Sound recording today

Whether Charles Cros or Thomas Edison is regarded as the true originator of sound recording and reproduction, 1977 must be acknowledged as the centenary year. It was in 1877 that Cros deposited his proposal with the French Academy of Sciences and, in the same year, Edison was granted US patent 200251 for his phonograph. What a vast industry has sprung from these beginnings! The modern record or `Phonogram¿, to give it its legal title, is in truth a child of electronics, and the majority of the sophiscated methods now used in its production have evolved in the last 15 years or so in parallel with developments in semiconductor technology