The term gramophone derives from Gramophone , a registered trademark. A gramophone is a device that can reproduce sounds recorded on a rotating record .
This instrument was the first to use a flat disc to record and reproduce sound . Before its invention, the most used system was the phonograph , which used a cylinder.
From the late 19th century to the mid- 1950s , the gramophone enjoyed great popularity. Starting in the '50s , the use of record players with vinyl records became widespread.
The German-American Emile Berliner (1851-1929) is noted as the inventor of the gramophone, based on the previous development of the phonograph by Thomas Alva Edison . The gramophone not only had the main characteristics of the phonograph, but it perfected them and allowed the massive duplication of records starting from the same mold.
Precisely, the phonograph was the first device that offered the user the possibility of recording sounds, but it had too many limitations. For this reason, from the present it is absolutely understandable that sooner or later someone would venture to improve its design to expand its functionality.
Perhaps the worst of these limitations was the impossibility of producing many copies of the same recording; Although it may seem impossible to believe today, musicians who recorded their works through a phonograph had to perform the works many times to obtain the publication of the copies. Given that the gramophone left behind this annoying barrier to the dissemination of music, the great success it enjoyed at the time is not surprising.
Other advantages of the gramophone over its predecessor were its lower production cost and a much less complex mechanism to use. Music has accompanied us since time immemorial, at first to liven up work and later to accompany us at all times, from the time when we had to play it ourselves to the massification of portable devices such as the walkman and the MP3 player, passing of course through the phonograph and the gramophone, which offered people the magical possibility of listening to their favorite artists in the comfort of home.
Gramophones have a turntable that makes the record rotate. A needle passes through the grooves of the moving record and produces vibrations that are picked up by the pads . These pickups, in turn, convert the vibrations into electrical impulses that can be amplified and projected. The part of the gramophone that holds the needle and pickups in place while the record rotates is the arm .
In the first gramophones, the user himself had to operate a crank to rotate the plate with the record. An automated system was then created to provide stable and continuous power to the dish.
This technological advance came thanks to the natural competition that arose between the phonograph and the gramophone. Just as it happens today with computers, televisions and mobile phones, to name just a few of the most popular devices on the market, the inventors of each device tried to surpass their opponent. This led to Eldridge R. Johnson appearing on the scene, who managed to automate the operation of the gramophone, a considerable improvement. Of course, Edison did not give up, but added wax cylinders to the phonograph and allowed the recordings to reach four minutes in length.
The gramophone, in short, is part of the era of mechanical or acoustic sound recording . Then, with the record player, electrical recording was achieved. The evolution continued with magnetic recording (the cassette ) and digital recording (compact disc, MP3, etc.).