What Does gramophone Mean
The term gramophone derives from Gramophone , a registered trademark. A gramophone is a device that can reproduce the sounds recorded on a spinning record .
This instrument was the first to use a flat disk to record and reproduce sound . Before its invention, the most widely 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 1950s , the use of the record player 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 will 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 today it may seem impossible to believe, the musicians who recorded their works through a phonograph had to interpret the works many times to get the copies published. Given that the gramophone left behind this annoying barrier to the dissemination of music, it is not surprising how successful it was at the time.
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 enliven 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 , and of course the phonograph and gramophone, which offered people the magical ability to listen to their favorite artists in the comfort of home.
Gramophones have a turntable that makes the record spin. A needle passes through the grooves of the record in motion and produces the 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 stylus and pickups in place while the record spins is the arm .
In the first gramophones, the user himself had to operate a crank to rotate the turntable with the record. Then an automated system was created to provide energy stable and continuous to the plate.
This technological advance came thanks to the natural competition that arose between the phonograph and the gramophone. As with computers, televisions, and mobile phones today, to name just a few of the most popular gadgets on the market, the inventors of each device tried to outperform its opponent. This led to the appearance of Eldridge R. Johnson , who managed to automate the operation of the gramophone, a considerable improvement. Of course, Edison did not lower his arms, but added wax cylinders to the phonograph and allowed the recordings to last four minutes.
The gramophone, in short, is part of the era of mechanical or acoustic recording of sound. Then, with the record player, electrical recording was achieved . The evolution continued with magnetic recording (the cassette ) and digital recording (compact disc, MP3, etc.).