From Tinfoil to Stereo: The Acoustic Years of the Recording Industry, 1877-1929 ebook

by Leah Brodbeck Stenzel Burt,Walter L. Welch

Leah Brodbeck Stenzel Burt Walter L. Welch Engineering English

A Journal of the History of Science Society.

A Journal of the History of Science Society. Volume 86, Number 2 Ju. 1995. From Tinfoil to Stereo: The Acoustic Years of the Recording Industry, 1877-1929. Walter L. Welch, Leah Brodbeck Stenzel Burt.

This book is a revision and expansion of the first half of the earlier text-the critical acoustic era of phonograph history

This book is a revision and expansion of the first half of the earlier text-the critical acoustic era of phonograph history. It incorporates 50 percent new information presented by international experts, including some who were associated with historical figures in the industry or who have hands-on experience with actual models of early phonographs. The new material includes discussion of the talking doll, the Kinetophone, the cement phonograph era, early coin-vending machines, and the international scope of early entrepreneurs. Since its first publication in 1959, From Tinfoil to Stereo has.

From Tinfoil to Stereo book. Welch, Leah Brodbeck Stenzel Burt

From Tinfoil to Stereo book. Since its first publication in 1959, From Tinfoil to Stereo. Since its first publication in 1959, From Tinfoil to Stereo has been regarded as the bible of record and phonograph collectors.

Walter L. Welch was curator and director of the Diane and Arthur B. Belfer Audio Laboratory and . Belfer Audio Laboratory and Archive and of its forerunner, the Thomas A. Edison Rerecording Laboratory, at Syracuse University. Among his honors are awards from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences and from the Audio Engineering Society. Leah Brodbeck Stenzel Burt, retired curator of the Edison National Historic Site, West Orange, New Jersey, is the author of prizewinning articles on phonograph history.

Welch, Walter . Burt, Leah Brodbeck Stenzel (1995). The Talking Machine, an Illustrated Compendium, 1877-1929. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Pub. ISBN 0764322400. Gellatt, Roland (1977). From tinfoil to stereo : the acoustic years of the recording industry, 1877 - 1929. The Fabulous Phonograph, 1877-1977. New York, NY: MacMillan. Gracyk, Tim. Cylinder Lists: Columbia Brown Wax, Columbia XP, Columbia 20th Century, and Indestructible. Koenigsberg, Allen (1969). Edison Cylinder Records, 1889-1912. New York, NY: Stellar Productions. Newville, Leslie J. (1959).

Burt, Leah Brodbeck Stenzel. Published: Gainesville : University Press of Florida, c1994

Burt, Leah Brodbeck Stenzel. Published: Gainesville : University Press of Florida, c1994. Subjects: Phonograph History. A wonderful invention : a brief history of the phonograph from tinfoil to the LP, by: Smart, James Robert, 1924- Published: (1977).

to Stereo : The Acoustic Years of the Recording Industry, 1877-1929

From Tinfoil to Stereo : The Acoustic Years of the Recording Industry, 1877-1929. by Leah Brodbeck Stenzel Burt and Walter L. Welch. Welch and Leah Brodbeck Stenzel Burt, From Tinfoil to Stereo: The Acoustic Years of the Recording Industry, 1877–1929 (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1994), 96–97Google Scholar. 6. Bertolt Brecht and John Willett, Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic (New York: Hill and Wang, 1992), 102–103.

Welch, Walter Leslie & Brodbeck Stenzel Burt, Leah, & Read, Oliver. From Tinfoil To Stereo: The Acoustic Years Of The Recording Industry, 1877–1929, University Press of Florida, 1994

Welch, Walter Leslie & Brodbeck Stenzel Burt, Leah, & Read, Oliver. Harding, Robert S. Charles Sumner Tainter Papers: 1878–1908 & 1919, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, . National Museum of American History.

The Indestructible Record Company was an American business that produced plastic cylinder records between 1907 and .

The Indestructible Record Company was an American business that produced plastic cylinder records between 1907 and 1922. The company was established by William Messer, who had previously worked with Thomas Lambert, the inventor of plastic celluloid cylinder records. The records were initially made, from 1900, by the Lambert Company, but that company went bankrupt in early 1906 after Thomas Edison brought a suit against Lambert for patent infringement. Welch and Leah Brodbeck Stenzel Burt, From the Tinfoil to Stereo: The Acoustic Years of the Recording Industry, 1877-1929, University Press of Florida, 1994, . 5. Sutton, Allan (2000).

Since its first publication in 1959, From Tinfoil to Stereo has been regarded as the bible of record and phonograph collectors. It investigates the individuals, the companies, and the legal machinations that led to virtually every major development in the talking machine industry, up to the installation of sound on Hollywood stages and in movie theaters across the country. This edition contains many new photographs, most taken between 1888 and 1912, that have never appeared in any publication.

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All AOK

Azago

Thomas Edison invented the cylinder phonograph and that's what we had until a fellow named Emile Berliner thought round discs might work better. That's all quite a bit too simplistic and leaves out stages in between where recording material varied between a basic tinfoil all the way up to cylinders composed of wax, various compounds, including some that were coated with gold. The evolution of the recording industry also included countless lawsuits over tangled disagreements as to various patents involving methods of recording and reproduction.

This book attempts to rectify misconceptions many (myself definitely included) might have about how the recording industry involved from using acoustic means to record and recreate sound until the first uses of electrical means to 'grab' sound.

PROS:
Copious footnotes have some information you'd miss if you don't refer to them

Very detailed information about patents involved (down to legal notices printed verbatim) from some of the big players in the gramophone/graphophone/disc industry's early days

Interesting photographs of oddities like the 1888 (approx) vintage Edison made talking doll, 1897 ads for Columbia/Bettini/Edison phonographs ($5 per dozen for the Edison records!),and an office worker using a phonograph (and giant ear tube) to type from dictation recorded on a cylinder.

CONS:

It's not a very easy read for someone, like me, who's interested in the early days of recording but doesn't have a big legal background or knowledge of terminology like "mandrel" (a component of early cylinder machines).

The authors didn't make much of an attempt to explain the complicated web between the main companies, their contracted sellers, other manufacturers of discs/cylinders. Perhaps a "flow chart" explaining how the chain of command went from the corporation to the local talking machine store might have helped.

The book's title is somewhat misleading..there's fairly little time spent discussing "stereo" sound or for that matter much past the 1920s (the last 5 pages really). There are plenty of books covering that vintage, so it's only an issue if you're looking for a tome that covers that whole spread. For the early years up until approximately the 1920s, this does a good job.

BOTTOM LINE:
Actual 78RPM disc/phonograph collectors will probably find this essential. Mere music enthusiasts like myself will probably find this too dry to sit all the way through. I'm hoping that perhaps the authors will find a way to make it a more exciting read ina future edition and perhaps more explanatory with regard to technical/legal terms.

HappyLove

From our point of view in 2015, I find the reviews above understandable. However I also feel that we should take into consideration that "From Tinfoil to Stereo" was written in 1958, only upon the introduction of the stereo LP. My copy, also credited to Oliver Read, is the 2nd edition with minor changes in 1974. But in 1958 in both knowledge and style, this super-detailed history is important. True that today its writing seems stilted and a slog, and its biases cautionary, the many citations of patent applications and scientific papers support its authenticity. Many prior inventors are given proper credit, while popular myths are dispelled. Edison is eulogized, but others were greedier and spent at least as much energy "destroying what they couldn't control," behavior that seems human nature. Failure to credit others for their prior intellectual property is as true today as then, as with Western Electric researchers Maxwell & Morrison. Men of their time, both Welch and Read simply didn't know that a few of their technical pronouncements would be proved incorrect in the fullness of time and further development, such as their repeated preference for hill-and-dale modulation v lateral (which being mechanically push-pull avoids even-order harmonic distortion, although that produced by "pinch effect" using spherical styli is the prodominant artifact of later disc playing). We might thank these writers for their enlightening work.

Zetadda

The first Tinfoil to Stereo contained many errors, but it was a fun book to read. This one was written presumably to correct the first one but in the process all the meat was removed leaving only unpalatable bone. To make matters worse the book ended in the mid 1950's leaving one with the feeling that the second half was missing.

I collect phonographs for enjoyment and to have fun. This book induced thoughts of a totally sterile environment which abounded with facts sans enjoyment. If you found the previous sentence enjoyable, read this book.

energy breath

As a recording engineer by profession, the promise of this book was absolutely thrilling. And while I did enjoy some tastey morsels, it was so painful getting to them. For me it WAS worth the trouble reading this book, but the ratio of interesting to tedious was much lower than I had hoped.

The book wasn't just dry. It was a labor to read. Imagine the worst features of history and intellectual property case law -- combined.

The author can be commended for detailing the complex dealings within the recording industry of the past. I just wish the writing had some hint of passion for the subject. Too bad.

Fog

Very very detailed on the history up to about the 1920's and then speeds up and skims over everything beyond that. Essential to the Victrola and 78RPM collector. Very scientific in its information and also includes quotes, interviews, and tons of information available nowhere else on mechanical/electrmechanical audio reproduction. Also covers in detail the introduction and development of 33/45 discs (titled "The War of the Speeds"). Stereo and the post-crystal/ceramic cartridge era is very minimal.