HISTORY OF AUDIO

By Spencer Hawkins

1877

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

spinning cylinder.

1878

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

Doodle."

1881

Clement 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.

1887

Emile Berliner is granted a patent on a flat-disc gramophone, making the

production of multiple copies practical.

1888

Edison introduces an electric motor-driven phonograph.

1895

Marconi successfully experiments with his wireless telegraphy system in Italy, leading to the first

transatlantic signals from Poldhu, Cornwall, UK to St. John's, Newfoundland in 1901.

1898

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

1900

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

1901

The Victor Talking Machine Company is founded by Emile Berliner and

Eldridge Johnson.

1906

Lee DeForest invents the triode vacuum tube, the first electronic

signal amplifier

1910

Enrico Caruso is heard in the first live broadcast from the Metropolitan

Opera, NYC.

1912

Major Edwin F. Armstrong is issued a patent for a regenerative circuit,

making radio reception practical.

1913

The first "talking movie" is demonstrated by Edison using his Kinetophone process, a

cylinder player mechanically synchronized to a film projector.

1916

A patent for the superheterodyne circuit is issued to Armstrong.

1917

The Scully disk recording lathe is introduced.

1919

The Radio Corporation of America (RCA) is founded. It is owned in part

by United Fruit.

1921

The first commercial AM radio broadcast is made by KDKA,

Pittsburgh PA.

1925

Bell 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.

1926

O'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.

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