Berliner patents the gramophone
Emile Berliner is granted a patent for a machine recording and reproducing sound in a lateral groove of even depth, and moves shortly afterwards from cylinder to flat disc. The disc is the commercially decisive step: it can be pressed from a master in quantity at low unit cost, which turns recording from a curiosity into an industry — and therefore turns musical diffusion into something that happens at the speed of freight rather than the speed of travelling musicians.
Historical — it happened, and the record is settled.
Subjects
- Sound recording · technology · not located
Evidence
Partly verified — Core facts are sourced; some optional detail is deliberately absent.
Emile Berliner and the Birth of the Recording Industry — The Gramophone
Berliner was granted a gramophone patent on 8 November 1887 for recording in a lateral groove of even depth, and moved from cylinder to flat disc, which could be mass-produced far more cheaply than Edison's cylinders. V55 verification basis: retrieved in search summary attributed to Library of Congress and Smithsonian collection materials; neither page was opened and the patent number is not given.
Library of Congress, Digital Collections · Partly verified
loc.gov/collections/emile-berliner, articles and essays on the gramophone
Recorded on Sound recording
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