Digitizing audio that’s been unheard for about 100 years : NPR
Before audio playlists, before cassette tapes and even before records, there were wax cylinders — the earliest, mass-produced way people could both listen to commercial music and record themselves.
In the 1890s, they were a revolution. People slid blank cylinders onto their Edison phonographs (or shaved down the wax on commercial cylinders) and recorded their families, their environments, themselves. …


