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104-509: The Linn Sondek LP12 (often shortened to Sondek or LP12 ) is a transcription turntable produced by Glasgow -based Linn Products , manufacturers of hi-fi, home theatre , and multi-room audio systems. Its name is derived from the 12" vinyl LP (long play gramophone record ). Hi-Fi Choice reviewers voted the LP12 "the most important hi-fi component ever sold in the UK" and The Absolute Sound ranked it

208-515: A "control box", DC motor and power supply which, according to Linn, offers more accurate speed control, and reduced vibration and resonance. This is achieved by using on-board speed management system with automatic calibration, and use of a new motor with low magnetic field and electrical noise, located within a machined housing. It can be used to power the Urika phono amplifier or the Linn phonostage mounted inside

312-419: A "cue lever", a device that mechanically lowers the tonearm on to the record. It enables the user to locate an individual track more easily, to pause a record, and to avoid the risk of scratching the record, which may require practice to avoid when lowering the tonearm manually. Early developments in linear turntables were from Rek-O-Kut (portable lathe/phonograph) and Ortho-Sonic in the 1950s, and Acoustical in

416-469: A Graphophone and my mother was a phonograph." Most of the disc machines designed at the Volta Lab had their disc mounted on vertical turntables. The explanation is that in the early experiments, the turntable, with disc, was mounted on the shop lathe, along with the recording and reproducing heads. Later, when the complete models were built, most of them featured vertical turntables. One interesting exception

520-519: A big improvement to the sound quality of the LP12. The upgrade kit for existing LP12 is supplied with an inner platter, new springs, grommets and lock nuts. Phonograph A phonograph , later called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910), and since the 1940s a record player , or more recently a turntable , is a device for the mechanical and analogue reproduction of sound . The sound vibration waveforms are recorded as corresponding physical deviations of

624-477: A definite method for accomplishing the reproduction. On April 30, 1877, he deposited a sealed envelope containing a summary of his ideas with the French Academy of Sciences , a standard procedure used by scientists and inventors to establish priority of conception of unpublished ideas in the event of any later dispute. An account of his invention was published on October 10, 1877, by which date Cros had devised

728-400: A device that could replicate the function of the human ear. Scott coated a plate of glass with a thin layer of lampblack . He then took an acoustic trumpet, and at its tapered end affixed a thin membrane that served as the analog to the eardrum . At the center of that membrane, he attached a rigid boar's bristle approximately a centimetre long, placed so that it just grazed the lampblack. As

832-529: A different machine that played nonrecordable discs (although Edison's original Phonograph patent included the use of discs. ) 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 . The "phonograph" was first demonstrated in Australia on 14 June 1878 to

936-411: A helical or spiral groove engraved, etched, incised, or impressed into the surface of a rotating cylinder or disc, called a record . To recreate the sound, the surface is similarly rotated while a playback stylus traces the groove and is therefore vibrated by it, faintly reproducing the recorded sound. In early acoustic phonographs, the stylus vibrated a diaphragm that produced sound waves coupled to

1040-490: A high quality cartridge and that the surfaces are clean. 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. Magnetic cartridge The cartridge contains

1144-652: A human voice was conducted on April 9, 1860, when Scott recorded someone singing the song " Au Clair de la Lune " ("By the Light of the Moon") on the device. However, the device was not designed to play back sounds, as Scott intended for people to read back the tracings, which he called phonautograms. This was not the first time someone had used a device to create direct tracings of the vibrations of sound-producing objects, as tuning forks had been used in this way by English physicist Thomas Young in 1807. By late 1857, with support from

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1248-680: A meeting of the Royal Society of Victoria by the Society's Honorary Secretary, Alex Sutherland who published "The Sounds of the Consonants, as Indicated by the Phonograph" in the Society's journal in November that year. On 8 August 1878 the phonograph was publicly demonstrated at the Society's annual conversazione , along with a range of other new inventions, including the microphone . The phonautograph

1352-518: A more direct procedure: the recording stylus could scribe its tracing through a thin coating of acid-resistant material on a metal surface and the surface could then be etched in an acid bath, producing the desired groove without the complication of an intermediate photographic procedure. The author of this article called the device a phonographe , but Cros himself favored the word paleophone , sometimes rendered in French as voix du passé ('voice of

1456-416: A moving magnet cartridge, the stylus cantilever carries a tiny permanent magnet , which is positioned between two sets of fixed coils (in a stereophonic cartridge), forming a tiny electromagnetic generator. As the magnet vibrates in response to the stylus following the record groove, it induces a tiny current in the coils. Because the magnet is small and has little mass, and is not coupled mechanically to

1560-522: A much lesser extent, power supplies. Although Linn constantly espouses the virtues of a "pure" Linn system, and there is much talked about synergies with other Linn components, the LP12 user has the option of a number of third party options. Before the existence of Linn-branded tonearms, Linn was the importer for Grace, and used their 707 tonearm. The Sumiko tonearm and later the Mission 774 arm were also popular choices and much spoken of. The first Linn-badged arm,

1664-453: A platform for mounting third party tonearms, had a basic power supply arrangements, and would only revolve at 33⅓ rpm. Those users requiring a 45 rpm option would have to purchase a special adaptor to increase the diameter of the motor pulley and platter speed accordingly. Throughout the years, there have been many changes resulting from development efforts to improve this table. These changes include modifications to components such as

1768-412: A removable or permanently mounted stylus , the tip - usually a gemstone, such as diamond or sapphire - of which makes physical contact with the record's groove. In popular usage and in disc jockey jargon , the stylus, and sometimes the entire cartridge, is often called the needle. As the stylus tracks the serrated groove, it vibrates a cantilever on which is mounted a permanent magnet which moves between

1872-399: A role in the development of the gramophone , whose inventor, Emile Berliner, worked with the phonautograph in the course of developing his own device. Charles Cros , a French poet and amateur scientist, is the first person known to have made the conceptual leap from recording sound as a traced line to the theoretical possibility of reproducing the sound from the tracing and then to devising

1976-575: A separate axis. Moving magnet cartridges are more commonly found at the 'lower-end' of the market, while the 'higher-end' tends to be dominated by moving coil designs. The debate as to whether MM or MC designs can ultimately produce the better sound is often heated and subjective. The distinction between the two is often blurred by cost and design considerations - e.g. can an MC cartridge requiring another step-up amplification outperform well made MM cartridges that need simpler front-end stages? MM cartridges generally have output of 3-6 mV, compatible with

2080-512: A separate pre-phono amplification stage before input to an MC or MM preamplifier stage. The Decca phono cartridges were a unique design, with fixed magnets and coils. The stylus shaft was composed of the diamond tip, a short piece of soft iron, and an L-shaped cantilever made of non-magnetic steel. Since the iron was placed very close to the tip (within 1 mm), the motions of the tip could be tracked very accurately. Decca engineers called this "positive scanning". Vertical and lateral compliance

2184-437: A similar machine. On the early phonograph's reproductive capabilities he wrote in retrospect: "It sounded to my ear like someone singing about half a mile away, or talking at the other end of a big hall; but the effect was rather pleasant, save for a peculiar nasal quality wholly due to the mechanism, although there was little of the scratching that later was a prominent feature of the flat disc. Recording for that primitive machine

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2288-402: A slightly earlier one that is believed to preserve the voice of U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes , but as of May 2014 they have not yet been scanned. These antique tinfoil recordings, which have typically been stored folded, are too fragile to be played back with a stylus without seriously damaging them. Edison's 1877 tinfoil recording of Mary Had a Little Lamb , not preserved, has been called

2392-422: A small, simple machine about which 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..." The music critic Herman Klein attended an early demonstration (1881–82) of

2496-480: A stylus with a small diamond or sapphire tip that runs in the record groove. The stylus eventually becomes worn by contact with the groove, and it is usually replaceable. Styli are classified as spherical or elliptical, although the tip is actually shaped as a half-sphere or a half- ellipsoid . Spherical styli are generally more robust than other types, but do not follow the groove as accurately, giving diminished high frequency response. Elliptical styli usually track

2600-538: A subjectively better performance. The MMC design was invented and patented by Bang & Olufsen . The MMC cartridge is a variation of the Moving Iron (MI) design. Magnets and coils are stationary while a micro cross moves with the stylus, thereby varying the distances between the arms of the cross and the magnets. It is claimed that the MMC design allows for superior channel separation , since each channel's movements appear on

2704-428: A zigzag groove around the record. In the 1890s, Emile Berliner initiated the transition from phonograph cylinders to flat discs with a spiral groove running from the periphery to near the centre, coining the term gramophone for disc record players, which is predominantly used in many languages. Later improvements through the years included modifications to the turntable and its drive system, stylus, pickup system, and

2808-412: Is achieved. It also allows selection of the appropriate oscillator, the output of which is fed into a synchronous counter to produce a 50 Hz or 67.5 Hz square wave for 33⅓ rpm and 45 rpm respectively. The square wave is filtered into a clean sine wave to minimise motor vibration, and amplified to 120 V to feed the turntable. The Cirkus upgrade ( Introduced: 1993 ) The Cirkus kit aims to provide

2912-574: Is available for Ekos SE & Ekos tonearms only. Although Keel upgrade is possible for Akito tonearm but not recommended due to collar limitation. Trampolin Mark 2 ( Introduced: 2006 ) The original Trampolin baseboard was made from MDF , rather than masonite , incorporating damping feet which were optimised for LP12 to be placed on heavy furniture. The Trampolin II is made from aluminium. Radikal ( Introduced: 2009 ) The 'Radikal' system, priced at £2,500, comprises

3016-409: Is especially important for playback of quadraphonic recordings. 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. However, this "no wear" advantage is debatable, since vinyl records have been tested to withstand even 1200 plays with no significant audio degradation, provided that it is played with

3120-584: Is often identified as the oldest surviving playable sound recording, although the evidence advanced for its early date is controversial. Wax 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 phonautograph recording of Au clair de la lune recorded on April 9, 1860. The 1860 phonautogram had not until then been played, as it

3224-557: Is only a few hundred microvolts, and thus more easily swamped by noise, induced hum, etc. Thus it is more challenging to design a preamplifier with the extremely low noise inputs needed for moving-coil cartridge, therefore a "step up transformer" is sometimes used instead. However, there are available many "high output" moving coil cartridges that have output levels similar to MM cartridges. Moving coil cartridges are extremely small precision instruments and are therefore generally expensive, but are frequently preferred by audiophiles due to

Linn Sondek LP12 - Misplaced Pages Continue

3328-560: The Armageddon power supply for the LP12, based on its own Hi-Cap power supply unit. Linn were distributors for Grace and Supex Corporation at the time, and thus the Grace G-707 tone arm and Supex SD900 and SD1000 phono cartridges were also frequently partners for the deck. Early Linn-branded cartridges, such as the Asak and Asaka, and the three-point mounted Troika (now discontinued, and replaced by

3432-426: The Royal Society of Victoria , writing "There was a large attendance of ladies and gentlemen, who appeared greatly interested in the various scientific instruments exhibited. Among these the most interesting, perhaps, was the trial made by Mr. Sutherland with the phonograph, which was most amusing. Several trials were made, and were all more or less successful. 'Rule Britannia' was distinctly repeated, but great laughter

3536-525: The Thorens TD150, both in turn based on the Acoustic Research XA turntable that was launched in 1961. The XA was created by renowned audio pioneer Edgar Villchur . The thinking at the time was that the most important component of a high-end audio system is the loudspeakers. Linn presented an important challenge to that by claiming that the source (i.e. the turntable) was the most important part of

3640-507: The Valhalla power supply board. The Lingo generates two 50 Hz sinusoidal waveforms which it amplifies and sends to the turntable motor – the Valhalla generates a single sine wave. Using crystal oscillators, one for 33⅓ rpm and one for 45 rpm, the two speeds are made possible. When depressed, the switch on the turntable supplies the start-up torque with which the deck's desired rotation speed

3744-457: The 1940s as record players or turntables, the movements of the stylus are transformed into an electrical signal by a transducer . This signal is then converted back into sound through an amplifier and one or more loudspeakers . The term "phonograph", meaning "sound writing", originates from the Greek words φωνή (phonē, meaning 'sound' or 'voice') and γραφή (graphē, meaning 'writing'). Similarly,

3848-432: The 1950s, a new generation of small, lightweight, highly compliant magnetic cartridges appeared and quickly found favor among high-fidelity enthusiasts because of their audibly superior performance. The high compliance also reduced record wear. They soon became standard in all but the cheapest component audio systems and are the most common type of pickup cartridge in use today. The cartridge consists of several components:

3952-422: The 1956 season had ended, Philco decided to discontinue both models, for transistors were too expensive compared to vacuum tubes, but by 1961 a $ 49.95 ($ 509.29 in 2023) portable, battery-powered radio-phonograph with seven transistors was available. There are presently three main phonograph designs: belt-drive , direct-drive , and idler-wheel . In a belt-drive turntable the motor is located off-center from

4056-827: The 1970s through to the 1980s. David Thompson, writing in Record Collector News , said that the LP12 enjoyed a "stranglehold on the qualities of LP reproduction for many years". Its closest competitors were probably the Roksan Xerxes , the Well Tempered Table, several Thorens decks (TD125/126, TD160, TD2001/3001). the Michell GyroDec, the Dunlop Systemdek, the Logic DM-101 and the Pink Triangle PT1. However,

4160-516: The 78-rpm format was completely phased out. (Shellac records were heavier and more brittle.) 33s and 45s were, however, made exclusively of vinyl, with the exception of some 45s manufactured out of polystyrene . In 1955, Philco developed and produced the world's first all- transistor phonograph models TPA-1 and TPA-2, which were announced in the June 28, 1955 edition of The Wall Street Journal . Philco started to sell these all-transistor phonographs in

4264-509: The French Academy of Sciences, claiming due scientific credit for priority of conception. Throughout the first decade (1890–1900) of commercial production of the earliest crude disc records, the direct acid-etch method first invented by Cros was used to create the metal master discs, but Cros was not around to claim any credit or to witness the humble beginnings of the eventually rich phonographic library he had foreseen. He had died in 1888 at

Linn Sondek LP12 - Misplaced Pages Continue

4368-581: The Graphophone, U.S. patent 506,348 , was developed by Tainter in 1893 to compete with nickel-in-the-slot entertainment phonograph U.S. patent 428,750 demonstrated in 1889 by Louis T. Glass, manager of the Pacific Phonograph Company. The work of the Volta Associates laid the foundation for the successful use of dictating machines in business, because their wax recording process

4472-876: The Ittok LVII, was in production 1979–93. A 3-point-mounted arm with a large-bore arm tube designed and manufactured in Japan. It was gradually superseded by the Ekos. A budget arm, the Basik LVX, was produced from 1983 to 1986, and replaced by the Akito. For today's demanding audiophile, LP12 is commonly partnered with the Linn Ekos SE tonearm; the unipivot ARO tonearm from Naim Audio is also very popular. External power options include Linn's own top-of-the-line Radikal power supply featuring an auto-calibrating speed management system; Naim Audio manufactures

4576-656: The Keel is an application of its "close-tolerance aluminium machining", first seen in the ingot casing of the Sondek CD12 CD player. The Keel, along with the Ekos SE tonearm and Trampolin Mk.2 were three Special Edition upgrades for the turntable's 33⅓ birthday, 33⅓ being the standard rotational speed when playing LPs. Keel offers integrated armboard and tonearm collar and with its varying 'pocket' depths for consistent centre of gravity. Keel upgrade

4680-609: The Krystal, which is built by Goldring), were produced by Supex for Linn. Linn's later subcontracted cartridge manufacture to Lyra Corporation in Japan. Paul Messenger, writing in Stereophile , credits Linn's endorsement and importation of the Supex brand for the resurgence of audiophile interest in moving coil cartridges. Naim Audio manufactured the Linn-branded head amplifier (phono amplifier),

4784-556: The LP12 outsold them all in the United Kingdom. In fact, TNT asserts that "most foreign manufacturers of hi-end turntables didn't even bother to import" because they were faced with an uphill fight. Critics and reviewers would all too frequently conclude of any imported competitor that "an LP12 is better and you could buy two Linn's [ sic ] for that money". The LP12 has acquired such cult status amongst audiophile turntables that many seek to knock it off its pedestal. Although

4888-425: The LP12 with greater stability and ensure the bearing sits perfectly true to the chassis, through a redesigned bearing and stronger sub-chassis assembly. The bearing housing height has been increased to improve lubrication; its mounting flange thickness has been substantially increased; the geometry of the top and bottom liners in the bearing housing has been altered to further reduce incidence of rocking. Thickness of

4992-735: The Linnk. Linn today manufacturers the Uphorik ("euphoric"), and Urika ("eureka") phono pre-amplifier that can be powered by the Radikal. Urika II connects the LP 12 with Linn's proprietary digital Exakt technology, and handles most of the RIAA compensation and amplification in the digital domain. Linn capitalised on the success of the Sondek LP12 by introducing the more affordable Basik and Axis turntables, complementary tonearms for

5096-635: The MM inputs of preamplifiers. MC cartridges come in two varieties, low output (usually < 1.0 mV) and high output (more than 1.5 mV); there are also some with very low output (0.3 mV or less). High output MC cartridges are a concession to compatibility with older preamp MM inputs; low output MC cartridges may generate excessive noise or have insufficient preamp gain to drive amplifiers to their rated output if used on MM inputs. Most solid state preamplifiers have separate high gain, low noise MC inputs to accommodate these. Cartridges with very low output need

5200-575: The Société d'encouragement pour l'industrie nationale, Scott's phonautograph was recording sounds with sufficient precision to be adopted by the scientific community, paving the way for the nascent science of acoustics. The device's true significance in the history of recorded sound was not fully realized prior to March 2008, when it was discovered and resurrected in a Paris patent office by First Sounds, an informal collaborative of American audio historians, recording engineers, and sound archivists founded to make

5304-452: The Sondek and cartridges at different price points. The LP12 is popular with many audiophiles around the world for its excellent ability to play music with "pace, rhythm and timing". It is sometimes used by hi-fi reviewers as a reference turntable. It's impossible to imagine the high-end industry without the LP12". It was at its most popular in the golden age of vinyl playback, principally

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5408-423: The Volta Associates were sure that they had a number of practical inventions, they filed patent applications and began to seek out investors. The Volta Graphophone Company of Alexandria, Virginia, was created on January 6, 1886, and incorporated on February 3, 1886. It was formed to control the patents and to handle the commercial development of their sound recording and reproduction inventions, one of which became

5512-557: The age of 45. Thomas 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 . His first experiments were with waxed paper. He announced his invention of the first phonograph , a device for recording and replaying sound, on November 21, 1877 (early reports appear in Scientific American and several newspapers in

5616-523: The beginning of November, and an even earlier announcement of Edison working on a "talking-machine" can be found in the Chicago Daily Tribune on May 9 ), 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

5720-433: The comparatively lightweight piezoelectric crystal pickup type,.however the use of short-lived disposable metal needles remained standard. During the years immediately following World War II, as old record players with very heavy pickups were replaced, precision-ground and long-lasting stylus tips made of sapphire or the exotic hard metal osmium were increasingly popular. However, records made for home use were still made of

5824-415: The crystal and ceramic pickups, the magnetic cartridge usually gives improved playback fidelity and reduced record wear by tracking the groove with lighter pressure. Magnetic cartridges use lower tracking forces and thus reduce the potential for groove damage. They also have a lower output voltage than a crystal or ceramic pickup, in the range of only a few millivolts, thus requiring greater amplification. In

5928-426: The cylinder was rotated and slowly progressed along its axis , the airborne sound vibrated a diaphragm connected to a stylus that indented the foil into the cylinder's groove, thereby recording the vibrations as "hill-and-dale" variations of the depth of the indentation. By 1890, record manufacturers had begun using a rudimentary duplication process to mass-produce their product. While the live performers recorded

6032-521: The design has not been fundamentally revisited, there have been improvements to the turntable's design since its launch using advances in material science, over 40 years ago. It remains possible to buy a Sondek LP12 in a configuration not dissimilar to one made in 1973. In 2004, Stereophile said it was "a classic, a revolutionary, an iconoclast, a survivor." In 2011, ranking the LP12 the second "Most Significant Turntables of All Time" for The Absolute Sound , Robert Harley said: "It’s impossible to imagine

6136-560: The earliest sound recordings available to the public. The phonautograms were then digitally converted by scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, who were able to play back the recorded sounds, something Scott had never conceived of. Prior to this point, the earliest known record of a human voice was thought to be an 1877 phonograph recording by Thomas Edison . The phonautograph would play

6240-502: The earliest verified recordings by the famous that have survived to the present. Alexander Graham Bell and his two associates took Edison's tinfoil phonograph and modified it considerably to make it reproduce sound from wax instead of tinfoil. They began their work at Bell's Volta Laboratory in Washington, D. C., in 1879, and continued until they were granted basic patents in 1886 for recording in wax. Although Edison had invented

6344-485: The early 1960s. These were eclipsed by more successful implementations of the concept from the late 1960s through the early 1980s. The pickup or cartridge is a transducer that converts mechanical vibrations from a stylus into an electrical signal. The electrical signal is amplified and converted into sound by one or more loudspeakers . Crystal and ceramic pickups that use the piezoelectric effect have largely been replaced by magnetic cartridges . The pickup includes

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6448-494: The fall of 1955, for the price of $ 59.95. The October 1955 issue of Radio & Television News magazine (page 41), had a full page detailed article on Philco's new consumer product. The all-transistor portable phonograph TPA-1 and TPA-2 models played only 45rpm records and used four 1.5 volt "D" batteries for their power supply. The "TPA" stands for "Transistor Phonograph Amplifier". Their circuitry used three Philco germanium PNP alloy-fused junction audio frequency transistors. After

6552-555: The first Dictaphone . After the Volta Associates gave several demonstrations in the City of Washington, businessmen from Philadelphia created the American Graphophone Company on March 28, 1887, in order to produce and sell the machines for the budding phonograph marketplace. The Volta Graphophone Company then merged with American Graphophone, which itself later evolved into Columbia Records . A coin-operated version of

6656-545: The first instance of recorded verse . On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the phonograph, Edison recounted reciting Mary Had a Little Lamb to test his first machine. The 1927 event was filmed by an early sound-on-film newsreel camera, and an audio clip from that film's soundtrack is sometimes mistakenly presented as the original 1877 recording. Wax cylinder recordings made by 19th-century media legends such as P. T. Barnum and Shakespearean actor Edwin Booth are amongst

6760-414: The generator (as in a ceramic cartridge), a properly adjusted stylus follows the groove more faithfully while requiring less tracking force (the downward pressure on the stylus). Moving iron and induced magnet types (ADC being a well-known example) have a moving piece of iron or other ferrous alloy coupled to the cantilever (instead of a magnet), while a permanent, bigger magnet is over the coils, providing

6864-407: The glass plate was slid horizontally in a well formed groove at a speed of one meter per second, a person would speak into the trumpet, causing the membrane to vibrate and the stylus to trace figures that were scratched into the lampblack. On March 25, 1857, Scott received the French patent #17,897/31,470 for his device, which he called a phonautograph. The earliest known surviving recorded sound of

6968-410: The groove more accurately, with increased high frequency response and less distortion. For DJ use, the relative robustness of spherical styli make them generally preferred for back-cuing and scratching. There are a number of derivations of the basic elliptical type, including the shibata or fine line stylus, which can more accurately reproduce high frequency information contained in the record groove. This

7072-476: The hard rubber used to make the discs with a shellac compound. Berliner's early records had poor sound quality, however. Work by Eldridge R. Johnson eventually improved the sound fidelity to a point where it was as good as the cylinder. In the 1930s, vinyl (originally known as vinylite) was introduced as a record material for radio transcription discs , and for radio commercials. At that time, virtually no discs for home use were made from this material. Vinyl

7176-503: The high-end industry without the LP12". Changes thereto are elaborated below. related serial numbers in square brackets ( in chronological order ) Lingo Power Supply ( Introduced: 1990 ) Linn describes the LINGO as a "high precision, direct coupled, power supply designed to sit alongside the LP12 turntable". Prior to the Lingo, speed accuracy for 33 rpm (and 45 rpm) rotation was determined by

7280-434: The magnetic fields of sets of electromagnetic coils in the cartridge (or vice versa: the coils are mounted on the cantilever, and the magnets are in the cartridge). The shifting magnetic fields generate an electrical current in the coils. The electrical signal generated by the cartridge can be amplified and then converted into sound by a loudspeaker . The first commercially successful type of electrical phonograph pickup

7384-400: 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,

7488-566: The matrixes to stamp disc can be shipped to other printing plants for a global distribution of recordings; cylinders could not be stamped until 1901–1902, when the gold moulding process was introduced by Edison. Through experimentation, in 1892 Berliner began commercial production of his disc records and "gramophones". His " phonograph record " was the first disc record to be offered to the public. They were five inches (13 cm) in diameter and recorded on one side only. Seven-inch (17.5 cm) records followed in 1895. Also in 1895 Berliner replaced

7592-492: The medium's first major African-American star George Washington Johnson was obliged to perform his " The Laughing Song " (or the separate "The Whistling Coon") up to 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.) Lambert 's lead cylinder recording for an experimental talking clock

7696-458: The name by competing disc record manufacturers was rigorously challenged in court. However, in 1910, an English court decision ruled that the term had become generic; In American English , "phonograph", properly specific to machines made by Edison, was sometimes used in a generic sense as early as the 1890s to include cylinder-playing machines made by others. But it was then considered strictly incorrect to apply it to Emile Berliner 's Gramophone,

7800-444: The necessary magnetic flux. The MC design is again a tiny electromagnetic generator, but (unlike an MM design) with the magnet and coils reversed: the coils are attached to the cantilever, and move within the field of a permanent magnet. The coils are tiny and made from very fine wire. Since the number of windings that can be supported in such an armature is small, the output voltage level is correspondingly small. The resulting signal

7904-405: The need to remove and replace the entire cartridge when the stylus has become worn. Coupled to the tonearm, the cartridge body's function is to give the moving parts a stationary platform so that they can track the groove with precision. In high-fidelity systems, crystal and ceramic pickups have been replaced by the magnetic cartridge, using either a moving magnet or a moving coil. Compared to

8008-467: The new styli came installed in smaller, lighter piezoelectric crystal or ceramic cartridges of the general type found in inexpensive self-contained portable record players throughout the phonographic era. Ceramic cartridges continue to be used in most of the "retro" and compact record players currently being made, in part because they are comparatively robust and resistant to damage from careless handling, but mostly because they are inexpensive. However, during

8112-457: The next five years developing the New York City electric light and power system. Meanwhile, Bell, a scientist and experimenter at heart, was looking for new worlds to conquer after having patented the telephone . According to Sumner Tainter , it was through Gardiner Green Hubbard that Bell took up the phonograph challenge. Bell had married Hubbard's daughter Mabel in 1879 while Hubbard

8216-435: The open air through a flaring horn , or directly to the listener's ears through stethoscope -type earphones. The phonograph was invented in 1877 by Thomas Edison ; its use would rise the following year. Alexander Graham Bell 's Volta Laboratory made several improvements in the 1880s and introduced the graphophone , including the use of wax-coated cardboard cylinders and a cutting stylus that moved from side to side in

8320-517: The past'). Cros was a poet of meager means, not in a position to pay a machinist to build a working model, and largely content to bequeath his ideas to the public domain free of charge and let others reduce them to practice, but after the earliest reports of Edison's presumably independent invention crossed the Atlantic he had his sealed letter of April 30 opened and read at the December 3, 1877 meeting of

8424-496: The phonograph in 1877, the fame bestowed on him for this invention was not due to its efficiency. Recording with his tinfoil phonograph was too difficult to be practical, as the tinfoil tore easily, and even when the stylus was properly adjusted, its reproduction of sound was distorted, and good for only a few playbacks; nevertheless Edison had discovered the idea of sound recording . However immediately after his discovery he did not improve it, allegedly because of an agreement to spend

8528-476: The platter, either underneath it or entirely outside of it, and is connected to the platter or counter-platter by a drive belt made from elastomeric material. The direct-drive turntable was invented by Shuichi Obata, an engineer at Matsushita (now Panasonic). In 1969, Matsushita released it as the Technics SP-10, the first direct-drive turntable on the market. The most influential direct-drive turntable

8632-548: The popularity of cassettes and the rise of the compact disc . However, records have undergone a revival since the late 2000s . This resurgence has much to do with vinyl records' sparing use of audio processing, resulting in a more natural sound on high-quality replay equipment, compared to many digital releases that are highly processed for portable players in high-noise environmental conditions. However, unlike "plug-and-play" digital audio, vinyl record players have user-serviceable parts, which require attention to tonearm alignment and

8736-438: The same abrasive shellac compound formulated to rapidly wear down the points of steel needles to fit the groove. The introduction of the 33 1 ⁄ 3  rpm record LP "album" in 1948 and the 45 rpm record " single " in 1949 prompted consumers to upgrade to a new multi-speed record player with the required smaller-tipped "microgroove" stylus. Sapphire and diamond then became the standard stylus tip materials. At first,

8840-525: The second most significant turntable of all time in 2011. Linn named their flagship CD player the Sondek CD12. The Sondek LP12 turntable, introduced in 1972, uses a suspended sub-chassis design and a patented tightly toleranced single-point bearing . The LP12 has evolved since its introduction, but its basic suspended sub-chassis design has remained. The design was identical to the Ariston RD11 and similar to

8944-415: The sound and equalization systems. The disc phonograph record was the dominant commercial audio distribution format throughout most of the 20th century, and phonographs became the first example of home audio that people owned and used at their residences. In the 1960s, the use of 8-track cartridges and cassette tapes were introduced as alternatives. By 1987, phonograph use had declined sharply due to

9048-639: The stylus, cantilever, magnets, coils and body. The stylus is the part that, when in use, is the interface with the record surface and tracks the modulations in the groove. It is typically made of a small polished diamond or other industrial gemstone. The cantilever supports the stylus, and transmits the vibrations from it to the coil/magnet assembly. The former is typically made of boron or aluminium, and previously beryllium although some manufacturers market models with exotic gemstone cantilevers. Most models of moving magnet cartridges have detachable stylus–cantilever sub-assemblies that allow for their replacement without

9152-535: The stylus, which thus described a spiral, recording 150 grooves to the inch. The basic distinction between the Edison's first phonograph patent and the Bell and Tainter patent of 1886 was the method of recording. Edison's method was to indent the sound waves on a piece of tin foil, while Bell and Tainter's invention called for cutting, or "engraving", the sound waves into a wax record with a sharp recording stylus. In 1885, when

9256-502: The sub-chassis was doubled to improve rigidity, reduce flexing and improve control of the relationship between turntable platter and arm. With the new bearing comes a new sub-platter. Keel ( Introduced: 2006 ) The Keel upgrade to the LP12 is a replacement subchassis, machined from solid aluminium. It builds on the Cirkus upgrade (now fitted as standard to new LP12s) but is not included as standard in 'regular' production LP12s. Linn claims that

9360-503: The subplatter and bearing, rubber feet, baseboard, armboard, suspension springs and grommets and reinforced plinth. A much improved on-board PSU, the Valhalla, was marketed as an upgrade option. Later, external power supplies became de rigueur firstly with the introduction of the Linn Lingo, and later the Radikal. Like most turntable units, many options to partner the LP12 are available (including Linn's own) for tonearms, cartridges and, to

9464-521: The system. Ivor Tiefenbrun has talked about how Sondek derives from the term “sound deck” to emphasise the revolutionary concept that the turntable, the “deck”, is responsible for the sound quality. Some report the original name was just Sondek without the LP12. Linn didn't invent the turntable, we simply understood that there was more information on an LP record than people were capable of accessing, so we applied our understanding of engineering to extracting it. Ivor Tiefenbrun, 2007 Early versions were

9568-519: The terms "gramophone" and "graphophone" have roots in the Greek words γράμμα (gramma, meaning 'letter') and φωνή (phōnē, meaning 'voice'). In British English , "gramophone" may refer to any sound-reproducing machine that utilizes disc records . These were introduced and popularized in the UK by the Gramophone Company . Initially, "gramophone" was a proprietary trademark of the company, and any use of

9672-445: The turntable. Karousel ( Introduced: 2020 ) The Karousel is a new single point bearing which replaces the Cirkus bearing in all new LP12 turntables. Karousel is also retrofittable to any existing LP12 as an upgrade. According to Linn: 'The substantial lock-nut fastening on the stainless steel housing increases rigidity at the critical point where bearing and sub-chassis come together.' Karousel has been reported by forum users to bring

9776-577: The wear and choice of stylus, the most critical component affecting turntable sound. The terminology used to describe record-playing devices is not uniform across the English-speaking world. In modern contexts, the playback device is often referred to as a "turntable", "record player", or " record changer ". Each of these terms denotes distinct items. When integrated into a DJ setup with a mixer , turntables are colloquially known as "decks". In later versions of electric phonographs, commonly known since

9880-548: Was a comparatively simple matter. I had to keep my mouth about six inches away from the horn and remember not to make my voice too loud if I wanted anything approximating to a clear reproduction; that was all. When it was played over to me and I heard my own voice for the first time, one or two friends who were present said that it sounded rather like mine; others declared that they would never have recognised it. I daresay both opinions were correct." The Argus newspaper from Melbourne, Australia, reported on an 1878 demonstration at

9984-441: Was a horizontal seven inch turntable. The machine, although made in 1886, was a duplicate of one made earlier but taken to Europe by Chichester Bell . Tainter was granted U.S. patent 385,886 on July 10, 1888. The playing arm is rigid, except for a pivoted vertical motion of 90 degrees to allow removal of the record or a return to starting position. While recording or playing, the record not only rotated, but moved laterally under

10088-413: Was caused by the repetition of the convivial song of 'He's a jolly good fellow,' which sounded as if it was being sung by an old man of 80 with a cracked voice." Edison's early phonographs recorded onto a thin sheet of metal, normally tinfoil , which was temporarily wrapped around a helically grooved cylinder mounted on a correspondingly threaded rod supported by plain and threaded bearings . While

10192-423: Was introduced in 1925. Although electromagnetic, its resemblance to later magnetic cartridges is remote: it employed a bulky horseshoe magnet and used the same single-use steel needles which had been standard since the first mechanical transfer disc record players appeared in the 1890s. This early type of magnetic pickup dominated the market well into the 1930s, but by the end of that decade it had been superseded by

10296-601: Was invented on March 25, 1857, by Frenchman Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville , an editor and typographer of manuscripts at a scientific publishing house in Paris. One day while editing Professor Longet's Traité de Physiologie , he happened upon that customer's engraved illustration of the anatomy of the human ear, and conceived of "the imprudent idea of photographing the word." In 1853 or 1854 (Scott cited both years) he began working on "le problème de la parole s'écrivant elle-même" ("the problem of speech writing itself"), aiming to build

10400-589: Was only a transcription of sound waves into graphic form on paper for visual study. Recently developed optical scanning and image processing techniques have given new life to early recordings by making it possible to play unusually delicate or physically unplayable media without physical contact. A recording made on a sheet of tinfoil at an 1878 demonstration of Edison's phonograph in St. Louis, Missouri, has been played back by optical scanning and digital analysis. A few other early tinfoil recordings are known to survive, including

10504-443: Was practical and their machines were durable. But it would take several more years and the renewed efforts of Edison and the further improvements of Emile Berliner and many others, before the recording industry became a major factor in home entertainment . Discs are not inherently better than cylinders at providing audio fidelity. Rather, the advantages of the format are seen in the manufacturing process: discs can be stamped, and

10608-589: Was president of the Edison Speaking Phonograph Co., and his organization, which had purchased the Edison patent, was financially troubled because people did not want to buy a machine that seldom worked well and proved difficult for the average person to operate. The sound vibrations had been indented in the wax that had been applied to the Edison phonograph. The following was the text of one of their recordings: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy. I am

10712-653: Was the Technics SL-1200 , which, following the spread of turntablism in hip hop culture, became the most widely-used turntable in DJ culture for several decades. In some high quality equipment the arm carrying the pickup, known as a tonearm, is manufactured separately from the motor and turntable unit. Companies specialising in the manufacture of tonearms include the English company SME . More sophisticated turntables were (and still are) frequently manufactured so as to incorporate

10816-399: Was used for the popular 78-rpm V-discs issued to US soldiers during World War II . This significantly reduced breakage during transport. The first commercial vinylite record was the set of five 12" discs " Prince Igor " (Asch Records album S-800, dubbed from Soviet masters in 1945). Victor began selling some home-use vinyl 78s in late 1945; but most 78s were made of a shellac compound until

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