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105-515: The Roksan Xerxes transcription turntable (often shortened to Xerxes ) is a record player named after the Persian king Xerxes I and produced by London-based Roksan Audio . Designed by Roksan co-founder, Touraj Moghaddam, the Xerxes is a belt-driven turntable with a solid plinth. Launched in 1985, the sound quality of the product positioned it as a strong competitor against the established industry leader,

210-419: 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

315-469: 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

420-477: 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Academy of Sciences , a standard procedure used by scientists and inventors to establish priority of conception of unpublished ideas in the event of any later dispute.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

525-400: 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

630-529: 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

735-549: A fire door with which he built a prototype. His friend Tufan Hashemi – then an investment analyst – heard the new prototype turntable and wanted one. They agreed to team up to start production; Roksan Audio was formed. The Xerxes, introduced in 1985, secured the advocacy of Roger Macer, a successful independent hi-fi retailer in London who sold the then market leader, the Linn Sondek. Hashemi credits Macer with urging him to start satisfying

840-457: 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 a helical or spiral groove engraved, etched, incised, or impressed into the surface of a rotating cylinder or disc, called a record . To recreate

945-474: 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. SME Limited#Series V SME

1050-652: 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

1155-545: A less committal title to suit its new activities. In December 2016 the company was acquired by Ajay Shirke with a view to preserving the brand's legacy and extending research and development activities, appointing a new CEO and a distributor for the UK market, Padood. In May 2018 the company acquired the rights to the Garrard Transcription Turntable brand as well as Loricraft Audio, the only officially authorised Garrard service agent. Intending to develop

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1260-680: 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

1365-518: 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

1470-466: 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 the wear and choice of stylus, the most critical component affecting turntable sound. The terminology used to describe record-playing devices

1575-525: A more rigid structure for the cartridge. The Series IV arm launched in 1987 was a variation of the Series V for a cheaper price point. It was mechanically and electrically identical to the Series IV with the exception of using lower grade (ABEC 7) bearings than the Series V and due to the omission of the damping trough used in the Series V. The Series 300 arm launched in 1988 was a lower specification arm based on

1680-399: 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

1785-437: 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

1890-402: 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

1995-422: 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

2100-480: 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

2205-648: A three-legged table dedicated to the deck. In 1987 Roksan launched the Shiraz moving coil phono cartridge . In 1989, Roksan launched the budget Radius record player, Tabriz arm and Corus moving magnet cartridge. It was launched in 1985 into already established competition where Linn Sondek LP12 dominated. Other competitors included the Well Tempered Table, the Phonosophie P3, the Michell GyroDec, Pink Triangle ,

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2310-450: A three-point sprung suspension separating the plinth from the sub-chassis, the Xerxes is made up of two boards separated from each other by stiff rubber "Blobs". The top plinth sees mountings for the main bearing and tonearm. A hole is cut out from the top board for the motor assembly to emerge from its fixture on the board below. On the lower board, to which an outer surround is attached, three compliant rubber feet give additional isolation to

2415-671: A weight that hung by a nylon filament. Versions were produced with both fixed and interchangeable headshells; the SME headshell mount (based on an Ortofon design) became the de facto industry standard, and is still widely used today on consumer and especially DJ decks. Audiophile arms today tend to not use the SME mount, but this is not due to other standards replacing the SME but because audiophile arms now tend to not have interchangeable headshells at all in an effort to reduce mass and improve rigidity, though at slight expense of user flexibility. Some cartridges were produced that mounted directly into

2520-494: Is acoustically inert with a significantly reduced resonance signature, optimised effective mass and a wide cartridge balance weight range. The Model 30 was SME's first turntable, launched in 1991. It was their flagship model up until the launch of the Model 60 in 2022. The turntable weighs 42kg (excluding arm, power unit or speed control unit). In subsequent years the 30 MkII, 30/12 and 30 Diamond models were released. The Model 20

2625-401: Is balanced on a stub at the rear of the arm so that its weight is decoupled from the arm and its centre of gravity low. A rider, with a small indentation for the fulcrum, can be moved incrementally along the stub to adjust tracking weight. The pendulum is tuned to 2 Hz, outside the range of warps and vibrations from footfalls. Bias is adjustable by spring and a threaded counterweight. The arm

2730-409: 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

2835-475: 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 the 1940s as record players or turntables,

2940-535: 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

3045-462: Is powered by an outboard power supply designated the XPS. Its basic power supply switchable between 33 and 45 rpm. Throughout the years, there have been many changes which have significantly improved this table. The earliest and most important of these was a new main bearing ( c.  1989 ). Other changes include modifications to components such as the outboard power supply, now in its seventh version, and

3150-507: Is the companies lowest spec currently available, and the only arm made by SME that can be bought separately at this time. It comes in three models with lengths of 9, 10 and 12 inches. The Series VA arm is only available on the Model 60 turntable. It is an advanced version of the Series V tonearm which has been extensively sonically improved by use of a non-metallic tonearm CNC machined from an advanced polymer resin material with high density and high rigidity properties. The Series VA tonearm tube

3255-462: Is wired using Isoda wire made to Roksan's specification. One end is terminated by cartridge tags, and the other has gold-plated RCA phono jacks . The wire has one join, in the arm base, where the thin cartridge wires are melded with sturdier phono leads. In 1989, Roksan introduced the Artaxerxes phono stage – a moving coil phono pre-amplifier designed to sit inside the turntable. Roksan also marketed

Roksan Xerxes - Misplaced Pages Continue

3360-565: The Linn Sondek LP12 . Many reviewers use the Xerxes as a reference turntable. The production version of the Xerxes is called "Xerxes.20plus", a reference to the 20th anniversary of the launch, in 2005. Before Touraj Moghaddam founded Roksan, he had become dissatisfied with the state of the audio arts when he heard his little television set reproduce Thelonious Monk in a more musically satisfying way than his high-end Linn / Naim tri-amped audio system. Through experimentation, he deduced that

3465-426: 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

3570-475: The (still splendid) Linn LP12. But the first Roksan Xerxes was so good, and so superior to the pre-Lingo LP12, that honest listeners among the so-called/self-called 'Flat-Earthers' had no choice but to say so. The Xerxes is known for its speed stability and its ability to extract information and detail from the record groove. It thus became acceptable to acknowledge good performance from products by companies other than Linn, Naim, and Rega . What Hi-Fi? considered

3675-422: 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

3780-502: 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 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

3885-516: 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

3990-596: The Dunlop Systemdek, and the Logic DM-101. At its launch, the Xerxes was priced at around UK£300 – approximately £100 cheaper than an LP12. The company was highly influential in the way hi-fi was sold, and it managed to wrest market share from Linn and Naim , who had a stranglehold in the UK. Hi-fi critic Art Dudley observed that prior to Roksan arriving on the scene, people who valued a component's rhythmic and melodic capabilities had only one real turntable choice,

4095-509: 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

4200-509: The Garrard audio brand in the near future. The Series II arm was SME's first arm. It came in two variants the 3009 and 3012 (9" and 12" respectively) tone arms which were widely adopted for audiophile and broadcast use during the 1960s and 1970s, at the higher end of the market. These arms featured a polished, bright-anodised aluminium main tube with a lightweight headshell, knife edge horizontal bearings , and an anti skating bias provided by

4305-581: 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

Roksan Xerxes - Misplaced Pages Continue

4410-512: 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 the name by competing disc record manufacturers

4515-554: The LP12, the Xerxes has a two-piece platter–sub-platter configuration on which sits a thin felt mat. And while the LP12's platters are made of mazak , the Xerxes' platters are of aluminium. The outer platter is rigid and peripherally weighted. However, the Roksan's outer platter weighs less than half of that of the LP12, to reduce load on the main bearing, yet is able to achieve a greater inertia because of its weight distribution. A second challenge

4620-503: The SME headshell mount of the arm (rather than into a headshell), notably from Ortofon . The Series III was introduced in the late 1970s incorporating changes from the Series II models (which continued in production) covering both styling and its exceptionally thin and lightweight main tube, the entire arm being interchangeable rather than just the headshell. The Series III had very low effective mass to fit high compliance cartridges such as

4725-567: The Shure V15 IV. Although technically advanced, the Series III never achieved the market dominance of the Series II. The Series V arm launched in 1986, was developed as a medium mass arm more suited to emerging moving-coil cartridges with lower compliance than previously available moving magnet cartridges. The removable headshell was eliminated, and the horizontal knife bearing was replaced with ball bearings (grade ABEC 7), both in order to provide

4830-575: 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

4935-423: 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

5040-486: The Xerxes "arguably the first turntable to give the previously all conquering Linn Sondek LP12 a real run for its money". Throughout the Inspector Morse TV series, the lead character, when seen at home, is often listening to music on his Xerxes. According to the manufacturers, the producers of the show deliberately sought to feature one in the series, from the first episode, to highlight Morse's passion for music. In

5145-625: The Xerxes than the LP12. In both price and performance terms, the original Xerxes, fitted with the Rega RB300 costing £95, became a head-on (and cheaper) alternative to the LP12 fitted with the Linn Ittok arm. By 2010, Roksan has three tonearms to partner their deck: the Artemiz, the Tabriz (and its 'Zi' version) and the unipivot Nima. Launched in 1987 priced at £350, Artemiz is the flagship tonearm whose design

5250-443: The Xerxes.X in 2005 incorporated new main bearing ball and the new Rmat-5 sub-plinth. The bearing, attached to the inner platter, has an unusually small-diameter hardened-steel spindle, which sits on top of a tungsten ball that measures 2 mm and is machined to a tolerance in the order of micrometres . The corresponding housing is made of bronze. The two-piece platter, when fit together, are snug and will not resonate. According to

5355-557: 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

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5460-523: 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

5565-435: The bottom board (along with the motor assembly) support yet decouple from the top board. Aesthetically, the two boards are encased by a wooden surround fixed to the base board with screws. These design principles can be seen throughout the evolution of the Xerxes, right through to the Xerxes 20plus. The original Xerxes design is deliberately a radical departure from the traditional suspended sub-chassis design. Instead of having

5670-466: The company (1995), Roksan reprised the entry-level Xerxes turntable with a 3-plinth design named Xerxes.X. Its top plinth houses the tonearm and the main bearing, and is isolated from the base by five Blobs, which also allow the plinth to be adjusted in two planes – parallel and perpendicular to the motor and main bearing. The motor is driven by XPS V Reference motor drive, which receives power from DS1.5 Reference Power Supply. The Xerxes.20 which superseded

5775-426: 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

5880-508: The demand of "dozens or more a week" from his customers. The product, named after the Persian king Xerxes I , was launched at a hi-fi show in 1985 where the Roksan Darius loudspeaker concept was also unveiled. Tufan Hashemi said Roksan sought to create equipment that would excel in high-quality musical reproduction and capable of involving the listener on an emotional level. Product characteristics were to include precision and transparency of

5985-560: 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

6090-502: 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

6195-485: 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

6300-474: The existing turntable design failed because the cartridge was not being held still wherever the groove went. He believed that the mean line traced by the groove relative to the body of the cartridge needed to be constant. His ideas led him away from using the sprung sub-chassis as part of the speed-controlling system. Needing a top plinth roughly an inch (25 mm) thick made from wood with a density of about 700 to 800 kg/m, Moghaddam found suitable material in

6405-494: 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

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6510-555: 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

6615-469: The first episode, The Dead of Jericho , the people associated with the fictional manufacturer of the turntable (Richards Audio Research) were the focal point of the storyline. The Xerxes exists in four distinct versions. The original two-plinth Xerxes (1985) was discontinued after about eight years' production, after the Touraj Moghaddam Signature (TMS) was launched. On the 10th anniversary of

6720-545: 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

6825-409: 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 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

6930-407: 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

7035-410: 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

7140-476: 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

7245-495: The manufacturer, the Xerxes.20plus incorporates key design elements from the TMS3, including the tungsten carbide bearing ball, inner and outer aluminium platter, mat and decoupler blobs. The isolation between the plinth layers of the 20 has been improved for the Plus. The bearing is of a higher quality; the platter and sub-platter have been redesigned. A mat with distinctive cut-outs is placed on

7350-400: 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,

7455-566: 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

7560-492: 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

7665-469: 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, the terms "gramophone" and "graphophone" have roots in

7770-457: 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

7875-517: 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

7980-401: 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 the sound and equalization systems. The disc phonograph record was the dominant commercial audio distribution format throughout most of

8085-496: 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

8190-399: The platter assembly to support the disc. While the top board sits on decoupling blobs, the lower half has bright polished-metal feet. The bearing ball, Blobs and mat are available to existing owners for retrofitting their legacy Xerxes.10 and Xerxes.20 turntables. ( Source : UK distributor) Record player A phonograph , later called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as

8295-420: The platter, Roksan shares the same philosophy as Linn in believing that rigid coupling would cause rumble to be transmitted from the main bearing, thus colouring the sound. To further increase isolation, the Xerxes possesses a spindle that allows the user to centre the record, but which is supposed to be removed during listening so that the disc rests solely on the felt mat. The bearing-mounted spring-loaded motor

8400-476: 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

8505-462: The same design concept as the Series V and IV arms. It still used a magnesium alloy arm, but had a removable headshell. It came in three models 309, 310 and 312 with lengths of 9, 10 and 12 inches respectively. The M10 arm launched in 1999 is derived from the Series 300 Model 309 (but with lower grade ABEC 1 bearings) is only for use with the SME Model 10 turntable. The Series M2 arm launched in 2004

8610-455: 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 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

8715-415: The sound. Moghaddam, acting as chief designer, set out to find solutions to engineering problems he saw as inherent in the belt-driven suspended sub-chassis turntable design of Edgar Villchur , where the sub-chassis and tonearm are free to rotate. Moghaddam believed that the design generated undesirable torsional modes. One such torsional mode is said to be caused by "groove drag" – dynamic forces exerted by

8820-417: The stylus on the record as it tracked it. Moghaddam chose to attenuate the torsion by mounting the turntable-drive motor casing on its own bearing. The motor, mounted separately and tethered to a spring, is allowed limited rotation about its own axis; because the load varied with groove modulations, the increases in drag would thus be dampened by the spring-loaded motor, and the platter acceleration mitigated. In

8925-535: 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

9030-455: The suspension blobs. Early versions were a platform for mounting third party tonearms. Prior to the launch of Roksan's maiden tonearm – the Artemiz, it was most commonly partnered with the Rega RB300 (at the "budget" end), and the SME V (at the "top" end). Other 12-inch arms, like AudioQuest or SME 309, were also chosen by buyers. The Rega was able to function in a way that seemed more synergistic with

9135-405: The turntable's chosen placement. One notable characteristic of the deck is the large C-shaped groove cut into the top plinth to control how vibrations would be transmitted from platter to the tonearm area. However, the cut-out is prone to a commonly observed "plinth sag", where the part of it would bend out of true with the rest of the board. While some other designs use clamps to couple the disc to

9240-464: The vertical bearings are above and below the arm tube are massive, and machined from a single solid piece. The bearings have a pyramidal arrangement: the upper component, consisting of three ball-bearings arranged in a triangle, rests on a single ball-bearing below. The bearings have deliberate play in them which allows movement in response to the dynamic forces when records are tracked. The Artemiz also possesses an "intelligent counterweight". Its fulcrum

9345-435: The words of Tufan Hashemi, Roksan Audio's managing director: "We argued that using a suspended or floating surface to support a record could not allow it to be accurately read, as the record itself would be floating. We said that the record surface should remain stationary and solid but in complete isolation from the rest of the deck, and our design provided a very stable base for isolating a record without suspending it." Like

9450-415: Was SME's second turntable, launched in 1992. It was inspired by the Model 30 and designed to meet a lower price point. The turntable weighs 26kg (excluding arm, power unit or speed control unit). In subsequent years the 20 MkII and 20/12 models were released. The Model 10 was SME's third turntable, launched in 1999. It was a totally new design from the 30 and 20, and was SME's "entry level" turntable, which

9555-548: 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

9660-441: 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

9765-489: Was also a break from established conventions. The arm and headshell is a one-piece construction; the large-gauge aluminium tube interference-fitted at one end into a massive yoke that is the bearing. The tube is flat at the other end to provide for mounting the cartridge. The arm is finished in a matt resonant paint. Unusually, there is no finger lift for cueing but the arm is fitted with a conventional lever-operated lift/lower assembly. The bearing housings are at either side and

9870-573: Was built. It received such an enthusiastic reception from friends in the sound industry that it was decided to produce it commercially and the first SME precision pick-up arm appeared in September 1959. Production was 25 units per week composed entirely of individually machined components. In 1961 a new factory situated in Mill Road, Steyning , Sussex was opened and the Company's name was changed to SME Limited,

9975-413: 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

10080-444: Was founded by Alastair Robertson-Aikman in 1946 under the title The Scale Model Equipment Company Limited to manufacture scale models and detail parts for the model engineering trade. It was During the 1950s the company moved away from model making to precision engineering, principally parts for aircraft instruments and business machines. In 1959, Robertson-Aikman required a pick-up arm for his own use, and an experimental model

10185-407: Was how to overcome the rotation of the suspended parts – the sub-chassis, platter, arm and cartridge – relative to the motor. This was done by re-imagining a suspension that had less freedom of lateral movement relative to the drive motor. The Xerxes uses a relatively light medium-density fibreboard (MDF) top board on which the bearing and tonearm assemblies are mounted. Firm rubber "Blobs" mounted on

10290-428: Was intended to be sold with arm included (either M10 or IV.Vi). The turntable weighs 16kg (excluding power unit or speed control unit). The Model 15 was SME's fourth turntable, launched in 2015. It was an upgraded design of the Model 10 design, with improved materials and using a suspension based on the one used in the Model 20. The turntable weighs 19kg (excluding arm, power unit or speed control unit). The Model 60

10395-601: 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

10500-589: 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

10605-443: 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

10710-589: 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

10815-410: 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,

10920-653: 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

11025-399: 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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