The digital recorders we use today can trace their history back to the 1870s. There were a number of inventors who built the foundation of audio technology, but one stands out. On this date in 1877 ...

MENLO PARK, N.J. (WHTM) — We’re used to sound recordings. Music (in multiple genres), audiobooks, phone messages, recordings of family history, alert boops and beeps on our phones…even the happy ...

But there’s one man – and a very strange invention we would likely never have listened to music without – who we have to thank for it all. The story of sound recording, and reproduction, began 143 ...

One hundred years ago on a December day in 1877, the world’s first recording session took place in a laboratory in Menlo Park, N.J. It was strictly a one-man show. A 30-year-old scientist, Thomas Alva ...

SCHENECTADY, N.Y. — It's scratchy, lasts only 78 seconds and features the world's first recorded blooper. The modern masses can now listen to what experts say is the oldest playable recording of an ...

This media is in the public domain (free of copyright restrictions). You can copy, modify, and distribute this work without contacting the Smithsonian. For more information, visit the Smithsonian's ...

Imagine if your couch or your coffee maker suddenly started talking to you — or perhaps launched into the chorus of “She’ll Be Coming ‘Round the Mountain.” What would your reaction be? Consider that, ...

It’s scratchy, lasts only 78 seconds and features the world’s first recorded blooper. The modern masses can now listen to what experts say is the oldest playable recording of an American voice and the ...