A homemade reproduction of Edison's tinfoil phonograph

The following video is a demonstration of a homemade Edison tinfoil phonograph made by Andrew R. McNeese, Jason D. Sagers, Richard D. Lenhart, and Preston S. Wilson at the University of Texas at Austin.

Build your own!

Learn about the history of the phonograph and download mechanical drawings to build your own tinfoil phonograph.

Read our 2012 article in Polytec InFocus magazine

A short article about the Scanning Laser Doppler Vibrometer (SLDV) measurements made on the phonograph was published in Polytec's InFocus magazine.

Read our 2012 JASA paper

A manuscript was published in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America describing mathematical modeling and laboratory measurements of the phonograph.

Read our 2011 ASA lay language paper

Available from the ASA newsroom.

(a) Facsimile of embossed foil recording from Edison as shown in the Scientific American (Dec. 1877)

and (b) photograph of embossed foil recording produced on the replica phonograph (2011).