Phonograph
Edison’s machine of 1877 that could record sound and play it back.
Thomas Edison and his staff built the phonograph in 1877. A needle traced the sound waves into a thin sheet of tinfoil wrapped round a cylinder, and the same groove could then be played back.
The tinfoil lasted only a few playings. From the 1880s it was replaced by wax cylinders, and the phonograph became a home appliance before the gramophone disc took over.
Materials: Iron, brass, tinfoil – later wax cylinders and wood
Manufacture: The first was built in Edison’s laboratory at Menlo Park; from the 1880s phonographs with wax cylinders were mass-produced.
A cylinder rather than a disc.
A horn and a diaphragm with a needle.
A crank or spring motor; later models have wooden cases and transfer name plates.