America on Record: A History of Recorded Sound

In 1877 Thomas Edison dreamed that one day there would be a talking machine in every home, but even his legendary vision could not have foreseen the way that recorded sound would pervade modern life. From the first thin sheet of tinfoil that was manipulated into retaining sound to the home recordings of rappers in the 1980s and the high-tech studios of the 1990s, this book examines the important technical developments of acoustic, electric, and digital sound reproduction while outlining the...