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The Audio Media Formats...

Audio Media Fact Files:
1877 Phonograph
1888 Gramophone
1948 Vinyl LP records
1964 Cassette Tape
1965 8-Track Cassette
1982 Compact Disc
1992 Sony MiniDisc
1992 Philips DCC
1998 MP3
2000 SACD Super Audio CD
2000 DVD-A  DVD Audio CD
 
 

 

The world's first audio recording and playback machine was invented by the American Thomas Edison in 1877. Up until that time, there was no method to capture, store or playback audio sound waves.

The early audio recordings had a very limited ability to reproduce sounds accurately, they had limited audio bandwidth with surface noise and high levels of distortion.

The Hi-Fi era sparked into life in 1948 when vinyl record were introduction and the subsequent improvements in turntables, magnetic pick-ups, amplifier and loud speaker technology. Certainly during the early 1960s true high fidelity was available to the enthusiast, many of whom made their own amplifiers and speaker enclosures.  

In 1961 VHF FM radio arrived in the UK broadcasting high quality mono audio further fueling the audio enthusiast passion for fidelity. For the audio hobbyist having the equipment to reproduce as close as possible the original recordings was and still is a very powerful drive.

Another massive HI-FI step was taken in 1982 with the introduction of the digital compact disc resolving many of the issues still plaguing the media. This new CD  totally eliminated surface noise issues and CDs were less likely to be damaged than the vinyl records that suffered from scratches, dust and flutter.

The future for audio is very bright, with still further improvements in audio recording and faithful reproduction. The Digital format is here to stay and over time analogue equipment will become treasured collector items. With the introduction of very high resolution (32 bit) digital recordings on  "Super CD" DVD formats, faithful reproduction of the analogue sound wave is now at, or close to, absolute perfection.