Tyler Watras
3-17-03
Melissa LaDuc
Advanced Placement English IV
The Evolution of Recorded Sound:
Which Format Sounds Best
The history of recorded sound, although it is only a little more than a century old, recently has had many different formats and a great deal of change in them; some sound with great quality and others with junk-like quality. There are three major categories and industries for this great age of sound and music; records, also known as vinyls, magnetic tape, and of course the well known compact disc. The problem with these different formats is that popularity is based on convenience compared to the quality of sound that each one produces.
The dream of recording sound became a reality in July of 1877, when the well-known scientist Thomas Alva Edison developed his phonograph. Previously in 1857, a Frenchman by the name of Leon Scott created an instrument called the phonautograph, which could record music on a “smoked cylinder”, but unfortunately this instrument could not duplicate the sound that was recorded. The phonograph on the other hand, which used a tin foil cylinder, was able to duplicate sound and Edison tested this out by citing “Mary had a little lamb”. ... Later in 1887, another scientist developed a method for duplicating sound, which was on a lateral disc. ...
This original format, which was listened to well into the twentieth century, had many advantages, such as the full frequency range reproduction due to analogue recording. ... For instance, to get good sound out of a record, you must have, of-course, one in mint quality and a good turntable to play it on. ...
The second format to be able to duplicate sound was the magnetic tape format, which began to be introduced by the reel-to-reel player. ... ” This means that magnetic tape could be recorded on the same side but different directions (soc. ...
The advantage of magnetic tape was more resistant to damage, plus the tape could be distorted to achieve distortion in the sound. The quarter inch tape allowed high amounts of frequency to fit on it and it had excellent quality in sound (bway).
Bulkiness was a disadvantage to this format because it wasn’t so easily carried around compared to the previous vinyl, which was still in competition with the reel-to-reel. ... The 4track format had a head start before the 8track, when it was originally designed and developed in 1956, originally for the Ford motor company as a new accessory in their vehicles.
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