In April 1916, Thomas Edison organized a performance that he called a tone test. At Carnegie Hall, an opera singer alternated with a phonograph recording of the singer, and audiences were stunned by their inability to distinguish between the two audibly. Welch and Burt point out that "comparison performance was in its infancy in the first quarter of the twentieth century," but Edison's promotional gimmick makes for an amazing story in retrospect. Such stories fill From Tinfoil to Stereo, a history of acoustic recording technologies from 1877 to 1929. The book provides an amazing narration of the ugly business practices and patent arguments that occurred continuously throughout this period. It enumerates in detail each step in the evolution of cylinder and later disc-based recording, with an abundance of primary source writings from newspapers and journals for detail. Sometimes the innovations occurred in bizarre and fascinating surroundings, like Edison's efforts to encase his phonographs in cement structures. It also seems hard to fathom experiments with talking dolls dating back to 1877. 40 photos illustrate both the technology and its surrounding history, including a tone test, a talking doll, and the bizarre cement phonographs.
For a reader with limited knowledge of the technology involved in these devices, From Tinfoil to Stereo could better explain or illustrate the evolutions that it names briefly. While it describes each small change in recording and playback, it assumes more familiarity with early sound recording and reproduction technologies than many readers will have. Despite these assumptions and its heavy focus on business, From Tinfoil to Stereo presents an informative portrayal of early recording technologies and their cultural impact