![]() ![]() Unusual characteristics Īmong their advantages over the competition, they were played with a permanent conical diamond stylus, while lateral-cut records were played with a ten-for-a-penny steel needle that quickly wore to fit the groove contour and was meant to be replaced after one use. In 1912, Thomas Edison, who had previously made only cylinders, entered the disc market with his Diamond Disc Phonograph system, which was incompatible with other makers' disc records and players. Their quality was soon greatly improved, and by about 1910 the cylinder was clearly losing this early format war. ![]() At the same time, the Berliner Gramophone Company was marketing the first crude disc records, which were simpler and cheaper to manufacture, less bulky to store, much less fragile, and could play louder than contemporary wax cylinders, although they were of markedly inferior sound quality. By the late 1890s, relatively inexpensive spring-motor-driven phonographs were available and becoming a fixture in middle-class homes. Soon, some affluent individuals who could afford expensive toys were customers, too. ![]() At first, costly wet-cell-powered, electric-motor-driven machines were needed to play them, and the customer base consisted solely of entrepreneurs with money-making nickel-in-the-slot phonographs in arcades, taverns, and other public places. The record industry began in 1889 with some very-small-scale production of professionally recorded wax cylinder records.
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