How Does an Audio CD Recorder Work?
Where Sound Recording Began Recording sound started with Thomas Edison in 1877 when he shouted at the top of his lungs into a funnel as he twisted a cylinder containing tinfoil. The funnel turned his voice into vibrations for a stylus that traveled along the tinfoil carving a path and recording his voice. Today, recordings are carried on a beam of light. Audio recordings were made nearly exclusively on magnetic tape from the 1950s until the 1980s. It was popular with consumers in first reel-to-reel recorders, then cassettes and even the short-lived eight-tracks. The cassette was the main recording medium for consumers for many years because they were small, compact and reliable. The tape was contained inside a plastic or metal housing and rarely got tangled. Professionals, such as recording engineers in studios, stayed with tape on reels. Evolution of CDs At the same time audio was being recorded on tape, so was video. The problem with both was noise, whether audio hiss or video fuzz.
