How was Edison’s phonograph different from a mechanical music box?

Question

Follow-up: Which device was able to produce a more accurate sound?

In: Engineering

Answer 1

A mechanical music box has a “comb” of metal tines that make a sound when plucked. The tines are made to be a particular length so that each makes a particular note when plucked. You can think of the tines as being like piano strings that play a note when the key is struck. But the music box would only have about 10 tines compared to 88 keys on a piano.

The music box then had a metal disc with bumps on it that would pluck the metal tine as it went around. The arrangement of the bumps determined which note was played and when – so it determined what song the music box played.

So a music box could play about 10 different notes.

Edison’s phonograph recorded as bumps the sounds that a microphone heard. It could then read those bumps and play back the same sound. It was not limited to certain notes. So it could play voices, songs, or other sounds.