapped around a grooved cylinder.
Improvements at the Volta Laboratory
Alexander Graham Bell and his two partners changed Edison's tinfoil phonograph to record sound on wax instead of tinfoil. They began their work at Bell's Volta Laboratory in Washington, D.C., in 1879 and continued until they received basic patents in 1886 for wax recording.
Edison invented the phonograph in 1877, but his invention was not famous because it worked poorly. Recording with tinfoil was difficult because the tinfoil tore easily, and the sound was unclear, even when the stylus was adjusted correctly. Only a few playbacks were possible. Edison discovered the idea of sound recording but did not improve it immediately, reportedly because he had agreed to spend five years developing an electric light and power system in New York City.
Bell, a scientist and inventor, wanted to find new challenges after patenting the telephone. According to Sumner Tainter, Gardiner Green Hubbard encouraged Bell to take on the phonograph challenge. Bell married Hubbard's daughter, Mabel, in 1879 while Hubbard was president of the Edison Speaking Phonograph Co. Hubbard's company had bought Edison's patent but faced financial problems because people avoided buying a machine that rarely worked well.
Bell and his team pressed sound vibrations into wax on the Edison phonograph. One of their 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." Most machines made at the Volta Lab used vertical turntables. Early experiments placed the turntable, disc, and recording heads on a shop lathe. Later models used vertical turntables.
An exception was a horizontal seven-inch turntable. The machine, made in 1886, was a copy of an earlier one taken to Europe by Chichester Bell. Tainter received U.S. patent 385,886 on July 10, 1888. The playing arm was rigid, except for a pivoted vertical motion to remove the record or return to the starting position. During recording or playback, the record rotated and moved sideways under the stylus, creating a spiral with 150 grooves per inch.
The key difference between Edison's first phonograph patent and Bell and Tainter's 1886 patent was the recording method. Edison used tin foil to press sound waves, while Bell and Tainter used a sharp stylus to cut sound waves into wax records.
In 1885, the Volta Associates filed patent applications and sought investors. The Volta Graphophone Company of Alexandria, Virginia, was created on January 6, 1886, and incorporated on February 3, 1886. It aimed to control patents and develop sound recording inventions, one of which became the first Dictaphone.
After demonstrations in Washington, D.C., businessmen from Philadelphia formed the American Graphophone Company on March 28, 1887, to produce and sell phonograph machines. The Volta Graphophone Company later merged with American Graphophone, which eventually became Columbia Records.
In 1893, Tainter developed a coin-operated Graphophone (U.S. patent 506,348) to compete with Edison's nickel-in-the-slot phonograph (U.S. patent 428,750), demonstrated in 1889 by Louis T. Glass.
The work of the Volta Associates helped make dictating machines practical for businesses because their wax recording process was reliable and their machines lasted long. However, it took more years and improvements by Edison, Emile Berliner, and others before the recording industry became important for home entertainment.
The technology spread internationally and was used in new ways. For example, Hungary became the first country to use phonographs for folklore and ethnomusicological research in 1895, later becoming common practice in ethnography.
Disc vs. cylinder as a recording medium
Discs are not automatically better than cylinders when it comes to sound quality. Instead, discs have advantages in how they are made. Discs can be stamped, and the molds used to stamp them can be sent to other factories worldwide for mass production. Cylinders could not be stamped until 1901–1902, when Edison introduced a new method called the gold molding process.
In 1892, Berliner started making disc records and gramophones for sale. His first disc record, called a "phonograph record," was the first of its kind available to the public. These early discs were five inches (13 cm) wide and had sound recorded on only one side. In 1895, seven-inch (17.5 cm) records were released. That same year, Berliner changed the material used to make the discs from hard rubber to a substance called shellac. However, the early records had poor sound quality. Later work by Eldridge R. Johnson improved the sound until it matched the quality of cylinder recordings.
Wax cylinders remained in use until the 1920s. One example was the "Psycho-Phone" or "Psychophone," created by Alois Benjamin Saliger, a Czech immigrant and inventor based in New York City. He designed the device for use in psychology, specifically for sleep learning. Invented in 1927, the Psychophone had a clock attached to a phonograph and a rewinding system to play records continuously. Unlike Edison’s machines, which used a spring-powered motor operated by a crank, the Psychophone used an electric motor. Saliger patented the device in 1932 as the "automatic time-controlled suggestion machine."
Dominance of the disc record
In the 1930s, vinyl (first called vinylite) was used as a material for making records for radio transcription discs and radio commercials. At that time, very few discs for home use were made from this material. Vinyl was used for popular 78-rpm V-discs given to U.S. soldiers during World War II. This helped reduce damage to the discs during transport. The first commercial vinylite record was a set of five 12-inch discs called Prince Igor (Asch Records album S-800), which were copied from Soviet recordings in 1945. Victor began selling some home-use vinyl 78s in late 1945, but most 78s were still made from shellac until the 78-rpm format was no longer used. (Shellac records were heavier and more fragile.) The 33s and 45s were made only from vinyl, except for some 45s made from polystyrene.
In 1955, Philco created and sold the first all-transistor phonographs, called models TPA-1 and TPA-2. These were announced in the June 28, 1955, issue of The Wall Street Journal. Philco started selling these phonographs in the fall of 1955 for $59.95. A detailed article about these new devices appeared in the October 1955 issue of Radio & Television News magazine (page 41). The TPA-1 and TPA-2 models played only 45 rpm records and used four 1.5-volt "D" batteries for power. The "TPA" in the model names stands for "Transistor Phonograph Amplifier." Their design included three special types of transistors made by Philco. After the 1956 season ended, Philco stopped selling these models because transistors were too expensive compared to vacuum tubes. However, by 1961, a portable, battery-powered radio-phonograph with seven transistors was available for $49.95, which is about $538.16 in 2024.
Turntable designs
There are currently three main types of phonograph designs: belt-drive, direct-drive, and idler-wheel.
In a belt-drive turntable, the motor is placed away from the center of the platter, either beneath it or completely outside of it. The motor is connected to the platter or counter-platter using a drive belt made from a flexible, rubber-like material.
The direct-drive turntable was created by Shuichi Obata, an engineer working for Matsushita (now known as Panasonic). In 1969, Matsushita introduced the first direct-drive turntable, called the Technics SP-10. The most important direct-drive turntable was the Technics SL-1200. After turntablism became popular in hip hop music, this model became the most commonly used turntable among DJs for many years.
Arm systems
In some high-quality equipment, the arm that holds the pickup, called a tonearm, is made separately from the motor and turntable. Companies that focus on making tonearms include the English company SME.
More advanced turntables often include a "cue lever," a tool that helps lower the tonearm onto the record. This feature allows users to find specific tracks more easily, pause the record, and reduce the chance of scratching the record. Using the tonearm manually can be tricky and may require practice.
Early improvements in linear turntables were made by companies like Rek-O-Kut (a portable lathe/phonograph), Ortho-Sonic in the 1950s, and Acoustical in the early 1960s. These designs were later replaced by more successful versions developed from the late 1960s to the early 1980s.
Pickup systems
The pickup, also called a cartridge, is a device that changes mechanical vibrations from a stylus into an electrical signal. This electrical signal is made stronger and turned into sound by one or more loudspeakers. Pickups that use the piezoelectric effect, such as crystal and ceramic types, have mostly been replaced by magnetic cartridges.
The pickup has a stylus with a small tip made of diamond or sapphire that moves along the groove of a record. Over time, the stylus wears down from contact with the groove and is usually replaceable.
Styli are divided into two main types: spherical and elliptical. However, the actual shape of the tip is a half-sphere or a half-ellipsoid. Spherical styli are generally more durable but do not follow the groove as precisely, leading to weaker high-frequency sound. Elliptical styli track the groove more accurately, producing clearer high-frequency sound and less distortion. For DJs, the durability of spherical styli makes them preferred for tasks like back-cuing and scratching. Some elliptical designs, such as the Shibata or fine line stylus, can better capture high-frequency details in the record groove. This is especially important for playing quadraphonic recordings, which use four channels of sound.
A few specialized laser turntables use a laser pickup to read the groove of a record without physical contact. This avoids wear on the record. However, this benefit is debated because vinyl records can withstand up to 1,200 plays with little audio loss if played with a high-quality cartridge and clean surfaces. A drawback of laser turntables is that the record must be extremely clean, or the laser may pick up dust and debris that a mechanical stylus would normally avoid.
Another method involves taking a high-resolution photo or scan of each side of a record and using computer software to interpret the groove images. An amateur attempt using a flatbed scanner did not produce clear results. A professional system used by the Library of Congress creates high-quality recordings. This system can also recover and reconstruct recordings from fragile shellac discs that have broken into pieces.
Stylus
A development in stylus design came from the need to play high-quality sound on records. This process, called quadraphonic sound modulation, requires a stylus that can handle very high frequencies, up to 50,000 Hz. Some cartridges, like the Technics EPC-100CMK4, can play sounds up to 100,000 Hz. To do this, a stylus must have a very small tip size, such as 5 micrometers (0.2 mils). A narrow-profile elliptical stylus can read high frequencies (above 20,000 Hz), but it wears out faster because the contact area is smaller. To solve this, the Shibata stylus was created in 1972 in Japan by Norio Shibata of JVC.
The Shibata stylus has a larger contact area with the record groove. This means it applies less pressure to the vinyl surface, reducing wear. A benefit is that the larger contact area also allows the stylus to read parts of the record that a spherical stylus might miss. In a test by JVC, records that had worn after 500 plays with a spherical stylus at a high tracking force of 4.5 grams played perfectly with the Shibata stylus.
Other stylus designs followed, aiming to increase contact with the record. These include the "Hughes" Shibata variant (1975), "Ogura" (1978), and Van den Hul (1982). These may be called "Hyperelliptical" (Shure), "Alliptic," "Fine Line" (Ortofon), "Line contact" (Audio Technica), "Polyhedron," "LAC," or "Stereohedron" (Stanton).
A keel-shaped diamond stylus was developed as a result of creating the CED Videodisc. Along with advanced laser cutting methods, this led to the "ridge" shaped stylus, such as the Namiki (1985) and Fritz Gyger (1989) designs. These are marketed as "MicroLine" (Audio Technica), "Micro-Ridge" (Shure), or "Replicant" (Ortofon).
To solve the problem of steel needles damaging records and causing cracks, RCA Victor created unbreakable records in 1930. They mixed polyvinyl chloride with special chemicals in a formula called Victrolac. This was first used in 1931 for motion picture discs.
Equalization
Since the late 1950s, most phono input stages have used the RIAA equalization standard. Before this standard was chosen, many different equalization methods were used, such as EMI, His Master's Voice, Columbia, Decca FFRR, NAB, Ortho, and BBC transcription. Recordings made with these other equalization methods usually sound strange when played through a RIAA-equalized preamplifier, which is also called a "phono stage." High-performance phono stages, which have multiple, selectable equalizations (sometimes called "multicurve disc" models), are no longer commonly available. However, some older phono stages, like the LEAK varislope series, are still available and can be restored. Newer phono stages, such as the Esoteric Sound Re-Equalizer or the K-A-B MK2 Vintage Signal Processor, are also available.
Contemporary use and models
Although most record albums were replaced by CDs in 1982, they were still sold in small amounts during the 1980s and 1990s. However, they became less popular as CD players and tape decks became more common in homes. Record players continued to be made and sold into the 21st century, but only in small numbers and mainly for DJs. After sales of records increased again in the late 2000s, more turntables were produced and sold. In 2016, Japanese company Panasonic reintroduced its popular Technics SL-1200 model at the Consumer Electronics Show. At the same event, Sony also showcased a new turntable. In 2023, Audio-Technica brought back its 1980s Sound Burger portable player.
At the lower price range, Crosley became popular with its suitcase-style record players. These helped increase interest in vinyl records among younger people and children in the 2010s.
New interest in records led to the creation of turntables with modern features. USB turntables include a built-in audio interface that connects to a computer. This allows the analog sound from records to be transferred directly to the computer. Some USB turntables transfer the audio without equalization but include software that lets users adjust the EQ of the transferred file. Many turntables are also designed to connect to a computer via USB for needle dropping purposes.
Some turntables now have Bluetooth, which lets them play music wirelessly through compatible speakers. Sony also made a high-end turntable with an analog-to-digital converter. This device changes the sound from a record into a high-quality digital file in DSD or WAV formats.