Acoustic recording

Acoustic recording captures sound by directing air vibrations through a horn to a vibrating stylus, which inscribes a physical groove or pattern in a medium without electronic amplification.

Recording horn: A flared tube that gathers sound and concentrates its pressure variations at a vibrating diaphragm. It collects sound energy and directs it toward the recording mechanism.
Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville: A French inventor who created the phonautograph, an early device that traced sound waves visually. His device recorded sound patterns mechanically decades before practical playback.
Electrical recording: A sound-recording method that converts sound into electrical signals before cutting or storing them. Microphones and amplification let electrical recording capture quieter sounds than acoustic horns.
Acoustic phonograph recording: Sound recording made by mechanically cutting a groove with a stylus driven by a diaphragm. This was the principal commercial form of acoustic recording on discs and cylinders.
Gramophone record industry: The business network that manufactured, marketed, and distributed recorded music on discs. Acoustic recording enabled a scalable market for manufactured and repeatable records.
Diaphragm (acoustics): A thin, flexible surface that vibrates in response to changes in air pressure. Sound pressure moves the diaphragm that drives the cutting stylus.
Phonautograph: An 1850s instrument that traced sound vibrations onto a surface but could not play them back. It was an early acoustic recording device, though its traces were initially intended for study.
Microphone: A transducer that converts sound waves into electrical signals. It replaces the recording horn and diaphragm as the sound-input device.
Cylinder record: A cylindrical grooved medium used to store and reproduce sound mechanically. Cylinders were among the earliest widely used formats for acoustic recordings.
Sound recording: The preservation of sound as a reproducible physical or digital representation. Acoustic recording is an early mechanical branch of sound recording.

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