dk nkf - Nordisk Konservatorforbund Danmark

Gramophones and Records - the first
widespread commercial standardisation
Introduction
Gramophone records, and before them cylinders,
were at the same time industrial products and
carriers of cultural expression. To be useful they
were entirely dependent on other industrial products:
gramophones (and phonographs). Together these
constituted a system. Standardisation was necessary
to a degree, and this opens up the question of
authenticity. Historically, some companies used
strict in-house standardisation, which meant that
the most satisfying results would be obtained by
the use of specific reproduction equipment. Other
companies gave a much wider margin for home
reproducing equipment. The present paper does not
discuss how to obtain maximum quality sound from
a record.
When components in the system become the
focus of attention today it is important to view
them in their historical context as well as in the
context of their present use for documentation and
exhibits. The present discussion concentrates on
the commercial disc record and the system it was a
part of. The purpose is to give an overview in order
that a restoration activity may be placed in the right
context.
Industrial products are the results of industrial
manufacture, which is characterised by a widespread
division of labour: the various components are
manufactured in departments or individual firms that
specialise in them. Each such subsupplier contributes
to lowering of cost by concentrating on one type of
work and also ensuring quality control by having to
master essentially only a few processes. Assembly
then occurs at the factory that eventually sells the
combined product. Industrial manufacture would not
function without agreement on the properties of the
component delivered, and to create a common frame
of reference, standardisation was introduced. Such
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standardisation is always contingent on detailled
instructions for measurements. Based on industrial
history some will claim that standardisation was
first introduced in small-arms manufacture, others
will claim that standard threads for nuts and bolts
was first, but in both cases, these are fairly simple
standards for staple items. A related field of the
present, that of cinematography, was also quite
early, but this was in a narrowly professional field.
The recorded sound industry, on the other hand,
had to rely on so many individual components,
from dimensions known from clock-making to
sacks full of slate dust. This created a need for
in-house standards, first and foremost, and as the
industry expanded, de-facto-standards that ensured
the compatibility between makes. This was a
requirement for commercial penetration.
At the time of manufacture, all the components
had to cooperate synergistically; otherwise the
product would not be accepted by the market.
In conservation practice usually only individual
components are handled, and it is important to
realise the context that these elements were placed
in. The term component is here used quite broadly
to indicate not only the mechanical components of
a reproducing unit, the gramophone, but also the
material that went into a gramophone record or the
processes that were used to convert a recording into
a commercial gramophone record.
In order to be able to design a physical restoration
process, it is important to have precise knowledge
of the industrial processes that went into the
manufacture of records and gramophones,
respectively. Gramophone and record manufacture
was dominated by a handful of companies, but
they had factories in several countries, and partly
for historical reasons the processes were different
in the various locations. However, there was also
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