Audio Timeline

By : Dawson K . Black

1878- Thomas Edison, succeeds in recovering “Mary had a little lamb” from a strip of tinfoil wrapped around a spinning cylinder.

1885- The English patents Thomas Edison obtained for his phonograph had now expired, leaving the opportunity open for world inventors who thought they could make a better talking machine.

1886- Thomas Edison invented the talking doll. Edison only produced this doll for a couple of years.

1887- The first music is put on record, Yankee Doodle

1886- Thomas Edison invents first talking doll

1888- Edison makes an electric motor driven phono-graph

1895- wireless telegraph system made in Italy, following up to the first transatlantic signals made in Cornwall, UK to St. John’s, Newfoundland in 1901

1896- Thomas Edison set up the National Phonograph Company.

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

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

1921- The first AM radio broadcast is made in KDKA, Pittsburgh, PA

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

1936- First tape recording of a symphony concert in the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

1938- Benjamin B. Bauer 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.

1941- Recording of sound was used to break secret codes, record telephone messages from spies, and record intercepted enemy communications during World War II. Wire recorders were used because they were much more durable. This increased interest to improve wire recorders.

1940- A number of court cases were won making it now possible for radio stations to play records without paying the record companies royalties. Playing commercially recorded music now become the normal radio broadcast.

1948- A professional magnetic tape recorder was marketed by Ampex. These were used by the American Broadcasting Company, ABC. Other companies soon followed.

1948- Bell Labs invented the transistor, which would replace the vacuum tubes in tape recorders, record players, and radios. This made it possible to produce much smaller systems.1950- The public now had four record speeds to choose from: 16, 33 1/3, 45, and 78 rpm.

1961- The first transistor record players were now for sale

1988- The compact disc sold slowly. In 1988 CDs finally out sold vinyl records. The cassette tape was still the top seller.

1990- Sony made DAT, Digital Audio Tape, available to the American public.

http://library.thinkquest.org/19537/Timeline.html

http://www.aes.org/aeshc/docs/audio.history.timeline.html