The network has a 128-year-old voice recording of Alexander Bell

Not so long ago, I published the news about the recording of the lecture by Albert Einstein, where the voice of the scientist is perfectly audible. This time I publish the news about the recording of the voice of all of us famous Alexander Bell. Specialists at the Smithsonian Institution were able to digitize Bell’s earliest voice recording. The inventor himself recorded.

Looking ahead, you can listen to the recording here (by the way, Firefox demanded that I install the Apple QuickTime plug-in, and this plug-in did not want to be installed automatically, so keep in mind). This record is already 128 years old. By the way, here are some more digitized records of that time, information about which was already published on Habré.
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The sound of the inventor's voice is recorded on a cardboard disc, which is coated with wax. It is worth noting that when testing the newly invented recording technology Bell tested various materials, including metal, glass, cardboard / paper, foil, wax. Previously, all this was not reproduced due to the fear of damaging the discs. Scientists have now used a high-resolution optical scanner to play their voices.

The Smithsonian Institution also stores other discs with music and voices, also made at that time (1880s). By the way, there are about 400 such disks (and more cylinders) transferred to Bell Institute. Some of them were also restored (not the disks themselves, but the records stored on them). An interesting point is that we have discs, but there are no means of reproducing these discs relating to the time when the recording was made. Of course, you can guess about the design of the device, reproducing the recording, but it will only guess.

Via smithsonianmag + ibtimes