The Archeophone pages

Created in 1998, Archéophone is the only modern device able to play all formats of wax or celluloid cylinders, produced between 1888 and 1929, and even later. These sound recordings are fragile and wear very quickly if they are read on vintage phonographs. Archéophone, which allows the transcription of the cylinders on CD, is now used by the largest Archives which preserve such media in the world : The Library of Congress, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Edison National Historic Site, as well as other private institutions and collections. On these pages you can listen to mp3 recordings of cylinders, and find many information about the history of old recordings. You can download a film here which shows the way the Archeophone works.

Archeophone tell me :

The Archeophone - technical data - main features - New mandrel to play Dictabelt size here !
Rare French and foreign cylinders to be listened here (mp3 - with photos)
More about The Archeophone phonograph which revives lost voices of the past
6000 cylinders to be listened here !!! (Donald C. Davidson Library, UCSB)


Some sources for the history of shellac record and wax cylinder :

Rare catalogues online
Index of 4241 French patents and 2150 trademarks of the phonographic industry
The very first texts and a recent article about phonograph industry in France (in French)
A Tribute to Pierre Clément (1906-1970), inventor of the linear tracking servo controlled tonearm


And what about the old flat disc records ?

English version : Henri Chamoux - Chinese version ：Gao Ying Shuang, Zhang Meng

 

 
These pages welcomed 337590 visitors since september 10, 2004

 

 

 

Contact - Links