Capturing Sound

• The 78 grooveold gramophone b/w image by Digital_Zombie from Fotolia.com
  
  In 1877 Thomas Edison built on the earlier work of other inventors to create the first practical sound recordings, which were preserved on tin foil discs. A later development by Edison enabled sound to be imprinted on wax discs by using a megaphone to focus sound, which became the preeminent recording technology for 40 years.
  
  

Electrifying Singing

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  The age of electronic recording technology was ushered in in 1925. Electronic microphones could now be utilized, which greatly improved sound and facilitated much more flexible recording techniques.
  
  

Steophonic Cinerama

• Double your pleasuegirl with headphones and sound waves background image by patrimonio designs from Fotolia.com
  
  Stereophonic sound was the next great advance in recording wizardry, and it worked to put the listener into the recording. In 1952, listeners first experienced the union of stereophonic sound with the realistic thrills of Cinerama. As the 1950s evolved, the recording industry began working with magnetic tape as an alternative to records.
  
  

the right track

• No needle requiredcasstte tape image by Nicemonkey from Fotolia.com
  
  Magnetic tape in the form of four-track tapes and later eight-track tapes began to monopolize the recording industry in the 1960s and 1970s. The smaller cassette tape grew rapidly in popularity, with its ease of usage in a car's tape deck player.
  
  

Slipped Disc

• A song in my heartman shout image by ftelkov from Fotolia.com
  
  In the late 1970s, CD technology began making records and cassettes into archaic relics of the past. Their facility of usage and inherent durability made these discs unstoppable. It took the digital, MP3 technology of the 1990s to eclipse their popularity.
  
  In a little over 100 years, recording technology had gone from a medium that could make great singers sound terrible to a digital wizardry that can make terrible singers sound great, or at least listenable.