Audiophile Components

Sound recording began as a mechanical process and remained so until the early 1920s (with the exception of the 1899 Telegraphone) when a string of groundbreaking inventions in the field of electronics revolutionised sound recording and the young recording industry. These included sound transducers such as microphones and loudspeakers, and various electronic devices such as the mixing desk, designed for the amplification and modification of electrical sound signals.

After the Edison phonograph itself, arguably the most significant advances in sound recording, were the electronic systems invented by two American scientists between 1900 and 1924. In 1906 Lee De Forest invented the “Audion” triode vacuum-tube, electronic valve, which could greatly amplify weak electrical signals, (one early use was to amplify long distance telephone in 1915) which became the basis of all subsequent electrical sound systems until the invention of the transistor. The valve was quickly followed by the invention of the Regenerative circuit, Super-Regenerative circuit and the Superheterodyne receiver circuit, all of which were invented and patented by the young electronics genius Edwin Armstrong between 1914 and 1922. Armstrong’s inventions made higher fidelity electrical sound recording and reproduction a practical reality, facilitating the development of the electronic amplifier and many other devices; after 1925 these systems had become standard in the recording and radio industry.

While Armstrong published studies about the fundamental operation of the triode vacuum tube before World War I, inventors like Orlando R. Marsh and his Marsh Laboratories, as well as scientists at Bell Telephone Laboratories, achieved their own understanding about the triode and were utilizing the Audion as a repeater in weak telephone circuits. By 1925 it was possible to place a long distance telephone call with these repeaters between New York and San Francisco in 20 minutes, both parties being clearly heard. With this technical prowess, Joseph P. Maxfield and Henry C. Harrison from Bell Telephone Laboratories were skilled in using mechanical analogs of electrical circuits and applied these principles to sound recording and reproduction. They were ready to demonstrate their results by 1924 using the Wente condenser microphone and the vacuum tube amplifier to drive the “rubber line” wax recorder to cut a master audio disc.

Meanwhile, radio continued to develop. Armstrong’s groundbreaking inventions (including FM radio) also made possible the broadcasting of long-range, high-quality radio transmissions of voice and music. The importance of Armstrong’s Superheterodyne circuit cannot be over-estimated – it is the central component of almost all analog amplification and both analog and digital radio-frequency transmitter and receiver devices to this day.

Beginning during World War One, experiments were undertaken in the United States and Great Britain to reproduce among other things, the sound of a Submarine (u-boat) for training purposes. The acoustical recordings of that time proved entirely unable to reproduce the sounds, and other methods were actively sought. Radio had developed independently to this point, and now Bell Laboritories sought a marriage of the two disparate technologies, greater than the two separately. The first experiments were not very promising, but by 1920 greater sound fidelity was achieved using the electrical system than had ever been realized acoustically. One early recording made without fanfare or announcement was the dedication of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington Cemetery.

By early 1924 such dramatic progress had been made, that Bell Labs arranged a demonstration for the leading recording companies, the Victor Talking Machine Company, and the Columbia Phonograph Co. (Edison was left out due to their decreasing market share and a stubborn Thomas Edison). Columbia, always in financial straits, could not afford it, and Victor, essentially leaderless since the mental collapse of founder Eldridge Johnson, left the demonstration without comment. English Columbia, by then a separate company, got hold of a test pressing made by Path – from these sessions, and realized the immediate and urgent need to have the new system. Bell was only offering its method to United States companies, and to circumvent this, Managing Director Louis Sterling of English Columbia, bought his once parent company, and signed up for electrical recording. Although they were contemplating a deal, Victor Talking Machine was apprised of the new Columbia deal, so they too quickly signed.

Columbia made its first released electrical recordings on February 25, 1925, with Victor following a few weeks later. The two then agreed privately to “be quiet” until November 1925, by which time enough electrical repertory would be available.