A non-contact method for the recovery of audio signals from early acoustic cylinder recordings is presented. The cylinder surface is scanned via optical displacement sensor, capable of submicron axial resolution. Sound recovery is achieved by estimating the trajectory of a playback stylus over the measured surface. The processing methods required to extract audio from a discrete height map are described. The signal to noise ratio of the extracted signal as a function of position across the groove cross-section is examined, for a Blue Amberol cylinder, (circa 1912).

Authors: Boltryk, Peter J.; Hill, Martyn; McBride, John W.; Nascè, Antony J.
Affiliation: University of Southampton
AES Conference: 31st International Conference: New Directions in High Resolution Audio (June 2007)
Paper Number: 7
Publication Date: June 1, 2007
Subject: High Resolution Audio

Click to purchase paper as a non-member or you can login as an AES member to see more options.

No AES members have commented on this paper yet.

Subscribe to this discussion

To be notified of new comments on this paper you can subscribe to this RSS feed. Forum users should login to see additional options.

Start a discussion!

If you would like to start a discussion about this paper and are an AES member then you can login here:
Username:
Password:

If you are not yet an AES member and have something important to say about this paper then we urge you to join the AES today and make your voice heard. You can join online today by clicking here.