Casa del Suono Museum, Niche 1 - Reproduced sound: from the phonograph to the gramophone

Exhibition of phonographs and gramophones. The history of the reproduction of sound begins with Thomas A. Edison's invention of the phonograph. In 1878, the famous American inventor developed a system that transformed sound vibrations into groove cut in a spiral around a cylinder. Almost ten years later, Emile Berliner, a German emigrant in the US, invented the gramophone: a device that used the same principle as the phonographe, but which substituted the cylinder whit a disc. Within a few decades, through successive modifications and support of entrepreneurs willing to invest in its future, an invention initially considered merely a curiosity had become a widespread presence in the houses and customs of the middle classes. Slowly, the perception of music began to canghe.