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Gramophone
In 1887, Emile Berliner invented the gramophone. The first gramophone worked by using a stylus to engrave sounds waves into a spinning disc; the horn allowed for the sounds of the sound to be amplified and create music. -
Radio
The radio went through many innovations throughout its improvement and there is no clear information on who exactly is to be credited for the invention of the radio. Several sources depict different people. The radio transmits sound over radio waves and allowed for music and information to be heard by a much wider audience. -
Magnetic Tape Recorder
In 1928, Fritz Pfleumer was created for innovating and developing magnetic tape recording. He improved the usage of magnetic wire recording that was invented by Oberlin Smith in 1888 and improved by Danish Valdemar Poulsen in 1998. Thanks to this innovation for the first time sounds could be manipulated. -
Stereophonic Sound
Alan Dower Blumlein filed the patent for binaural sound (which is now known as stereophonic sound) in December of 1931. This introduced two-channel sound, which drastically improved the experience of listening by separating the sounds of other elements in the background. -
Reel-to-Reel Recording Tapes
Fritz Pfleumer invented Reel-to-reel recording tapes that was dubbed Magnetophons; this invention allowed for recording of sounds. This was used generally by professionals; it was also cumbersome to use and occupied a large amount of space. -
Cassette Tape
The company Philips released the first Cassette tape in 1963. In 1982, a year prior to the cassette tapes release; Philips chose the design of the Cassette tape that Lou Ottens and his team invented. Which is why it is referred that Lou Ottens was the one who invented the Cassette tape. This invention changed the music scene by allowing for music to be recorded to mixtapes without using the complicated bulky recorders that existed prior to its release. -
The Walkman (Portable Cassette Player)
Nobutoshi Kihara innovated the Walkman while he worked under Sony, so naturally the patent went to Sony. On June 22, 1979, The Walkman first launched in Japan and became an instant success. The Walkman combined already existing cassette players with headphones, it additionally only allowed for previously recorded to be played. -
Compact Disc (CD)
Compact Disc were co-developed by Philips and Sony. Upon its debut in 1982 it has revolutionized the way music was presented, recorded, and produced. Compact Disc allowed for much more data to be stored, which enabled for songs (eventually videos) to be stored. -
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MP3 players
In April 1989, Fraunhofer-Gesellshaft (a German Company) received the first patent for the MP3. Although, this endeavor was unsuccessful, years later in 1998; Tomislav Uzelac made significant changes to MP3 and thus managed to invent the first successful MP3 players. Later in 1999, portable MP3 players made their debut.