The new term may have been influenced by the existing words phonographic and phonography, which referred to a system of phonetic shorthand in 1852 The New York Times carried an advertisement for 'Professor Webster's phonographic class', and in 1859 the New York State Teachers Association tabled a motion to 'employ a phonographic recorder' to record its meetings.ДЄrguably, any device used to record sound or reproduce recorded sound could be called a type of 'phonograph', but in common practice the word has come to mean historic technologies of sound recording, involving audio-frequency modulations of a physical trace or groove. The roots were already familiar from existing 19th-century words such as photograph ('light writing'), telegraph ('distant writing'), and telephone ('distant sound'). The similar related terms gramophone (from the Greek ОіПЃО¬ОјОјО± gramma 'letter' and П†П‰ОЅО® phЕЌnД“ 'voice') and graphophone have similar root meanings. The term phonograph ('sound writing') was derived from the Greek words П†П‰ОЅО® ( phonД“, 'sound' or 'voice') and ОіПЃО±П†О® ( graphД“, 'writing').

In later electric phonographs (also known as record players (since the 1940s) or, most recently, turntables ), the motions of the stylus are converted into an analogous electrical signal by a transducer, then converted back into sound by a loudspeaker. When used in conjunction with a mixer as part of a DJ setup, turntables are often colloquially called 'decks'. In more modern usage, the playback device is often called a 'turntable', 'record player', or ' record changer'. Usage of terminology is not uniform across the English-speaking world (see below). 8.1 Piezoelectric (crystal/ceramic) cartridges.4 Disc versus cylinder as a recording medium.The original recordings of musicians, which may have been recorded on tape or digital methods, are sometimes re-issued on vinyl. In the 2010s, some electronic dance music DJs and music producers continue to release their recordings on vinyl records.

Vinyl records are still used by some DJs and musicians in their concert performances. Records are still a favorite format for some audiophiles and by DJs and turntablists in hip hop music, electronic dance music and other styles. From the mid-1980s on, phonograph use on a standard record player declined sharply because of the rise of the cassette tape, compact disc and other digital recording formats. The disc phonograph record was the dominant audio recording format throughout most of the 20th century. Later improvements through the years included modifications to the turntable and its drive system, the stylus or needle, and the sound and equalization systems. In the 1890s, Emile Berliner initiated the transition from phonograph cylinders to flat discs with a spiral groove running from the periphery to near the center. Alexander Graham Bell's Volta Laboratory made several improvements in the 1880s, including the use of wax-coated cardboard cylinders, and a cutting stylus that moved from side to side in a zig zag groove around the record. A stylus responding to sound vibrations produced an up and down or hill-and-dale groove in the foil. His phonograph originally recorded sound onto a tinfoil sheet wrapped around a rotating cylinder. While other inventors had produced devices that could record sounds, Edison's phonograph was the first to be able to reproduce the recorded sound. The phonograph was invented in 1877 by Thomas Edison. In early acoustic phonographs, the stylus vibrated a diaphragm which produced sound waves which were coupled to the open air through a flaring horn, or directly to the listener's ears through stethoscope-type earphones. To recreate the sound, the surface is similarly rotated while a playback stylus traces the groove and is therefore vibrated by it, very faintly reproducing the recorded sound. The sound vibration waveforms are recorded as corresponding physical deviations of a spiral groove engraved, etched, incised, or impressed into the surface of a rotating cylinder or disc, called a 'record'. In its later forms it is also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name since c. The phonograph is a device invented in 1877 for the mechanical recording and reproduction of sound.

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