People utterly mind-blown after realizing how a vinyl record actually makes sound
While the debate rages on about whether vinyl records are superior to CDs and streaming services like Spotify or Apple Music, there's no disputing how fascinating the technology behind vinyl is.
Thanks to an educational video by BBC Earth Science, we can finally grasp the remarkable process by which these retro players work.
Music has come a long way since the very first recording.
Back in 1860, the French printer and inventor Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville sang a famous folk song, "Au Clair de la Lune" into his groundbreaking invention called the Phon-autograph.
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The video explains that this device captured his voice's sound waves and converted them into a series of lines on paper, essentially creating visual representations of sound. However, Scode Martinville had no idea his creation could be played back and that his historic recording wouldn't actually be heard until 150 years later.
Today, songs are recorded in studios, where they're mixed with other sounds and carefully edited until the artists are happy with the result.
"The mixed sound is played into a record-cutting lathe in real-time," explains Greg Foot in the video. "The sound waves move a needle head, which then cuts grooves into a thin lacquer disc. The depths of those grooves represent the shape of the soundwaves."
Next, the lacquer copy is used to create what's called a 'stamper' which Foot describes as a 'perfect negative image of the record made of metal.' Instead of grooves, this metal disc contains raised ridges.
"The stamper is loaded into a hydraulic record press pushed into soft vinyl and then that becomes the record itself," Foot added. These stampers can withstand up to '100 pounds of pressure' during the pressing process.
Interestingly, the way music gets played back from vinyl hasn't changed much since the earliest gramophones.
Inside a record player sits a needle, usually tipped with diamond or another extremely hard material, that 'rests on the record as it spins on a turntable.'
Foot noted: "As the record starts to spin, the needle moves across those little grooves [on the disc] and that moving needle actually moves a magnet inside a coil of wire which induces a fluctuating electric current."
Once the current reaches the speaker, electromagnets move a cone back and forth, which pulls air molecules, creating the sound waves that travel to your ears.
Viewers in the YouTube comments can't get over how intricate vinyl players are.
"It blows my mind that every sound,.every infinite combination of sound, can be cut into a groove," one user wrote.
"How vinyl records work is just so mind blowing to me," another commented.
"its seriously blowing my mind that its basically vibrations that we're hearing. i had a really hard time comprehending that exactly for the longest time. i really get it now," a third user remarked.