Phonograph (redirected from phonographic)

phonograph: see record player.

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phonograph

 or record player

Instrument for reproducing sounds. A phonograph record stores a copy of sound waves as a series of undulations in a wavy groove inscribed on its rotating surface by the recording stylus. When the record is played back, another stylus (needle) responds to the undulations, and its motions are then reconverted into sound. Its invention is generally credited to Thomas Alva Edison (1877). Stereophonic systems, with two separate channels of information in a single groove, became a commercial reality in 1958. All modern phonograph systems had certain components in common: a turntable that rotated the record; a stylus that tracked a groove in the record; a pickup that converted the mechanical movements of the stylus into electrical impulses; an amplifier that intensified these electrical impulses; and a loudspeaker that converted the amplified signals back into sound. Phonographs and records were the chief means of reproducing recorded sound at home until the 1980s, when they were largely replaced by recorded cassettes (see tape recorder) and compact discs.

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phonograph

See turntable and LP.

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phonograph

1. an early form of gramophone capable of recording and reproducing sound on wax cylinders

2. US and Canadian a device for reproducing the sounds stored on a record: now usually applied to the nearly obsolete type that uses a clockwork motor and acoustic horn

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phonograph [′fō·nə‚graf]

(engineering acoustics)

An instrument for recording or reproducing acoustical signals, such as voice or music, by transmission of vibrations from or to a stylus that is in contact with a groove in a rotating disk.

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Phonograph 

a household device for the reproduction of sound from a phonograph record. A phonograph differs in principle from a gramophone; it converts the mechanical vibrations of the needle in the sound pickup to electrical oscillations, which are then amplified by an audio-frequency amplifier and converted to sound by an electroacoustic system, which includes one or more electrodynamic loudspeakers.

Phonographs are designed to reproduce monophonic, stereophonic, or quadraphonic disk recordings. The sound quality and the convenience of use depend on the phonograph’s rating. For example, phonographs manufactured in the USSR according to the All-Union State Standard, which establishes the basic technical specifications (for example, range of frequencies reproduced and nonlinear distortion factor), are rated as superior, first class, second class, or third class. Modern superior-rated phonographs produce sound of such quality that the listener is completely unaware of noise and the various distortions that occur in the course of reproduction of disk recordings; such phonographs are the most convenient to use.

REFERENCES

Apollonova, L. P., and N. D. Shumova. Mekhanicheskaia zvukozapis’. Moscow-Leningrad, 1964.
GOST 11157–74. Elektrophony: Obshchie tekhnicheskie usloviia. Moscow, 1974.

S. L. MISHENKOV