PHONOGRAPHS and GRAMOPHONES
Is there a difference between these two devices, or, are they just the same thing under different names? Well, the answer is ‘yes’ to both questions.
Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931) produced the first, rather crude, talking machine. This was his ‘tin foil’ machine, patented in 1878. Tin foil was wrapped about a grooved cylinder and indented by the action of a diaphragm and stylus. A reproducing stylus, diaphragm and horn could then replay the recorded indentations as a reproduction of the original sound that produced it. The invention was named the phonograph by Edison. The name derives from the Greek and simply means ‘to write with sound’.
Edison put his invention aside and concentrated on producing his electric light. Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922), the inventor of the telephone, his brother Chichester Bell and his associate Charles Tainter in 1885 improved on Edison’s device by simply filling the cylinder grooves with wax and indenting the wax rather than a sheet of tin foil wrapped about the cylinder. This device they called the graphophone which is simply the word ‘phonograph’ reversed.
After bitter law suits, regarding infringing of patents, both Edison, and Bell and Tainter, came to an agreement and both produced ‘talking machines’ which used cylindrical wax records. The name 'graphophone', although continued till well into the 20th Century in the company name (Columbia Graphophone Company), was not accepted by the public which used the name ‘phonograph’.
Just to complicate matters a German immigrant to the United States, Emile Berliner (1851-1929) patented another ‘talking machine’ in 1894 using entirely different principles. Rather than indenting onto a cylinder Berliner etched a groove, which undulated sideways (or laterally modulated), onto the surface of a disc and called his invention the gramophone. This word is derived from the Greek word for ‘letter, or writing’, and ‘sound’. Berliner sold his patents to the Victor Record Company. The Victor Company acquired the famous painting ‘His Master’s Voice’ which it used as a trade mark and was registered in England as a company name. The Victor company only produced discs. Berliner formed the Gramophone Company in England and the Deutsch Grammophon Gesellschaft (German Gramophone Company) in Germany which, for some time, were associated with the American Victor Company. The Victor Company did not seem to promote the name 'gramophone' in the United States.
Both names, phonograph and gramophone, have been used to describe each of the two recording methods. To avoid confusion this led to a definition of each method: ‘stylus cut’ and ‘needle cut’. Edison persevered with stylus cut recordings and changed from cylinder machine production to disc in 1911 but still used the stylus cut (or vertically modulated groove) until the Edison Company ceased production in 1929. However, in its last year of production the Edison Company also produced ‘needle cut’ disc records.
The name ‘phonograph’ has been used in the United States for any type of ‘talking machine’ but in most of the rest of the world the name ‘gramophone’ is the accepted term.
Figure 1 shows the essential difference between the phonograph (stylus or vertical cut) and gramophone (needle or lateral cut) methods of reproduction and the types of record grooves.
Figure 2 illustrates the two methods of recording the sound on the original master wax recordings.
Fig. 1(above) Method of reproducing from a phonograph and gramophone record |
Fig. 2 (above) Cutting a phonograph groove (top) and a gramophone groove (bottom) |
