The following pages are dedicated to the
history of Russian gramophone disk. During the whole
century (from end XIX to end XXth cc.) the gramophone
disc has remained a basic source of "conserved"
sound information in home life.
The idea of
recording information on a flat carrier using a spiral
track suggested by Emil Berliner as early as 1888 turned
out so fruitful (due to compactness and simplicity of
manufacturing of records) that it is being used even now
in modern digital equipment (CD-Audio, CD-ROM, DVD, etc.)
Having as predecessor the Edison's wax cylinder, for
which possibility of home recording was envisaged,
Berliner's shellac plate did not have such a possibility.
Since early 1960's home tape-recorders became to be
widely used in this country, which, eliminating that
drawback, nevertheless, never attained the level necessary
for rendering the quality of sounding of the best
gramophone disks. A digital audio disk which appeared in
1982, by the existing standard also could not surpass the
velvety sound of the best mechanical records.
The object of this
review is to outline development and diversity of forms
of home gramophone records on the basis of illustrative
material collected by the author, mainly, from the
standpoint of users. The review cannot claim to be
complete, nor any other one, presented by a single
collector and researcher. The quantity and diversity of
material call for joint efforts. Paying due tribute to
very extensive work on labels of home gramophone disks on
the remarkable site of Yury
Grishin, we cite herein the documentary data not
present in the above-mentioned and other sites (with rare
exceptions, when consistency of narration would have
suffered).
(c) Text
& pictures V.V.Brousnikin, 2002
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