A Mount Pleasant Museum of the Edison Phonograph. These phonographs still working. The phonograph was invented in 1877 by Thomas Edison.
The phonograph, also called gramophone (from the Greek: γράμμα, gramma, "letter" and φωνή, phōnē, "voice") or record player, is a device introduced in 1877 for the recording and reproduction of sound recordings. The recordings played on such a device consist of waveforms that are engraved onto a rotating cylinder or disc. As the cylinder or disc rotates, a stylus or needle traces the waveforms and vibrates to reproduce the recorded sound waves.
The phonograph was invented in 1877 by Thomas Edison. While other inventors had produced devices that could record sounds, Edison's phonograph was the first to be able to reproduce the recorded sound. His phonograph originally recorded sound onto a tinfoil sheet phonograph cylinder, and could both record and reproduce sounds. Alexander Graham Bell's Volta Laboratory made several improvements in the 1880s, including the use of wax-coated cardboard cylinders, and a cutting stylus that moved from side to side in a "zig zag" pattern across the record.
At the turn of the 20th century, Emile Berliner initiated the transition from phonograph cylinders to gramophone records: flat, double-sided discs with a spiral groove running from the periphery to near the center. Other improvements were made throughout the years, including modifications to the turntable and its drive system, the needle and stylus, and the sound and equalization systems.
The gramophone record was one of the dominant audio recording formats throughout much of the 20th century. From the mid-1980s, phonograph use declined sharply because of the rise of the Compact Disc and other digital recording formats. While no longer mass market items, modest numbers of phonographs and phonograph records continue to be produced in the second decade of the 21st century.
