All are excited but no-one really knows exactly what to do with a phonograph. To use it as a dictating machine? Or to record grandpa's voice on his death-bed? Well, so much for that!

Ten years later, Emile Berliner invents the gramophone. Not a drum but a disc is recorded on - not vertical recording as with Edison's machine but lateral recording. The big advantage: One can press gramophone records and in any number required. The birth of the entertainment industry!

It does not take long for the gramophone to reach the »sitting rooms of the better-offs«, and in the roaring twenties the portable gramophone has become very popular. And in 1924, electric recording and reproduction is invented in the U.S. The radio set at home or the juke-box in the pub opens up so far unknown opportunities.

However, shellac records have a big disadvantage: At 78 rpm, they have only 3-4 minutes recording capacity per side. In 1945, again in the U.S, the long-playing record with 33 1/3 rpm is invented with a playing duration of approx. 20 minutes. Three years later, the single record with 45 rpm appears - enough for a pop song of 3-4 minutes duration!

It does not take long for the vinyl record to replace the shellac record. Up until 1983, they dominate the market but then another superior competitor appears on the market: the compact disc (CD). Better sound reproduction, easier handling, scratching unlikely. Five years after their introduction, record companies stop record production - although the first CD players cost around DM 2000.-- (just over EUR 1000.--).

In the meantime, one disadvantage of the CD has been abolished: One can produce a CD oneself (»burning«). And once the legal (and financial) problems with the internet (in connection with recording) have been solved, everyone can become his/her own producer...