You Spin Me Round

Record players, the official device of sitting down after a long day of work and just listening to Imagine, while sipping on a nice cold beverage. There is no other iconic symbol like a vinyl record. Much how we associate a floppy disk with saving data, we associate the vinyl record as the symbol of music. Some may argue that a cassette could bring the same symbolic meaning, which I disagree with. A cassette could also mean a voice recording or, in other countries, a form of storing computer data. While with a record you get the sweet melody of music.

The record player had its humble beginnings with the invention of the phonautograph by Leon Scott in 1857. Basic what it did was write wavelengths from sounds on a piece of paper with the help of a diagram that would vibrate with sounds. He merely did this just to examine these wavelengths with no intention of listening to them. It was not until 2008 when the world finally got to hear Scott’s recordings. Later on in 1877 Edison would establish the cylinder phonograph, which you can read more about in my previous blog: Can you repeat that again? The Cylinder Phonograph + Introduction, basically it was a wax cylinder with a diagram, which would produce sound thanks to a diagram. Later on an inventor named Emiler Berliner would create the graphophone. Much like Edison’s cylinders it used grooves in the media to produce sounds with a diagram, but unlike Edison’s cylinders, they are not cylinders but disc. The disc were about 5 inches long and the device had to be cranked. Plus they did not sound that good at all, thus they were mostly used in toys. Then in 1884 the 7 inch disc with better sound quality was produced, then in 1901 the 10 inch disc were established, then shortly after that in 1903 12 inch disc were created that can play for 3 to 4 minutes compared to the cylinders 2 minutes. This and the patient for lateral cut disc expiring in 1919 helped put the foot in the door for records to be dominate the home market until the late 1980s when CDs started to take its spot.

There would be later be different revisions and improvements to the records, with different sizes and speeds like: LP 12-inch disc at 33 1⁄3 rpm, singles 10-inch disc at 78 rpm, or 7-inch disc at 45 rpm. They all work pretty much the same in which once a vinyl disc is placed on the platter, the platter begins to spin and the tonearm must be moved towards the record and the styles placed gently on the record itself. The groves in the records would send vibrations through the needle, which (at least in modern turntables) is connected to a magnet with a coil of wire surrounding it. This produces current which gets amplified to produce sound. Does not seem too complicated does it. Much like VHSs the more a recorded is played the more the grooves are worn down causing lower sound quality.

The simple design of the record player says something about it. It is like that old saying “If it is not broken, don’t fix it” because the design is so simple and yet works so well, it must be the reason why it lasted more than 100 years on its throne with people still collecting records to this day. A reason for this maybe because of the pure, true analog sound you get from a record that you are unable to get with the most expensive sound systems. Which brings me to a point on why I enjoy records. With other devices like radios, mp3, or any other portable music devices, people tend to listen to music while doing something, which is not a bad thing in any stretch in the imagination, but with a record you just get an urge to just sit and listen to the music.

FUN FACT:  A turntable used as a musical instrument is called turntablism

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonograph_record

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LP_record
http://www.softschools.com/facts/music_instruments/turntable_facts/3064/