As It Is. - Guest post by T.S. Gnu.

"His Master's Voice" - Francis Barraud, 1898
(2025 color remastered.)
Original Nipper with Edison cylinder phonograph.

The Journey

We live at a time in history that many consider to be unique. However, this can be said by anyone at any point in history, and not for the multitude of reasons they believe it to be so, but rather due to the unassailable fact that it just happens to be to the only period in time that they happen to be alive. That is... just the way things are. While it may be entertaining for people to write (or read) about something "As We See It" or even "As We Hear It" along with all the pitfalls that come with those points of view, reality only cares about, and I'm anthropomorphizing here, what is — reality doesn't care about how we see it. This phrasing is also testament to how we are ill-equipped (post-modernists more so than others 🙄) to deal with the fact that the Universe is — it simply exists. The Universe is. It is cold (ca. 2.7K). It is indomitable. And it is uncaring of what we see, what we want… even what we are. 

With that foremost in mind, this missive aims to outline what is as far as our little hobby goes, along with a view of the sauntering journey (with a little ambling off the path) to what we discovered when we arrived here, here being the present time. What is presented here is factual information about past events that is verifiable, and with the odd scientific principles that have been verified by mathematical proofs; in addition there will be the odd opinion, which will be clarified to be as such. Readers are free to disagree with the latter and I encourage active engagement on the same.

In The Beginning...

I sometimes wonder if any audiophiles feel slighted that Genesis 1:3 proclaims the first words to be "Let there be light" yet, as per my cursory readings, doesn't make any mention of "Let there be sound."*  The first image to be recorded also predate the first known audio recording by ca. 45-60 years depending on whether or not one requires the images to be fixed to the medium (Niépce) or not (Wedgewood).

* That seems to be left as an exercise for AC/DC.

In 1853/54 Edouard-Léon Scott de Martinville began work on the problem of what he referred to as "speech writing itself,” and by late 1857 was able to record sounds accurately enough thanks to the support from the Société d’encouragement pour l’industrie Nationale. The Society for the Encouragement of National Industry was the initiative of scientists, technical experts, senior civil servants and other "enlightened" minds. It was founded in 1801 under the aegis of the Ministry of the Interior under Bonaparte and by 1824 was a recognized public utility. 

The Society also supported the development of notable inventions such as the Jacquard loom, photography (including the Daguerr(e)otype), the internal combustion engine (Rochas), and the cinematograph (Lumière Brothers). This is worth a brief mention because it exemplifies the value of public research funding and the recognition of expertise — concepts that are alien to the present administration in the US. These inventions have changed the world and the fruit we enjoy today had its seeds sown ca. 200 years ago; it is safe to predict that the orchard will look a lot more barren that it needs to 200 years henceforth. 

Whilst mentioning long tails, it is interesting to note that the first recording by Scott de Martinville was not something he thought people would ever hear, because he considered playback to be theoretically impossible based on his (in retrospect, somewhat incomplete) knowledge of how membranes vibrate. Because his recording technique did not consider playback as an option, it was not until March 2008 that these recordings were made audible, and they are now part of UNESCO's Memory of the World Register as of 2015 and the National Recording Registry at the Library of Congress as of 2011. Do take a few moments and give yourselves the opportunity to hear first-hand the historic recording of "Au Clair de la Lune" — an achievement that began our collective audio playback journey. 

In his lifetime, Scott de Martinville saw Edison's phonograph eclipse his invention of sound recording. Edison built on Scott de Martinville's work while concerning himself with the problem of sound reproduction, whereas Scott de Martinville was only concerned with the problem of sound recording or, as he put it, "speech writing". In his will, Scott de Martinville requested that his children and grandchildren ensure that his name and accomplishment not be forgotten; it is our collective responsibility, as beneficiaries of his labour, that we grant him this wish and remember that he was the inventor of recorded sound without diminishing Edison as the inventor of audio playback/reproduction.

Scratching the Surface

The reproduction of audio began with the idea of capturing and recording an imprint of the continuous waveform either mechanically or electrically. This imprint is an analogue of the audio hence the name, derived from the Greek analogos = proportionate; the characteristics of the recorded imprint are proportional to the audio waveform. The process of recording and playback has inherent physical limitations and these have been addressed over the years in order to improve the accuracy of the original audio... within limits.

Originally, a recording was made by having someone speak/sing/play an instrument into the mouth of a conical horn connected to the phonograph. The sound waves were carried into the cone whereupon they induced vibrations in a diaphragm at the base of the horn. The vibrations were transmitted to a stylus attached to the diaphragm. The stylus imprinted these vibrations on the surface of a cylinder or disc as it traced a course over the surface. The grooves thus etched onto the surface were physical representations of the sound waves and captured the pitch and volume of the recorded sound waves. The movements of the stylus were proportionate to the frequency and amplitude of the sound waves and hence analogues of the audio — they were, literally, graphs of the sound (greek phōnō = sound, voice). For those readers who noticed the word "phonograph" used, yes, words have meaning (contrary to what some politicians and their enablers say). Record players are named thus because they play a record — something that is set down in writing or some other permanent form for later reference (OED), and again we are reminded... words have meanings.

Edison listening to his wax cylinders, 1888.

Playback involved the reverse process whereby a stylus was used to trace the previously etched surface of the cylinder/disc. This stylus was attached to a membrane that vibrated along with the stylus and the vibrations were amplified by the horn which reproduced audible sound waves for the enjoyment/amusement of listeners. That's pretty much the principles of modern vinyl playback — cut a groove to record, trace a groove to play back. It should be obvious that there are numerous problems, especially severe volume limitations, when we are constrained to mechanical transduction.

Some of the early problems that needed to be overcome are covered in the history of the gramophone at the Library of Congress. What is somewhat interesting is the tidbit about the 1897 fire in which a reported that the Berliner Gramophone Company lost at least a hundred zinc masters that had not been yet pressed. In light of what happened in 2008, it served as a reminder that, as Mark Twain put it, "history doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes".

Far a-field

James Clerk Maxwell lived a life in constant pursuit of knowledge and understanding and engaged in relentless questioning. As he wrote: "Now my great plan, which was conceived of old, ... is to let nothing be willfully left unexamined. Nothing is to be holy ground consecrated to Stationary Faith, whether positive or negative. All fallow land is to be ploughed up and a regular system of rotation followed. ... Never hide anything, be it weed or no, nor seem to wish it hidden." 

Incuriosity and the resultant lack of knowledge is something that is far too prevalent and far too often proudly worn as a badge of honour by many of the analog anachronists and digital dream-chasers who partake in our pursuit of accurate sound.

Once Maxwell published "A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field" (1865), our understanding of electricity and magnetism changed. Albert Einstein, whose work relied on the discoveries made by Maxwell, said "One scientific epoch ended and another began with James Clerk Maxwell". In addition to his numerous contribution to many fields of physics and being the effective founder of the discipline of electrical engineering, Maxwell also has the distinction of displaying to the world the first colour photograph. Maxwell’s most important discovery unifies electromagnetism and optics and forms the bedrock upon which quantum theory and relativity rest; it underpins our best current understanding of how the Universe works. But for our purposes, it led to the invention of magnetic record and playback systems.

The early decades of the 20th Century were good times for folks applying the knowledge uncovered by Maxwell, apart from that pesky li'l detail we call WWI happening somewhere in between. We see the first condenser microphone at Western Electric (Wente, 1916), the first ribbon microphone (Olson, 1923), and the first commercially available electrical phono pickups (1925). It took an understanding of electricity, mechanics, physics and mathematics to design a viable transducer for these use cases. However, the most influential discoveries in the field of audio reproduction were the first audio power amplifier (de Forest, 1912) and the electrodynamic speaker (1925). We have now entered the age of electric amplification, giving rise to cinema audio and…yes! Electric Guitars!

Kellogg (AT&T) and Rice (General Electric) patented the first loudspeaker that was able to create a relatively accurate sound and had enough of a dynamic range to improve upon the mechanical horn loudspeakers. Their first commercial product was the RCA Radiola Loudspeaker #104 that sold in 1926 for $250, and by the 1930s were able to boost the frequency response and the sound pressure level. Their first prototype from 1921 doesn't look that different from some of the exotic products pushed by the peddlars in Stereophile.

RCA Radiola #104 - electrodynamic cone loudspeaker.

That's pretty much it as far as the principles of modern vinyl playback go, with a few more pieces to overcome the limitations of a purely mechanical system. The process is still cut a groove to record, trace a groove to play back but now involves electromechanical transducers at either end of the recording chain (the microphone and the cutting stylus) and at either end of the playback chain (magnetic phono pickup and amplified electrodynamic speaker). We are looking at technologies that have now overcome the problem of severe volume limitations when we are limited to purely mechanical transducers.

Western Electric 16A horn. Introduced 1929.

The workings at the heart of loudspeakers have remained the same (physics works!) while the design† of the components making up the various parts of the loudspeaker have evolved with our knowledge. Vintage Western Electric horns from the 1930s and their accompanying tube amplifiers are highly sought after in the Japanese market, and it is not uncommon to see the occasional Altec Lansing VOTT (from 1945 onward) speaker setup in a man-cave or, thanks to an accommodating partner, even in a living room. These horns are loud (owing to their high sensitivity) and proud (in that they are not exactly shrinking violets in a domestic environment). However, there are still numerous unavoidable problems in the audio reproduction chain because we are still dealing with the physical limitations of the medium.

† "Design isn’t how it looks. Design is how it works!" — Steve Jobs, New York Times (2003)

 

Magnets! Wiry and reel good

In 1898, Poulsen invented the technology of wire recording wherein a wire is pulled rapidly across a recording head. Essentially, instead of the electromagnetic analogue of the audio signal driving the movement of a mechanical device to etch grooves on a surface, we now apply an electric signal to the recording head and thus magnetize points on the rapidly pulled wire (electric fields and magnetic fields being inseparable). The magnetization corresponds to the intensity and polarity of the electrical signal in the recording head and is, therefore, an analogue of the audio signal. Playback involved drawing the wire past the playback head, which has no electric signal supplied to it. The magnetic field presented by the wire is converted to an electric signal by the playback head which is then amplified to drive the speaker.

Poulsen & his wire recorder.

These telegraphones, as they were known, were used for telephone recording, dictation, radio and home entertainment. The advantage of magnetic recording was that the wire could be reused for new recordings, unlike phonograph records, and allowed for longer uninterrupted playtimes. It was used extensively post-WWII years with successive refinements in design, with the ease of miniaturization due to the thin recording medium making it useful as a covert recording device.

1927 (Fritz Pfleumer) saw the development of magnetic tape recording and playback based on Poulsen's wire recording technique. The principle of recoding and playback is the same as that for wire recording; instead of a steel wire, we have a tape consisting of a ribbon of polymeric film that is coated with a thin magnetizable coating (e.g. iron oxide). The analogue of the audio signal is usually recorded in tracks that are parallel to the length of the tape. This process eliminates two stages involving electromechanical transducers (the stylii cutting and tracing record groove), and adds in their place two stages making use of electromagnetic transducers (the heads "writing" and "reading" the magnetic the tape). Magnetic tape recording changed sound reproduction permanently. Tape recording had an indelible impact on radio broadcasting because we now, rather than being limited to live radio broadcasts, had the ability to record something and play it back (even repeatedly), at a later time.

The storage and playback of magnetic tape however comes with its own set of problems that need addressing, the most important one being the degradation over time. We have to consider degradation of the binder that attaches the pigment (the magnetic particles) to the tap along with the coercivity of the pigment.

The storage media that come to the minds of most people when they think about analogue audio are vinyl records and tape. Analog music reproduction systems have improved with the discovery of better designs, new materials and manufacturing processes that allow for tighter mechanical tolerances. To understand the limitations of the system, we have to take a peek at the audio chain and see what obstacles the Universe has in store for us.

 

…and then there was light

I hope you’ve found this trip through history somewhat entertaining and enlightening (pardon the pun).

More to come...

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Thanks T.S. for the walk down the annals of science and its intersection with audio hardware history!

I want to highlight T.S.'s comment about how audiophile reviewers and publications have lost their curiosity about the products they review and so often just take at face value what they've been told, then basically apply that to reporting on what they supposedly "heard", confirming the claims of the manufacturer as if fact without independent verification. Sadly, it looks like most audio reviewers these days do not have the capacity to do their own measurements or lack the discipline to try blinded listening comparisons.

This is the start of a series from T.S.'s work, so I'm looking forward to his installments and development of ideas based on these "hi-fi audio foundations" in the weeks ahead!

Hope you're all enjoying the music, audiophile friends.

Greetings from Cappadocia, Turkey (with the Sony α6700 camera 🙂).

Ancient Uçhisar stone village at sunset.

Early sunrise balloon ride into Göreme.

As much as we might love our music hobby and all the expensive things we can buy, it is of course but one of a multitude of things to be interested in. Don't forget the world of other experiences to be had with loved ones and friends! 😉