Invented in 1877 by Thomas Edison, the phonograph was a device meant for the mechanical recording and reproduction of sound.
The significance of this device was that it was the first to reproduce a recorded sound. Till then, other inventors had produced devices that could only record sounds.
Edison’s phonograph originally recorded sound on to a tinfoil sheet wrapped around a rotating cylinder. He patented it in 1878. The invention became popular across the globe very soon. Over the next two decades, the commercial recording, distribution, and sale of sound recordings became a new international industry.
The next important invention was the gramophone disc. The waveform of sound vibrations were recorded as corresponding physical deviations of a spiral groove engraved into the surface of a rotating cylinder called the ‘record’.
To recreate the sound, the surface was similarly rotated. Then, the playback stylus would trace the groove, and start vibrating. As a result, the recorded sound would be faintly reproduced.