Edison’s early audio recorders in the 1870s and 80s were being marketed to businesses as dictation machines and not selling particularly well. Then in 1889 someone had a brilliant idea that changed everything. The idea was that sound recordings could be used for entertainment!Popular songs were recorded on Edison Cylinders. Coin-operated phonographs were then placed in arcades, and they were wildly years later German-born American inventor, Emile Berliner had a brilliant idea of his own. He reasoned that in mass-producing music, rather than a cylinder, it would be faster to use a flat disc that could be stamped in one operation. Working with machinist Eldridge Johnson, Berliner’s Victor Talking Machine Company started producing music on 7″ flat rubber discs. The company also produced the Gramophone that later became the Victrola, the most popular record player of that era.