A late 20th-century phonograph console
and record
The
record player,
phonograph or
gramophone was the most common device for playing
recorded sound from the late 1870s until the late 1980s.
Terminology
Usage of these terms is not uniform across the English-speaking
world (see below). In more modern usage, this device is often
called a
turntable,
record
player, or
record
changer. When used in conjunction with a
mixer as part of a
DJ
set up, they are often called
decks.
The famous phonograph was the fourth device for
recording and replaying sound. The term
phonograph ("sound writer") is derived from the Greek
words (meaning "sound" or "voice" and transliterated as
phoné) and (meaning "writing" and transliterated as
graphé). Similar related terms
gramophone and
graphophone have similar root meanings. The coinage,
particularly the use of the
-graph root, may have been
influenced by the then-existing words
phonographic and
phonography, which referred to a system of phonetic
shorthand; in 1852
The New York
Times carried an advertisement for "Professor Webster's
phonographic class", and in 1859 the New York State Teachers'
Association tabled a motion to "employ a phonographic recorder" to
record its meetings.
F. B.
Fenby was the original author of the
word.
An
inventor in Worcester, Massachusetts
, he was granted a patent in
1863 for an unsuccessful device called the "Electro-Magnetic
Phonograph". His concept detailed a system that would record
a sequence of keyboard strokes onto paper tape. Although no model
or workable device was ever made, it is often seen as a link to the
concept of punched paper for
player
piano rolls (1880s), as well as
Herman Hollerith's punch card tabulator
(used in the
1890 United
States census), a distant precursor of the modern
computer .
Arguably, any device used to record sound or reproduce recorded
sound could be called a type of "phonograph", but in common
practice it has come to mean historic technologies of
sound recording.
In the late 19th and early 20th century, the alternative term
talking machine was sometimes used. This term was
more in line with Thomas Edison's early view that his invention was
better suited for spoken recordings such as dictation than for
musical recordings.
United Kingdom
In
British English,
gramophone came to refer to any sound reproducing machine
using disc records, as disc records were popularized in the UK by
the
Gramophone Company. The term
phonograph is usually restricted to devices playing
cylinder records. The term
gramophone would generally be
taken to refer to a wind-up machine, and from the 1960s onwards the
more common term would be
record player or
turntable as part of a system that also played cassettes
and included radio. Such a system would be called a
hi-fi
or
stereo (most systems being
stereophonic by the
mid-1960s).
Gramophone took its name from the Greek words "
" (grami, line) and " " (phoni, voice). Like other, similar devices
the marketers of which wanted to express the notion of "sound" in
the devices' names, they also used the same part of the Greek word
(e.g., telephone, microphone etc.).made in 1881.
United States
In
American English,
phonograph was the most common generic term for any early
sound reproducing machine, until the second half of the 20th
century, when it became archaic and
record player became
the universal term for disc record machines. In contemporary
American usage
phonograph most usually refers to disc
record machines or turntables, the most common type of analogue
recording from the 1910s on.
Gramophone was a U.S.
brand
name, and as such in the same category as
Victrola,
Zon-O-Phone,
Graphophone and
Grafonola
referring to specific brands of sound reproducing machines.
(Similarly, in German,
das Grammophon (literally "the
Gramophone") was the most common generic term for any sound
reproducer using grooved records, hence the
brand name Deutsche Grammophon.)
Emile Berliner's Gramophone was considered a
type of phonograph.
The brand name
Gramophone was not used in the USA after
1901, and the word fell out of use there, though it has survived in
its nickname form,
Grammy, as the title of the
Grammy Awards. The Grammy trophy itself is a
small rendering of a gramophone, resembling a Victor disc machine
with a taper arm.
Modern amplifier equipment still labels the input that accepts the
output from a modern magnetic pickup cartridge as the "phono" input
(abbreviated from "phonograph").
Australia
In
Australian English,
record
player was the term;
turntable was a more technical
term;
gramophone was restricted to the old mechanical
(i.e., wind-up) players; and
phonograph was used as in
British English.
History
Phonautograph
The earliest known invention of a phonographic recording device was
the
phonautograph, invented by Frenchman
Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville and patented on
March 25, 1857. It could transcribe sound to a visible medium, but
had no means to play back the sound after it was recorded. In 2008,
phonautograph recordings were for the first time played back as
sound by American audio historians, using computers to decode the
transcribed waveforms.
Phonograph theory
Charles Cros, a French scientist,
produced a theory (April 18, 1877) concerning a phonograph, but he
did not manufacture a working model. His theory was submitted to
the
French Academy of
Sciences, and was read to the public in December 1877, by which
time Edison had produced a working model. Cros and Edison
apparently discovered their theories independently.
First phonograph
Thomas Alva Edison conceived the
principle of recording and reproducing sound between May and July
1877 as a byproduct of his efforts to "play back" recorded
telegraph messages and to automate speech sounds
for transmission by
telephone.He announced
his invention of the first
phonograph, a device for
recording and replaying sound, on November 21, 1877, and he
demonstrated the device for the first time on November 29 (it was
patented on February 19, 1878 as US Patent
200,521). "In December, 1877, a young man came into the office of
the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, and placed before the editors a small,
simple machine about which very few preliminary remarks were
offered. The visitor without any ceremony whatever turned the
crank, and to the astonishment of all present the machine said : "
Good morning. How do you do? How do you like the phonograph?" The
machine thus spoke for itself, and made known the fact that it was
the phonograph..."
Edison's early phonographs recorded onto a
tinfoil sheet
phonograph cylinder using an up-down
("hill-and-dale") motion of the stylus. The tinfoil sheet was
wrapped around a grooved cylinder, and the sound was recorded as
indentations into the foil. Edison's early patents show that he
also considered the idea that sound could be recorded as a
spiral onto a
disc,
but Edison concentrated his efforts on
cylinder, since the groove on the
outside of a rotating cylinder provides a constant velocity to the
stylus in the groove, which Edison considered more "scientifically
correct". Edison's patent specified that the audio recording be
embossed, and it was not until 1886 that
vertically modulated
engraved recordings
using wax coated cylinders were patented by
Chichester Bell and
Charles Sumner Tainter. They named
their version the
Graphophone.
Emile Berliner patented his Gramophone in
1887. The Gramophone involved a system of recording using a lateral
(back and forth) movement of the stylus as it traced a spiral onto
a zinc disc coated with a compound of
beeswax in a solution of
benzine. The zinc disc was immersed in a bath of
chromic acid; this etched the groove into the disc where the stylus
had removed the coating, after which the recording could be
played.
In May
1889, the first "phonograph parlor" opened in San Francisco
. Customers would sit at a desk where they
could speak through a tube, and order a selection for one nickel.
Through a separate tube connected to a cylinder phonograph in the
room below, the selection would then be played. By the mid-1890s,
most American cities had at least one phonograph parlor. Another
common type of phonograph parlor featured a machine that would
start or would be windable when a coin would be inserted. This
jukebox-like phonograph was invented by
Louis T. Glass and William S. Arnold. Many early machines were of
the Edison Class M or Class E type. The Class M had a battery that
would break if it fell or was smashed with another object. This
would cause dangerous battery acid to spill everywhere. The Class E
sold for a lower price and ran on 120V DC.
By 1890, record manufacturers had begun using a rudimentary
duplication process to mass-produce their product. While the live
performers recorded the master phonograph, up to ten tubes led to
blank cylinders in other phonographs. Until this development, each
record had to be custom-made. Before long, a more advanced
pantograph-based process made it possible to
simultaneously produce 90-150 copies of each record. However, as
demand for certain records grew, popular artists still needed to
re-record and re-re-record their songs. Reportedly, the medium's
first major African-American star
George Washington Johnson was obliged to
perform his “The Laughing Song” (or the separate "Laughing Coon"
[4035]) literally thousands of times in a
studio during his recording career. Sometimes he would sing "The
Laughing Song" more than fifty times in a day, at twenty cents per
rendition. (The average price of a single cylinder in the mid-1890s
was about fifty cents.)
Account of inventing the phonograph
Edison presented his own account of inventing the phonograph. "I
was experimenting," he said, "on an automatic method of recording
telegraph messages on a disk of paper laid on a revolving platen,
exactly the same as the disk talking-machine of to-day. The platen
had a spiral groove on its surface, like the disk. Over this was
placed a circular disk of paper; an electromagnet with the
embossing point connected to an arm travelled over the disk; and
any signals given through the magnets were embossed on the disk of
paper. If this disc was removed from the machine and put on a
similar machine provided with a contact point, the embossed record
would cause the signals to be repeated into another wire. The
ordinary speed of telegraphic signals is thirty-five to forty words
a minute; but with this machine several hundred words were
possible.
"From my experiments on the telephone I knew of how to work a pawl
connected to the diaphragm; and this engaging a ratchet-wheel
served to give continuous rotation to a pulley. This pulley was
connected by a cord to a little paper toy representing a man sawing
wood. Hence, if one shouted: '
Mary had a little lamb,' etc., the
paper man would start sawing wood. I reached the conclusion that if
I could record the movements of the diaphragm properly, I could
cause such records to reproduce the original movements imparted to
the diaphragm by the voice, and thus succeed in recording and
reproducing the human voice.
"Instead of using a disk I designed a little machine using a
cylinder provided with grooves around the surface. Over this was to
be placed tinfoil, which easily received and recorded the movements
of the diaphragm. A sketch was made, and the piece-work price, $18,
was marked on the sketch. I was in the habit of marking the price I
would pay on each sketch. If the workman lost, I would pay his
regular wages; if he made more than the wages, he kept it. The
workman who got the sketch was John Kruesi. I didn't have much
faith that it would work, expecting that I might possibly hear a
word or so that would give hope of a future for the idea. Kruesi,
when he had nearly finished it, asked what it was for. I told him I
was going to record talking, and then have the machine talk back.
He thought it absurd. However, it was finished, the foil was put
on; I then shouted 'Mary had a little lamb', etc. I adjusted the
reproducer, and the machine reproduced it perfectly. I was never so
taken aback in my life. Everybody was astonished. I was always
afraid of things that worked the first time. Long experience proved
that there were great drawbacks found generally before they could
be got commercial; but here was something there was no doubt
of."
Oldest surviving recordings
Frank Lambert's
lead cylinder recording for an experimental talking
clock is often identified as the oldest surviving playable sound
recording, although the evidence advanced for its early date is
controversial.
The phonograph cylinder recordings of
Handel's choral music made on June 29, 1888
at The Crystal
Palace
in London were thought to be the oldest known
surviving musical recordings, until the recent playback by a group
of American historians of a waveform of "Au Clair de la Lune", recorded on
a phonautograph on April 9,
1860. The 1860 phonautogram had not until then been played,
as it was only an attempt to transcribe audio waves onto
paper.
Disc versus cylinder as a recording medium
Disc recording is inherently neither better nor worse than cylinder
recording in potential audio fidelity.
Recordings made on a cylinder remain at a constant linear velocity
for the entirety of the recording, while those made on a disc have
a higher linear velocity at the outer portion of the groove
compared to the inner portion.
Edison's patented recording method recorded with vertical
modulations in a groove. Berliner utilized a laterally modulated
groove.
Though Edison's recording technology was better than Berliner's,
there were commercial advantages to a disc system:
- The disc could be easily mass produced by molding and stamping,
and required less storage space for a collection of
recordings.
Berliner successfully argued that his technology was different
enough from Edison's that he did not need to pay royalties on it,
which reduced his business expenses.
Through experimentation, in 1892 Berliner began commercial
production of his disc records, and "gramophones" or
"talking-machines". His "
gramophone
record" was the first disc record to be offered to the public.
They were five inches (12.7 cm) in diameter and recorded on
one side only. Seven-inch (17.5 cm) records followed in 1895.
By 1901, ten-inch (25 cm) records were marketed by the Victor
Talking Machine Company, and Berliner had sold his interests. By
1908, a majority of the public demanded double-sided disc
recordings, and cylinders fell into disfavor. Edison felt the
commercial pressure for disc records, and by 1912, though reluctant
at first, his movement to disc records was in full swing. This was
the
Edison Disc Record.
From the mid-1890s until the early 1920s both
phonograph cylinder and disc recordings
and machines to play them on were widely mass-marketed and sold.
The disc system gradually became more popular because of its
cheaper price and better marketing by disc record companies. Edison
ceased cylinder manufacture in the autumn of 1929, and the history
of disc and cylinder rivalry was concluded.
Dominance of the gramophone record
Berliner's lateral disc record was the ancestor of the 78 rpm, 45
rpm, 33⅓ rpm, and all other analogue disc records popular for use
in sound recording through the 20th century. See
gramophone record.
The 1920s brought improved
radio technology
and radio sales, bringing many phonograph dealers to near financial
ruin. With efforts at improved audio fidelity, the big record
companies succeeded in keeping business booming through the end of
the decade, but the record sales plummeted during the
Great Depression, with many companies
merging or going out of business.
In 1940, vinyl was used as a record material. Victor apparently
pressed some vinyl 78s.
Booms in record sales returned after
World
War II as standards changed from 78s to vinyl
long play records, which could contain an entire
symphony, and 45s which usually contained one hit popularized on
the radio, plus another song on the back or
"flip" side. An "
extended play" version of the 45 was also
available, designated
45 EP, which
provided capacity for longer selections, or two regular-length
songs per side.
By the 1960s, cheaper portable record players and record changers
which played stacks of records in wooden console cabinets were
popular, usually with heavy and crude
tonearms. Even pharmacies stocked 45
rpm records at their front counters. Rock music played on 45s
became the soundtrack to the 1960s as people bought the same songs
that were played free of charge on the radio. Some record players
were even tried in automobiles, but were quickly displaced by
8-track and
cassette tapes.
High fidelity made great advances during the 1970s, as turntables
became very precise instruments with belt or direct drive,
jewel-balanced tonearms, some with electronically controlled linear
tracking and magnetic cartridges. Some cartridges had frequency
response above 30 kHz for use with CD-4
quadraphonic 4 channel sound. A high fidelity
component system which cost under $1000 could do a very good job of
reproducing very accurate frequency response across the human
audible spectrum from 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz with a $200
turntable which would typically have less than 0.05%
wow and
flutter and very low
rumble (low frequency noise). A well-maintained record would have
very little surface noise, though it was difficult to keep records
completely free from scratches, which produced popping noises.
Another characteristic failure mode was
groove lock,
causing a section of music to repeat, separated by a popping noise.
This was so common that a saying was coined:
you sound like a
broken record, referring to someone who is being annoyingly
repetitious.
A novelty variation on the standard format was the use of multiple
concentric spirals with different recordings. Thus when the record
was played multiple times, different recordings would play
seemingly at random.
Records themselves became an art form because of the large surface
onto which graphics and books could be printed, and records could
be molded into unusual shapes, colors, or with images (picture
discs). The turntable remained a common element of home audio
systems well after the introduction of other media such as
audio tape and even the early years of the
compact disc as a lower priced music
format. However, even as the cost of producing CDs fell below that
of records, CDs would remain a higher priced music format than
cassettes or records. Thus, records were not uncommon in home audio
systems into the early 1990s.
By the turn of the 21st century, the turntable had become a niche
product, as the price of CD players, which reproduce music free
from pops and scratches, fell far lower than high fidelity tape
players or turntables. Nevertheless, there is some increase in
interest as many big-box media stores stock turntables, as do
professional DJ equipment stores. On the other hand, all but the
most expensive stereo receivers now omit the
phono input. The list price of first-run CDs
remains above $15, while used records are very inexpensive, and
some are rare and sought after. Some combination systems include
basic turntables with a CD and radio in retro-styled cabinets.
Records also continue to be manufactured and sold today, albeit in
very small quantities when compared to the disc phonograph's
heyday.
Turntable technology
Turntable construction
Inexpensive record players typically used a flanged steel stamping
for the turntable structure. A rubber disc would be secured to the
top of the stamping to provide traction for the record, as well as
a small amount of vibration isolation. The spindle bearing usually
consisted of a
bronze bushing. The flange on the stamping provided a
convenient place to drive the turntable by means of an
idler
wheel (see below). While light and cheap to manufacture, these
mechanisms had low
inertia, making motor
speed instabilities more pronounced.
Costlier turntables made from heavy
aluminium castings have greater balanced mass and
inertia, helping minimize vibration at the stylus, and maintaining
constant speed without wow or flutter, even if the motor exhibits
cogging effects. Like stamped steel turntables, they were topped
with rubber. Because of the increased mass, they usually employed
ball bearings or
roller bearings in the spindle to
reduce friction and noise. Most are belt or direct drive, but some
use an idler wheel. A specific case was the Swiss
"Lenco" drive, which possessed a very heavy
turntable coupled via an idler wheel to a long, tapered motor drive
shaft. This enabled stepless rotation or speed control on the
drive. Because of this feature the
Lenco became popular end of the 1950s with
dancing schools, because the dancing instructor could lead the
dancing exercises at different speeds.
By the early 1980s, some companies started producing very
inexpensive turntables that displaced the products of companies
like BSR. Commonly found in all-in-one stereos from assorted
far-east brands, they used a thin plastic table set in a plastic
plinth, no mats, belt drive, weak motors, and often, plastic
tonearms with no counterweight. Most used sapphire pickups housed
in ceramic cartridges, and they lacked features of earlier units,
such as auto-start and record-stacking. While no longer as common
now that turntables are absent from the cheap all-in-one stereo,
this type has made a resurgence in nostalgia-marketed
players.
Turntable drive systems
Many platters have a continuous series of
strobe markings machined or printed around their
edge. Viewing these markings in artificial light at
mains frequency produces a
stroboscopic effect, which can be used
by the operator to verify rotational speed. Additionally, the edge
of the turntable can contain magnetic markings to provide pulses to
the electronical speed-control systems.
Idler-wheel drive system
Earlier designs used a rubberized idler-wheel drive system.
However, wear and decomposition of the wheel, as well as the direct
mechanical coupling to a vibrating motor, introduced low-frequency
noise ("
rumble") and speed
variations ("
wow and
flutter") into the
sound. These systems generally used a
synchronous
motor which ran at a speed synchronized to the
frequency of the
AC power supply. Portable record players
typically used an inexpensive
shaded-pole motor. At the end
of the motor shaft there was a stepped driving capstan; to obtain
different speeds, the rubber idler wheel was moved to contact
different steps of this capstan. The idler was pinched against the
bottom or inside edge of the platter to drive it.
Until the 1970s, the idler-wheel drive was the most common on
turntables, except for higher-end audiophile models. However, even
some higher-end turntables, such as the
Lenco,
Garrard,
EMT, and
Dual turntables, used idler-wheel drive.
Belt drive system
In a
belt drive turntable the
motor is located under and to the
side of the
platter and is
connected to the platter by an
elastomeric
belt. Belt drives brought improved motor and platter isolation
compared to idler-wheel designs. Motor noise heard as low-frequency
rumble was much reduced.
The design of the belt drive turntable allows for a less expensive
motor than the
direct-drive
turntable to be used. Also, the elastomeric belt absorbs motor
vibrations which would otherwise be picked up by the
stylus.The Acoustical professional turntable (earlier
marketed under Dutch "Jobo prof") of the 1960s however possessed an
expensive German drive motor, the "Pabst Aussenläufer". As this
motor name implied, the rotor was on the outside of the motor and
acted as a flywheel ahead of the belt-driven turntable itself. In
combination with a steel to nylon turntable bearing (with molybdeen
sulfide material inside for lifelong lubrication) very low wow,
flutter and rumble figures were achieved.
Direct drive system
Direct-drive turntables drive
the platter directly without utilizing intermediate wheels, belts,
or gears as part of a drive train. The platter functions as a motor
armature. This requires good engineering, with advanced electronics
for acceleration and speed control.
Matsushita's Technics division introduced the first
commercially successful direct drive platter, model SP10, in 1969
and it was replaced by the
Technics
SL-1200 turntable, in 1972. Its updated model, SL-1200MK2,
released in 1978, had a stronger motor, a convenient
pitch control slider for
beatmatching and a stylus illuminator, which
made it the long standing favourite among disc jockeys (
see
"Turntablism"). By the beginnings
of the 80s, lowering of costs in microcontroller electronics made
Direct-Drive turntables more affordable.
Direct vs belt drive
The evaluation of the "best" drive technology is not clear and more
depending on the implementation that on the drive technology
itself. Technical measurements show that similarly low flutter
(0.025% WRMS) and rumble (-78dB weighed) figures are possible for
high quality turntables, be belt drive or direct drive.
Pricing
Audiophile grade turntables start at a few hundred dollars and
range upwards of $100,000, depending on the complexity and quality
of design and manufacture. The common view would be that there are
diminishing returns with an
increase in price - a turntable costing $1,000 would not sound
significantly better than a turntable costing $500; nevertheless,
there exists a large choice of expensive turntables although the
popularity of the vinyl replay medium has been surpassed for some
time.
Pickup systems
Typical magnetic cartridge
Historically, most high-fidelity
component systems
(preamplifiers or receivers) that accepted input from a phonograph
turntable had separate inputs for both ceramic and magnetic
cartridges (typically labeled "CER" and "MAG"). One piece systems
often had no additional phono inputs at all, regardless of
type.
Most systems today, if they accept input from a turntable at all,
are configured for use only with magnetic cartridges, with high end
systems often having both MM and MC settings.
Piezoelectric (crystal/ceramic) cartridges
Early electronic phonographs used a
piezo-electric crystal for pickup, where the mechanical
movement of the
stylus in the groove
generates a proportional electrical
voltage
by creating stress within a crystal (typically
Rochelle salt). Crystal pickups
are relatively robust, and produce a substantial signal level which
requires only a modest amount of further amplification. The output
is not very linear however, introducing unwanted
distortion. It is difficult to make a crystal
pickup suitable for quality
stereo reproduction, as the stiff
coupling between the crystal and the long styli used prevent close
tracking of the needle to the groove modulations. This tends to
increase wear on the record, and introduces more distortion.
Another problem is with the nature of the crystal itself: it is
hygroscopic and tries to absorb moisture from the air and dissolve
in it. So it needed protection from the environment by embedding it
in other materials, without hindering the movement of the pickup
mechanism itself. After a number of years, the protective jelly
often deteriorated or leaked from the cartridge case and the full
unit needed replacement.
The next development was the
ceramic cartridge, a
piezoelectric device that used newer, and better, materials. These
were more sensitive, and offered greater
compliance, that is, lack of resistance to
movement and so increased ability to follow the undulations of the
groove without gross distorting or jumping out of the groove.
Higher compliance meant lower tracking forces and reduced wear to
both the disc and stylus. It also allowed ceramic stereo cartridges
to be made.
During the 1950s to 1970s, ceramic cartridge became common in low
quality phonographs, but better high-fidelity (or "hi-fi") systems
used magnetic cartridges, and the availability of low cost magnetic
cartridges from the 1970s onwards made ceramic cartridges obsolete
for essentially all purposes. At the very end of the lifespan of
ceramic cartridges, someone accidentally discovered that by
terminating a specific ceramic mono cartridge (the Ronette TX88)
not with the prescribed 47
kΩ resistance, but
with approx. 10 kΩ, it could be connected to the moving magnet (MM)
input too. The result, a much smoother frequency curve extended the
lifetime for this popular and very cheap type.
Another popular ceramic stereo cartridge was the Audio Technica
model AT66, which because of its price performance ratio was
favoured by many as an alternative to more expensive magnetic
cartridges.
Magnetic cartridges
There are two common designs for magnetic cartridges, moving
magnet (MM) and moving coil (MC) (originally
called
dynamic). Both operate on the same
physics principle of
electromagnetic induction. The
moving magnet type was by far the most common and more robust of
the two, though audiophiles often claim that the moving coil system
yields higher fidelity sound.
In either type, the
stylus itself, usually of
diamond, is mounted on a tiny metal strut called a cantilever,
which is suspended using a collar of highly compliant plastic. This
gives the stylus the freedom to move in any direction. On the other
end of the cantilever is mounted a tiny permanent
magnet (moving magnet type) or a set of tiny wound
coils (moving coil type). The magnet is close to a set of fixed
pick-up coils, or the moving coils are held within a
magnetic field generated by fixed permanent
magnets. In either case, the movement of the stylus as it tracks
the grooves of a record causes a fluctuating magnetic field which
causes a small electrical current to be induced in the coils. This
current closely follows the sound waveform cut into the record, and
may be transmitted by wires to an
electronic amplifier where it is
processed and amplified in order to drive a
loudspeaker. Depending upon the amplifier
design, a phono-preamp may be necessary.
In most moving magnet designs, the stylus itself is detachable from
the rest of the cartridge so it can easily be replaced. There are
two primary types of cartridge mounts. The older type is attached
using small screws to a
headshell which
then plugs into the tonearm, while the other is a standardized
"P-mount" or "T4P" cartridge (invented by
Technics in 1980 and adopted by other
manfacturers) that plugs directly into the tonearm. Some
mass market turntables use a proprietary
integrated cartridge which cannot be upgraded.
An alternative design is the
moving iron variation on
moving magnet used by
Grado,
Stanton, and the
MMC cartridge of
Bang & Olufsen. In these units, the
magnet itself sits behind the four coils and magnetises the cores
of all four coils. The moving iron cross at the other end of the
coils varies the gaps between itself and each of these cores,
according to its movements. These variations lead to voltage
variations as described above.
Famous brands for magnetic cartridges are: Grado, Stanton/Pickering
(681EE/EEE), B&O (MM types for its two, non-compatible
generations of parallel arm design),
Shure
(V15 Type I to V),
Audio-Technica,
Nagaoka,
Ortofon, Technics,
Denon and ADC.
Optical readout
A few specialist
laser turntables
read the groove optically using a laser pickup. Since there is no
physical contact with the record, no wear is incurred.
An alternative approach is to take a high-resolution photograph or
scan of each side of the record and interpret the image of the
grooves using
computer software.
An amateur attempt using a flatbed scanner lacked satisfactory
fidelity.
A professional system employed by the
Library of
Congress
produces excellent quality.
Styli
In the
sound recording industry, a
stylus is a
phonograph or
gramophone needle used to play back sound on
gramophone records, as well as to record
the sound indentations on the
master record.
It is a crucial part of the phonograph, as it is the one part of
the system that actually contacts the recorded disc and transfers
its vibrations to the rest of the system. It is the part which also
suffers the greatest wear. There are two desired qualities in a
stylus: first, that it faithfully follows the contours of the
recorded groove and transfers the vibration to the system, and
second, that it does not damage the recorded disc.
Several technologies were used to record the sounds, beginning with
wax cylinders.Thomas Edison
introduced the use of
sapphire in 1892 and
the use of
diamond in 1910 for the cylinder
phonograph. The Edison disc players (1912-1929) never required a
stylus to be changed. The harder the material used, the harder the
stylus had to be. The latter stylus for vinyl records were also
made out of sapphire or diamond. A specific case is the specific
stylus type of
Bang &
Olufsen's (B&O) moving magnet cartridge MMC 20CL, mostly
used in parallel arm B&O turntables in the 4002/6000 series. It
uses a sapphire stem on which a diamond tip is fixed by a special
adhesive. A stylus tip mass as low as 0.3 milligram is the result
and full tracking only requires 1 gram of stylus force, reducing
record wear even further. Maximum distortion (2nd harmonic) fell
below 0.6%.
A wholly different side of this is the shape of needles and styli.
The first needles were made of copper or steel and with the extreme
forces exerted on them quickly wore out (exchanging them after 2
sides 78 rpm 25 cm, or one side 30 cm were safe choices).
Because of this wear, the exact form of the needle hardly received
attention. Some needles were made with a bend so a stark backward
sloping needle resulted, suggesting (but not offering) lower record
and needle wear. Some people even used cactus thorns and accepted
loss in high frequency for longer record life. (The
Nimbus company also uses thorns when
rerecording voices from older 78 rpm disks in their reproduction
setup). At the end of acoustic 78 rpm, so-called longplay hardened
steel needles came on the market, for 10 sides of a normal
25 cm disk.
When sapphires were introduced for the 78 rpm disk and the LP, they
were made by tapering a stem and polishing the end into sphere of
around 70 and 25 micrometers respectively. A sphere is not equal to
the form of the cutting stylus and by the time diamond needles came
to the market, a whole discussion was started on the effect of
circular forms moving through a non-circular cut groove. It can be
easily shown that vertical, so called "pinching" movements were a
result and when the stereophonic LPs were introduced, unwanted
vertical modulation was recognized as a problem. Also the needle
started its life touching the groove on a very small surface,
giving extra wear on the walls.
Another problem is in the tapering along a straight line, while the
side of the groove is far from straight. Both problems were
attacked together: by polishing the diamond in a certain way that
it could be made doubly elliptic. 1) the side was made into one
ellipse as seen from behind, meaning the groove touched along a
short line and 2) the ellipse form was also polished as seen from
above and curvature in the direction of the groove became much
smaller than 25 micrometers e.g. 13 micrometers. With this approach
a number of irregularities were eliminated. Furthermore, the angle
of the stylus which used to be always sloping backwards, was
changed into the forward direction, in line with the slope the
original cutting stylus possessed. These styli were expensive to
produce, but purists accepted these costs all the more, because by
now stylus life was much higher than before.
The next development in stylus form came about by the attention to
the CD-4
quadraphonic sound modulation
process, which requires up to 50 kHz frequency response, with
cartridges like
Technics
EPC-100CMK4 capable of playback on frequencies up to 100 kHz.
This requires a stylus with a narrow side radius, such as 5uM (or
0.2mil). A narrow-profile elliptical stylus is able to read the
higher frequencies (greater than 20 kHz), but at an increased
wear, since the contact surface is narrower. For overcoming this
problem, the Shibata stylus was invented around 1972 in Japan by
Norio Shibata of JVC, fitted as standard on quadraphonic
cartridges, and marketed as an extra on some high-end
cartridges.
The Shibata-designed stylus offers a greater contact surface with
the groove, which in turn means less pressure over the vinyl
surface and thus less wear. A positive side effect is that the
greater contact surface also means the stylus will read sections of
the vinyl which were not touched (or "worn") by the common
spherical stylus. In a demonstration by JVC records "worn" after
500 plays at a relatively very high 4.5g tracking force with a
spherical stylus, played "as new" with the Shibata profile.
Other advanced stylus shapes appeared following the same goal of
increasing contact surface, improving on the Shibata.
Chronologycally: "Hughes" Shibata variant (1975), "Ogura" (1978) ,
Van den Hul (1982) . These styli are marketed as "Hyperelliptical"
(Shure), "Alliptic", "Fine Line" (Ortofon), "Line contact" (Audio
technica), "Polyhedron", "LAC", and "Stereohedron" (Stanton)
.
A keel-shaped diamond stylus appeared as a byproduct of the
invention of the
CED
Videodisc. This, together with laser-diamond-cutting
technologies, made possible "ridge" shaped stylii such as the
Namiki (1985) design , and Fritz Gyger (1989) design. These styli
are marketed as "MicroLine" (Audio technica), "Micro-Ridge"
(Shure), "Replicant" (Ortofon).
It is important to point out that most of those stylus profiles are
still being manufactured and sold, together with the more common
spherical and elliptical profiles, despite the CD4 quadraphonic
system being a marketing flop.
Equalization
Early "mechanical" gramophones used the stylus to vibrate a
diaphragm radiating through a
horn.
Several serious problems resulted from this:
- The maximum sound level achievable was quite limited, being
limited to the physical amplification effects of the horn,
- The energy needed to generate such sound levels as were
obtainable had to come directly from the stylus tracing the groove.
This required very high tracking forces that rapidly wore out both
the stylus and the record on lateral cut 78 rpm records.
- Because bass sounds have a higher amplitude than high frequency
sounds (for the same perceived loudness), the space taken in the
groove by low frequency sounds needed to be large (limiting
playback time per side of the record) to accommodate the bass
notes, yet the high frequencies required only tiny variations in
the groove, which were easily affected by noise from irregularities
(wear, contaminates, etc) in the disk itself.
The introduction of electronic amplification allowed these issues
to be addressed. Records are made with boosted high frequencies
and/or reduced low frequencies. This reduces the effect of
background noise, including clicks or pops, and also conserves the
amount of physical space needed for each groove, by reducing the
size of the low-frequency undulations.
During playback, the high frequencies must be rescaled to their
original, flat frequency response—known as "equalization"—as well
as being amplified. A
phono input of an
amplifier incorporates such equalization as well as amplification
to suit the very low level output from a modern cartridge. Most
hi-fi amplifiers made between the 1950s and
the 1990s and virtually all
DJ mixers are
so equipped.
The widespread adoption of digital music formats, such as CD or
satellite radio, has displaced phonograph records and resulted in
phono inputs being omitted in most modern amplifiers. Some newer
turntables include built-in preamplifiers to produce line-level
outputs. Inexpensive and moderate performance discrete phono
preamplifiers with RIAA equalization are available, while high-end
audiophile units costing thousands of dollars continue to be
available in very small numbers.
Since the late 1950s, almost all phono input stages have used the
RIAA equalization standard. Before
settling on that standard, there were many different equalizations
in use, including EMI, HMV, Columbia, Decca FFRR, NAB, Ortho, BBC
transcription, etc. Recordings made using these other equalization
schemes will typically sound odd if they are played through a
RIAA-equalized preamplifier. High-performance (so-called
"multicurve disc") preamps, which include multiple, selectable
equalizations, are no longer commonly available. However, some
vintage preamps, such as the
LEAK varislope
series, are still obtainable and can be refurbished. Newer
preamplifiers like the Esoteric Sound Re-Equalizer or the K-A-B MK2
Vintage Signal Processor are also available. These kinds of
adjustable phono equalizers are used by consumers wishing to play
vintage record collections (often the only available recordings of
musicians of the time) with the equalization used to make
them.
Arm systems
The tone arm (or tonearm) holds the pickup cartridge over the
groove, the stylus tracking the groove with the desired force to
give the optimal compromise between good tracking and minimizing
wear of the stylus and record groove. At its simplest, a tone arm
is a pivoted lever, free to move in two axes (vertical and
horizontal) with a counterbalance to maintain tracking
pressure.
Adjustable counterweight; the dial
below is the anti-skating adjustment.
However, the requirements of high-fidelity reproduction place more
demands upon the arm design:
- The tone arm must track the groove without distorting the
stylus assembly, so an ideal arm would have no mass, with bearings
requiring zero force to move it.
- The arm should not oscillate following a displacement, so it
should either be both light and very stiff, or suitably
damped.
- The arm must not resonate with vibrations induced by the stylus
or from the turntable motor or plinth, so it must likewise be heavy
enough not to resonate at those frequencies, or it must be damped
to absorb vibrations.
- The arm should maintain a perfect alignment of the cartridge to
the tangent of the record groove at any radius from the center and
this tangent line should intersect the pivot point of the tone
arm.
These demands are contradictory and impossible to realize (massless
arms and zero-friction bearings do not exist in the real world),
and consequently all tone arm designs are engineering compromises.
Solutions vary, but all modern tonearms are at least relatively
lightweight and stiff constructions with precision, very low
friction pivot bearings in both vertical and horizontal axes. Most
arms are made from some kind of alloy (the cheapest being
aluminium), but some manufacturers use balsa wood, others use
carbon fibers. The latter materials favour a straight arm design,
while alloy is easier for producing S-type arms.
Prices vary largely: the well known and extremely popular high-end
S-type SME-arm of the 1970-1980 era not only possessed a
complicated design, but was also very costly. On the other hand a
very cheap arm was made by the now defunct Dutch
Jobo/
Acoustical firm. This
"All balance" arm was only €30,- equivalent. It was used in that
period by all official radio stations using the Dutch Broadcast
studio facilities of the NOS, as well as by the pirate radio
station Veronica. Live disk jockeys lived on this radioship,
meaning that the arm had to withstand sudden ship movements.
Anecdotal information tells us, that this cheap arm was the only
one capable of keeping the needle firmly in the groove, even during
heavy storms at sea.
Basic arm design has changed relatively little. S-type tonearms can
be found on even the early 1925
Victor Orthophonic Victrola.
Though early electrical pickup tonearms were light, their full
weight rested on the record. Through to the crystal pickup, this
was required to create sufficient
tracking force to follow
the grooves adequately with relatively stiff styli. Record wear was
high. With better technologies (magnetic cartridge), far-smaller
tracking forces became possible, and the balanced arm came into
use. Most use a
counterweight to
offset the weight of the arm, cartridge included. A separate spring
or small weight provided for finetuning in tracking force. Often, a
calibrated dial on the weight provides quick adjustment of stylus
force. Stylus forces of 10 to 20
mN (1
to 2
"grams-force", frequently
mis-labeled by manufacturers as simply "grams") are typical for
modern high-fidelity turntables, while forces of up to 50 mN (5
"grams-force") are common for DJ use. Stanton cartridges of the
681EE(E) series had a small brush attached to it, the weight of
which required compensation of both stylus force (1 gram-force
extra needed) and anti-skating adjustment values (see next
paragraph for its description).
Typical phonograph tonearm
Tonearms are prone to two types of tracking errors that affect the
sound. As the tonearm tracks the groove, the stylus exerts a
frictional force
tangent to the arc of the
groove and since this force does not intersect the tone arm pivot,
a clockwise rotational force (moment) occurs and a reaction
skating force is exerted on the stylus by the
record groove wall away from center of the disc. Modern arms
provide an
anti-skating mechanism, using springs,
hanging weights, or magnets to produce an offsetting
counter-clockwise force at the pivot, making the net horizontal
force on the groove walls near zero. The second error occurs as the
arm sweeps in an arc across the disc, causing the angle between the
cartridge head and groove to change slightly. A change in angle,
albeit small, will have a detrimental effect (especially in stereo)
by creating different forces on the two groove walls. Making the
arm longer to reduce this angle is a partial solution, but less
than ideal, because longer arms weigh more, and because even a long
arm won't be long enough since only an infinitely long arm would
reduce this error to zero. Some arms (such as the Garrard "Zero"
series) have been manufactured with a parallelogram arrangement
which pivots the cartridge head on the arm to maintain a constant
angle.
If the arm is not pivoted, but instead travels horizontally along a
radius of the disc, there is no skating force and no cartridge
angle error. Such arms are driven along a linear track using an
electronic
servomechanism, or a
precise mechanical adjustment (the Rabco arm) to position it
properly.
Rabco developed the first zero
tracking error tonearm, followed by
Bang & Olufsen with its Beogram 4000
model in 1972. A later development was made by
Revox, a Swiss company more widely known for his high
end reel to reel tape recorders: they designed a parallel movement
using a very short arm moving sideways across the disk under the
influence of a special drive motor. The mechanism had to be turned
over the disk after its placement and turned back after playing the
disk. This was contrary to the Bang & Olufsen design which
automatically returned its parallel arm after playing and even
detected whether a smaller (and therefore 45 rpm) or a larger (and
therefore 33⅓ rpm) disk was present. Only the smaller 33 rpm disks
needed a manual speed override.
Early Edison phonographs had used similarly horizontal
spring-powered drives to carry the stylus across the record at a
pre-determined rate. In practice, the linear tracking system is not
widely used today because of its complexity and related expense.
However, some of the most sophisticated and expensive systems still
employ this technique. It is nearly ideal, as the stylus replicates
the motion of the recording lathe when the master recording was
cut.
Phonograph in the 21st century
Turntables continue to be manufactured and sold into the 21st
century, although in small numbers. While there are many
audiophiles who still prefer vinyl records over
digital music sources (primarily
compact
disc) for what they consider superior sound quality, they
represent an enthusiastic minority of listeners. The quality of the
available record players, tonearms, and cartridges has continued to
improve, despite a diminishing market, allowing turntables to
remain competitive on the high end audio systems market.
Updated versions of the 1970s era
Technics SL-1200 have remained an industry
standard for DJs to the present day. Turntables and vinyl records
remain popular in mixing (mostly dance-oriented) forms of
electronic music, where they allow great latitude for physical
manipulation of the music by the DJ.
In hip hop music, the turntable is used as a musical instrument.
Manipulation of a record as part of the music rather than for
normal playback or mixing, is called
turntablism. The basis of turntablism and its
best known technique is
scratching, pioneered by Grand
Wizard Theodore. It was not until
Herbie
Hancock's "
Rockit" in 1983 that the
turntablism movement was recognized in popular music outside of a
hip hop context.
The laser turntable uses a laser as the pickup instead of a stylus
in physical contact with the disk. It was conceived of in the late
1980s, although early prototypes were not of usable audio quality.
Practical laser turntables are now being manufactured by ELPJ. They
are favoured by record libraries and some audiophiles since they
eliminate physical wear completely.Experimentation is in progress
in retrieving the audio from old records by scanning the disc and
analysing the scanned image, rather than using any sort of
turntable.
Although largely replaced since the introduction of the compact
disc in 1982, record albums still sell in small numbers and are
available through numerous sources. In 2008, LP sales grew by 90%
over 2007, with 1.9 million records sold. Many audiophiles believe
that all-analogue recordings made using a traditional tape
recorder, simple microphone arrays and few overdubs have a more
natural sound than digital recordings.
There are also many turntables on the market designed to be plugged
into a computer via a
USB port for
needle dropping purposes.
See also
References
- Brady, Erika. A Spiral Way: How the Phonograph Changed
Ethnography. Jackson: University press of Mississippi, 1999.
- Koenigsberg, Allen, The Patent History of the Phonograph,
1877-1912, APM Press, 1991.
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