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A Dictaphone is a sound recording device most commonly used to record speech for later playback or to be typed into print. The name "Dictaphone" is a trade mark of a corporation which makes such devices, but has also become a common way to refer to all such devices, especially historic versions that used phonograph cylinders as the recording medium, as was common from the late 19th century until the mid 20th century, when audio tape became the preferred medium. Sometimes when the general term rather than the specific company is referred to, the variation "dictophone" is used.
The name "Dictaphone" was trademarked by the Columbia Graphophone Company in 1907, which soon became the leading manufacturer of such devices. Dictaphone was spun off into a separate company in 1923.
The machine marketed by the Edison Records company was trademarked as the "Ediphone".
Shortly after Thomas Edison invented the phonograph, the first device for recording sound, in 1877, he thought that the main use for the new device would be for recording speech in business settings. (Given the low audio fidelity of earliest versions of the phonograph, thinking that recording speech would be more important than recording musicMusic often an art/ entertainment, is a total social fact whose definitions vary according to era and culture," according to Jean Molino. 1 It is often contrasted with noise. According to musicologist Jean-Jacques Nattiez: "The border between music and no may not have been as absurd an assumption as it may seem in retrospect.) Some early phonographs were indeed used this way, but this did not become common until the mass production of reusable waxWax has traditionally referred to a substance that is secreted by bees ( beeswax) and used by them in constructing their honeycombs. In modern terms, wax is an imprecisely defined term generally understood to be a substance with properties similar to bees cylinders in the late 1880sEvents and Trends About 300 000 Swedes emigrate to the United States. First Boer War First commercial production and sales of phonographs and phonograph recordings. First steel frame construction "sky-scrapers" The New Imperialism Science and technology J. The differentiation of office dictation devices from other early phonographs (which commonly had attachments for making one's own recordings) was gradual.
Electric microphoneA microphone sometimes called a "mic" (pronounced "mike"), is a device that converts sound into an electrical signal. Microphones are used in many applications such as telephones, tape recorders, hearing aids and in radio and television broadcasting.s generally replaced the strictly acoustical recording methods of earlier dictaphones by the late 1930sCenturies: 19th century 20th century 21st century Decades: 1880s 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s Years: 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 Events and trends Technology Jet engine invented Link Trainer invented Sc. In 1947Events January January 1 British mines nationalized January 1 Nigeria gains limited autonomy January 1 The Canadian Citizenship Act went into effect January 3 Proceedings of the United States Congress are televised for the first time. January 10 United Na, Dictaphone replaced wax cylinders with their DictaBelt technology, which cut a mechanical groove into a plastic belt instead of into a wax cylinder. This was later replaced by magnetic tapeMagnetic tape is an information storage medium consisting of a magnetisable coating on a thin plastic strip. Nearly all recording tape is of this type, whether used for video with a video cassette recorder, audio storage ( reel-to-reel tape, compact audio recording.
Today the Dictaphone company sells a range of products, including voice recognition software and interactive voice response systems (IVR, for voicemail loops.)
As of 2004 Dictaphone is split into three divisions: