Audio Timeline

Audio TimelineBy; Stephanie Benson

1870In 1870 they created the Phonograph Cylinder.

1877Thomas Alva Edison, working in his lab, succeeds in recovering Mary's Little Lamb from a strip of tinfoil wrapped around a spinning cylinder.

1878The first music is put on record: cornetist Jules Levy plays "Yankee Doodle."

1881Clement Ader, using carbon microphones and armature headphones, accidentally produces a stereo effect when listeners outside the hall monitor adjacent telephone lines linked to stage mikes at the Paris Opera.

1887Emile Berliner is granted a patent on a flat-disc gramophone, making the production of multiple copies practical.

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1888Edison introduces an electric motor-driven phonograph.

1895They created the Gramophone Record.

1898Valdemar Poulsen patents his "Telegraphone," recording magnetically on steel wire.

1900Poulsen unveils his invention to the public at the Paris Exposition. Austria's Emperor Franz Josef records his congratulations.

1901The Victor Talking Machine Company is founded by Emile Berliner and Eldridge Johnson. Experimental optical recordings are made on motion picture film.

1906Lee DeForest invents the triode vacuum tube, the first electronic signal amplifier.

1910Enrico Caruso is heard in the first live broadcast from the Metropolitan Opera, NYC.

1912Major Edwin F. Armstrong is issued a patent for a regenerative circuit, making radio reception practical.

1913The first "talking movie" is demonstrated by Edison using his Kinetophone process, a cylinder player mechanically synchronized to a film projector.

1916A patent for the superheterodyne circuit is issued to Armstrong. The Society of Motion Picture Engineers (SMPE) is formed. Edison does live-versus-recorded demonstrations in Carnegie Hall, NYC.

1917The Scully disk recording lathe is introduced. E. C. Wente of Bell Telephone Laboratories publishes a paper in Physical Review describing a "uniformly sensitive instrument for the absolute measurement of sound intensity" -- the condenser microphone.

1919The Radio Corporation of America (RCA) is founded. It is owned in part by United Fruit.

1921The first commercial AM radio broadcast is made by KDKA, Pittsburgh PA.

1925Bell Labs develops a moving armature lateral cutting system for electrical recording on disk. Concurrently they Introduce the Victor Orthophonic Victrola, "Credenza" model. This all-acoustic player -- with no electronics -- is considered a leap forward in phonograph design. The first electrically recorded 78 rpm disks appear. RCA works on the development of ribbon microphones.

1926O'Neill patents iron oxide-coated paper tape.

1927"The Jazz Singer" is released as the first commercial talking picture, using Vitaphone sound on disks synchronized with film. The Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) is formed. The Japan Victor Corporation (JVC) is formed as a subsidiary of the Victor Talking Machine Co.

1928Dr. Harold Black at Bell Labs applies for a patent on the principle of negative feedback. It is granted nine years later. Dr. Georg Neumann founds a company in Germany to manufacture his condenser microphones. Its first product is the Model CMV 3.

1929Harry Nyquist publishes the mathematical foundation for the sampling theorem basic to all digital audio processing, the "Nyquist Theorem." The "Blattnerphone" is developed for use as a magnetic recorder using steel tape.

1930They did the first wire recording.

1931Alan Blumlein, working for Electrical and Musical Industries (EMI) in London, in effect patents stereo. His seminal patent discusses the theory of stereo, both describing and picturing in the course of its 70-odd individual claims a coincident crossed-eights miking arrangement and a "45-45" cutting system for stereo disks. Arthur Keller and associates at Bell Labs in New York experiment with a vertical-lateral stereo disk cutter.

1932The first cardioid ribbon microphone is patented by Dr. Harry F. Olson of RCA, using a field coil instead of a permanent magnet.

1933Magnetic recording on steel wire is developed commercially.Snow, Fletcher, and Steinberg at Bell Labs transmit the first inter-city stereo audio program.

1935AEG (Germany) exhibits its "Magnetophon" Model K-1 at the Berlin Radio Exposition. BASF prepares the first plastic-based magnetic tapes.

1936BASF makes the first tape recording of a symphony concert during a visit by the touring London Philharmonic Orchestra. Sir Thomas Beecham conducts Mozart. Von Braunmhl and Weber apply for a patent on the cardioid condenser microphone.

1938Benjamin B. Bauer of Shure Bros. engineers a single microphone element to produce a cardioid pickup pattern, called the Unidyne, Model 55. This later becomes the basis for the well known SM57 and SM58 microphones. Under the direction of Dr. Harry Olson, Leslie J. Anderson designs the 44B ribbon bidirectional microphone and the 77B ribbon unidirectional for RCA. RCA develops the first column loudspeaker array.

1939Independently, engineers in Germany, Japan and the U.S. discover and develop AC biasing for magnetic recording. Western Electric designs the first motional feedback, vertical-cut disk recording head. Major Armstrong, the inventor of FM radio, makes the first experimental FM broadcast. The first of many attempts is made to define a standard for the VU meter.

19401940 Walt Disney's "Fantasia" is released, with eight-track stereophonic sound.

1941Commercial FM broadcasting begins in the U.S. Arthur Haddy of English Decca devises the first motional feedback, lateral-cut disk recording head, later used to cut their "ffrr" high-fidelity recordings.

1942The RCA LC-1 loudspeaker is developed as a reference-standard control-room monitor. Dr. Olson patents a single-ribbon cardioid microphone (later developed as the RCA 77D and 77DX), and a "phased-array" directional microphone. The first stereo tape recordings are made by Helmut Kruger at German Radio in Berlin.

1943Altec develops their Model 604 coaxial loudspeaker.

1944Alexander M. Poniatoff forms Ampex Corporation to make electric motors for the military.

1945Two Magnetophon tape decks are sent back to the U.S. In pieces in multiple mailbags by Army Signal Corps Major John T. (Jack) Mullin.

1946Webster-Chicago manufactures wire recorders for the home market. Brush Development Corp. builds a semiprofessional tape recorder as its Model BK401 Soundmirror. 3M introduces Scotch No. 100, a black oxide paper tape. Jack Mullin demonstrates "hi-fi" tape recording with his reconstructed Magnetophon at an Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE) meeting in San Francisco.

1947Colonel Richard Ranger begins to manufacture his version of a Magnetophon. Bing Crosby and his technical director, Murdo McKenzie, agree to audition tape recorders brought in by Jack Mullin and Richard Ranger. Mullin's is preferred, and he is brought back to record Crosby's Philco radio show. Ampex produces its first tape recorder, the Model 200. Major improvements are made in disk-cutting technology: the Presto 1D, Fairchild 542, and Cook feedback cutters. The Williamson high-fidelity power amplifier circuit is published. The first issue of Audio Engineering is published; its name is later shortened to Audio.

1948Vinyl Record.

1949RCA introduces the microgroove 45 rpm, large-hole, 7-inch record and record changer/adaptor. Ampex introduces its Model 300 professional studio recorder. Magnecord produces the first U.S.-made stereo tape recorder, employing half-track staggered-head assemblies. A novel amplifier design is described by McIntosh and Gow.

1950Guitarist Les Paul modifies his Ampex 300 with an extra preview head for "Sound-on-Sound" overdubs. IBM develops a commercial magnetic drum memory.

1951The "hot stylus" technique is introduced to disk recording. An "Ultra-Linear" amplifier circuit is proposed by Hafler and Keroes. Pultec introduces the first active program equalizer, the EQP-1. The Germanium transistor is developed at Bell Laboratories.

1952Peter J. Baxandall publishes his (much-copied) tone control circuit. Emory Cook presses experimental dual-band left-right "binaural" disks.

1953Ampex engineers a 4-track, 35 mm magnetic film system for 20th-Century Fox's Christmas release of "The Robe" in CinemaScope with surround sound. Ampex introduces the first high speed reel-to-reel duplicator as its Model 3200.

1954They came up with reel-to-reel tape and magnetic tape.

1955Ampex develops "Sel-Sync" (Selective Synchronous Recording), making audio overdubbing practical.

1956Les Paul makes the first 8-track recordings using the "Sel-Sync" method. The movie Forbidden Planet is released, with the first all-electronic film score, composed by Louis and Bebe Barron.

1957They Had The Stereophonic Vinyl Record.

1958The first commercial stereo disk recordings appear. Stefan Kudelski introduces the Nagra III battery-operated transistorized field tape recorder, which with its "Neo-Pilot" sync system becomes the de facto standard of the film industry.

1964They designed the 8-track tape.

1965Audio Cassette. It was 1/8 inches tape width; 1 7/8 ips.

1969They made a Microcassette tape for analog.

1970Dolby noise reduction introduced (cassettes).

1972Monitor audio is founded by Mo Iqbal.

1974The MA3 speaker is released and establishes Monitor Audios audiophile credibility.

1975Betamax digital audio.

1976Monitor Audio starts to produce its cabinets in house at MQ (Monitor Quality) Cabinets.

1977The MA7 is released and quickly becomes one of MAs most popular loudspeakers.

1979ET500 Direct Drive Turntable released.

1982The Compact Disc was introduced.

1985CD-ROM.

1986The R852MD is the first of MAs speakers fitted with a metal dome tweeter.

1987Digital audio tape (DAT) was the cassette version of a CD.

1988First production of the now famous Gold Metal Dome tweeter.

1988The R352/MD is fitted with a Gold Dome tweeter and wins many accolades and awards.

1989The first ceramic sandwich metal cone is devised, inspiring the development of todays C-CAM technology.

1989The studio 10 is the first MA loudspeaker to feature the newly developed Ceramic Metal Woofer.

1990Digital compact cassette.

1991Minidisc.

1992Waveform (WAV)Dolby digital surround cinema sound.

1993Dolby theatre system (DTS)Sony dynamic digital sound (SDDS)

1995In 1995 they came out with MP3 player.

1996In 1996 they made the DVD player.

1997Monitor Audio changes ownership. Dean Hartley joins as the new Technical Director.

1998The first Monitor Audio website goes live.

1999In 1999 they introduced streaming audio and super audio CD (SACD).

2000DVD audio was introduced.

2003MMP (Metal Matrix Polymer) drivers are introduced on Radius range, which quickly becomes one MAs biggest sellers.

2004DualDisc was introduced in 2004.

2005Playaway was created in 2005.

2006Bronze BR series elevates in every way the reference standard for entry-level loudspeaker design.