Waxing eloquently

As an owner of a Dictaphonethat records sounds on wax cylinders, I've been keenly interested in the work being done by some scientists at the University of California's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. While my machine was built to record, it apparently cannot play any of the 10 previously recorded wax cylinders that came with the machine. Even if it could, the mold, cracks and dust particles would likely drown out whatever is on the cylinders.

Such problems plague many of cylinders recorded from roughly the end of the Civil War through the 1930s, but new technology being developed at Berkeley uses optical scanners to essentially take pictures of the grooves and pits. Software is then used to "read" the pictures and convert the info to sound. As a result, the delicate surface of the cylinder is not touched and much of the noise caused by debris and cracks can be filtered out.

A couple of samples are available here that demonstrate just how clear the optically derived recordings are compared with using a stylus.

This is News.com's coverage of the technology, as well as related stories from the San Francisco Chronicle and National Public Radio. More early recordings can be found here.