Audio information stored in the undulations of a groove in a mechanical sound carrier such as a cylinder or disc phonograph record may be reconstructed, without contact, by measuring the groove shape using precision optical metrology methods and digital image-processing. The viability of this approach was recently demonstrated on a 78r.p.m. shellac disc using two-dimensional image acquisition a...

In this contribution, a method is described for the attenuation of preecho in audio recordings. Preechos are attenuated replicas of the future signal that can usually be heard in tape or phonograph recordings in silences or near-silences preceding sudden, high amplitude sounds. The method described here is based on a very simple attenuation+delay preecho model. The delay is estimated by use of ...

New media are often addressed within the growing field of surveillance studies, but technologies predating the late twentieth century are rarely considered. This essay challenges conventional histories of modern surveillance by highlighting the cultural impact of three ‘old’ new media: photography, the phonograph, and the telephone. Drawing upon the work of historian Carlo Ginzburg (1990), I ar...

Thomas Edison was developing a device that could record, then replay at high speed, telegraph signals when he made the first recording of the human voice (Phonograph, 1877). Elisha Gray, who came a close second to Alexander Graham Bell for the title of inventor of the telephone, instead is known as the inventor of the first of the early electronic musical instruments (Musical Telegraph, 1875). ...

The sound of a phonograph record's playback is as iconic as it is widespread. The recording is omnipresent. Its presence implies repetition. With the recording's ubiquity has come not just the ubiquitous repetition of those recordings, but the realization of repeated sound as the universal constituent of musical composition. The recording precipitated a paradigm shift in the concept of repetiti...

Audio signal processing has passed many landmarks in its development as a research topic. Many are well known, such the of phonograph second half 19th century and technology associated with digital telephony that burgeoned late 20th is still hot topic multiple guises. Interestingly, audio been fueled not only by advancements capabilities but also high consumer expectations customer engagement. ...